Secret Armies | Page 7

Prime Minister announced that Halifax
would visit the Führer. Eden was furious and after a stormy session
tendered his resignation. At that period, however, Eden's resignation
might have thrown England into a turmoil--so Chamberlain mollified
him. Public sympathy was with Eden and before he was eased out, the
country had to be prepared for it.
In the quiet and subdued atmosphere of the diplomats' drawing rooms
in London they tell, with many a chuckle, how Lord Halifax, his
bowler firmly on his head, was sent to Berlin and Berchtesgaden in
mid-November, 1937, with instructions not to get into any arguments.
Lord Halifax, in the mellow judgment of his close friends, is one of the
most amiable and charming of the British peers, earnest, well meaning
and--not 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