740.00/45
The Minister in Albania (Grant) to the Secretary of State
[Received June 16.]
Sir: I have the honor to inform the Department that His Majesty, King Zog, received me in audience on May 28, 1936 following request [Page 313] that I be permitted to present to His Majesty Colonel Jerome G. Pillow, Military Attaché and Military Attaché for Air, American Embassy, Rome, and Military Attaché, American Legation, Tirana. The King was exceptionally cordial, the conversation continuing for one hour and five minutes.
His Majesty manifested considerable interest in the American Army and asked Colonel Pillow a number of questions regarding its organization, administration, wartime strength, etc. Colonel Pillow replied, giving a brief but comprehensive outline of the subject. The King paid high tribute to the United States as a great power, which he said had resulted from organization and through the development of its great financial wealth.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Replying to a question propounded by Colonel Pillow as to the prospect of an early major war in Europe the King said he does not look for it because Europe’s military forces are not yet “stabilized”.
“As soon as they are stabilized war will come”, His Majesty said. “The Germans are not yet ready, but they are arming and preparing the Rhine Valley for war. When their force is balanced in a few years war will come. Many of the smaller countries will go over to Germany when she is ready.”
“I recall”, I interposed, “that Your Majesty said to me several months ago (see my despatch No. 37 of January 25, 193665) that the next war would be started by Germany. Your Majesty is of the same opinion now?” “Yes”, the King replied, “the same opinion. It cannot be otherwise. Germany has a great population and not sufficient room for it. She wants to expand. When she has balanced her military forces she will blow up. Furthermore, the Germans were not completely defeated in the World War. They did not surrender their arms within German frontiers; they surrendered them within foreign frontiers, and they feel very badly about the Versailles Peace Conference.”
“They have an inferiority complex”, I suggested.
“Exactly”, His Majesty replied. “The new German generation does not know the suffering of the Great War, it only feels the suffering from the War and the Peace Conference. The generation which realized the actual sufferings of the War is gone.”
“When war comes”, the King continued, “it will result in a catastrophe for the whole world. No country will escape. Laws prohibiting the use of poison gas will be useless. Aerial depredations will be general. The soldiers at the front will be in less danger than the women, children and old men far behind the lines. Human suffering will be terrible.”
[Page 314]The King then suggested a way out of the difficulty. He declared that whether there is a League of Nations or not, if the United States and Great Britain could reach an understanding and collaborate with regard to commerce and the Far East, they could impose peace upon the rest of the world.
Respectfully yours,
- Not printed.↩