Secret Armies | Page 7

particularly bright.
In Berlin Halifax met Goering, attired for the occasion in a new and bewilderingly gaudy uniform. In the course of their conversation Goering, resting his hands on his enormous paunch, said:
"The world cannot stand still. World conditions cannot be frozen just as they are forever. The world is subject to change."
"Of course not," Lord Halifax agreed amiably. "It's absurd to think that anything can be frozen and no changes made."
"Germany cannot stand still," Goering continued. "Germany must expand. She must have Austria, Czechoslovakia and other countries--she must have oil--"
Now this was a point for argument but the Messenger Extraordinary had been instructed not to get into any arguments; so he nodded and in his best pacifying tone murmured, "Naturally. No one expects Germany to stand still if she must expand."
After Austria was invaded and Halifax was asked by his close friends what he had cooked up over there, he told the above story, expressing the fear that his conversation was probably misunderstood by Goering, the latter taking his amiability to mean that Great Britain approved Germany's plans to swallow Austria. The French Intelligence Service, however, has a different version, most of it collected during February, 1938, which, in the light of subsequent events, seems far more accurate.
Lord Halifax, these secret-service reports state, pledged England to a hands-off policy on Hitler's ambitions in Central Europe if Germany would not raise the question of the return of the colonies for six years. Within that period England estimated that Hitler would have expanded, strengthened his war machine and fought the Soviet Union to a victorious conclusion.
Late in January 1938, Lord and Lady Astor invited some guests for a week-end at Cliveden. The Prime Minister of England came and so did Lord Halifax, Lord Lothian, Tom Jones and J.L. Garvin, editor of the Astor-controlled London Observer. When Chamberlain returned to London, he asked Eden to open negotiations with Italy to secure a promise to stop killing British sailors and sinking British merchant vessels in the Mediterranean. During this time the British Foreign Office was issuing statements that Mussolini was "cooperating" in the hunt for the "unidentified" pirates.
British opinion, roused by the sinking of English ships, might hamper deals with the fascist leaders if such attacks were not ended. In return for the cessation of the piratical attacks, Chamberlain was ready to offer recognition of Abyssinia and even loans to Italy to develop her captured territory. It was paying tribute to a pirate chieftain, but Chamberlain was ready to do it to quiet opposition at home to the sinking of British vessels and to give him time in which to develop his policy.
Eden, who had fought for sanctions against the aggressor when Abyssinia was invaded, obeyed orders but insisted that Italy must first get her soldiers out of Spain. He did not want Mussolini to get a stranglehold upon Gibraltar, one of the strategic life lines of the British Empire. Mussolini refused and told the British Ambassador in Rome that he and Great Britain would never to able to get together because Eden insisted on the withdrawal of Italian troops from Spain, and that it might help if a different Foreign Secretary were appointed. Hitler, working closely with Mussolini in the Rome-Berlin axis, also began to press for a different Foreign Secretary but went Mussolini one better. Von Ribbentrop informed Chamberlain that Der Führer was displeased with the English press attacks upon him, Nazis and Nazi aggressions. Der Führer wanted that stopped.
The Foreign Office of the once proud and still biggest empire in the world promptly sent notes to the newspapers in Fleet Street requesting that stories about Nazis and Hitler be toned down "to aid the government," and most of the once proud and independent British newspapers established a "voluntary censorship" at what amounted to an order from Hitler relayed through England's Foreign Office. The explanation the newspapers gave to their staffs was that the world situation was too critical to refuse the government's request and, besides that refusal would probably mean losing routine Foreign Office and other government department news sources. The more than average British citizen doesn't know even today how his government and "independent" press took orders from Hitler.
In the latter part of January, 1938, the French Intelligence Service, still not knowing of the secret deal Halifax had made, learned that Hitler intended to invade Austria late in February and that simultaneously both Italy and Germany, instead of withdrawing troops as they had said they would, planned to intensify their offensive in Spain. When the French Intelligence learned of it, M. Delbos, then French Foreign Minister, and Eden were in Geneva attending a meeting of the Council of the League. Delbos excitedly informed Eden who, never dreaming that Great Britain had not only agreed to sacrifice Austria and betray France