740.0011 Mutual Guarantee (Locarno)/653: Telegram
The Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Bingham) to the Secretary of State
[Received April 27—2:50 p.m.]
228. My 207, April 15, 8 p.m.51 It is becoming increasingly clear that the high point of pro-German or anti-French feeling in Great Britain is past and that the efforts both public and private that the Government has been making to bring public opinion to the view that strategic considerations, not sentiment, necessitate a close cooperation between France and Great Britain are beginning to have some effect. The Anglo-French staff talks (see Atherton’s letter to Dunn52 of [Page 297] April 19) have resulted in a further general realization in many quarters here of the vulnerability of England from the air, especially through Belgium and that Anglo-French cooperation is necessary to protect the Low Countries. Chamberlain’s defense budget has also obviously impressed the nation not only with the cost but with the necessity for rearmament. In the recent Anglo-French staff talks the British had to admit that at the moment practically their entire effective air force was concentrated in Egypt. Furthermore, the Government by implication has confirmed the correctness of Winston Churchill’s figures on German rearmament quoted last week in Parliament (eight hundred million pounds sterling spent in 1935; see my 491, October 3, 7 p.m.53). Thus some progress is being made in leading British public opinion to the view that the Nazi concept of international procedure, reinforced by its tremendous armament, present and prospective, is the dominant danger in Europe today. I anticipate that there will gradually emerge in the public mind the realization that such a Nazi policy and military machine is as much a menace to the interests of Great Britain as to those of France, particularly as the question of a possible return to Germany of colonial territory now held by Great Britain comes increasingly to the fore. Incidentally there are many who realize that the Mediterranean may no longer be a safe Empire route in time of war and that the alternative route via the Cape might become likewise untenable should Germany regain her African colonies.
Although the British public is beginning to learn, perhaps unconsciously, to view the European situation in its new aspect, the present Government is so much the prisoner of its own words before the bar of public opinion and so lacking in strong and courageous leadership that the process of education may be protracted. Indeed it is the time element which is again seriously disturbing the permanent officials in the Foreign Office and the members of the general staffs of the fighting services. I am informed that their information is that it was seriously debated among the Nazi leaders in March whether to undertake the reoccupation of the Bhineland or an Austrian “ptsch”. This fact, particularly since from both a military and political viewpoint, the reoccupation of the Rhineland was so obviously the best move for Germany to make leads these permanent officials to regard another “irresponsible” action on the part of Germany as almost inevitable after the stimulating effects of the Rhineland occupation have worn off. Hence the importance of the time element as regards:
- (1)
- British rearmament;
- (2)
- the education of public opinion to the realities of the German menace;
- (3)
- the desirability of effecting a return of Italy as a factor against German aggression in the Danubian area before too much of her substance has been wasted in the consequences of the Abyssinian adventure and the attendant penalties to which the British Government remains committed. I am informed by a diplomatic colleague that only recently Cabinet members hoped that by a French withdrawal from a continuation of sanctions against Italy a way out from the Italian impasse might be offered to Great Britain. I understand on reliable authority that beyond a policy of drift ending possibly in only a repetition of previous statements in Geneva, and a possible further adjournment of the Council, the British Cabinet have determined no line of action for the League meeting of May 11th.
- (4)
- In disabusing the German mind that England is willing to act as a mediator between France and Germany beyond those marginal questions which do not impinge on the fundamental interests upon which England as well as France and Belgium, and presumably Italy, cannot compromise.
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