Foreign News: Diplomatic Dogfight

For the first time since the Soviet Union was formed, Moscow last week felt strong enough to employ the technique of ultimatum to the Great Powers, threatening to act in aid of Spain’s radical Madrid regime. Panicky rumors promptly spread that Soviet ships were being loaded with Red munitions in Black Sea ports last week, that creaking old Russian warships and roaring new Soviet seaplanes would convoy these transports into the Mediterranean, and that this time cautious Moscow was ready to risk a general War.

These premature reports created a genuine European scare because last week inside the British Foreign Office diplomats of 27 nations indulged in an unprecedented7-½-hour brawl, conducted with a fury which made the worst believable.

In retrospect there was strong suspicion that the Conservative British Government and the Bolshevik Russian Government had each come to the conclusion that they could make political capital out of an overt and noisy appearance of supporting the Spanish Cabinet, just as Madrid was in mortal danger of falling to the Whites (see p. 34). Should it fall without either Stanley Baldwin or Joseph Stalin having done anything to uphold Spanish Democracy or Spanish Bolshevism—these being matters of the point of view—what was Mr. Baldwin to say afterward to British devotees of Democracy, and what was Comrade Stalin to say to Russian enthusiasts for Bolshevism? In this doubly paradoxical dilemma a suave British finesse and a crude Russian demarche had been prepared, ready to be sprung when there met in the British Foreign Office last week the 27 members of the International Committee on Non-intervention in Spain (TIME, Aug. 17 et seq.—).

It was a fateful feature of this meeting that British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, officially described as “weakened by his recent attack of chicken pox,” had just gone from Geneva to Monte Carlo “to regain his strength”; that Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin was in his third month of “resting in the country”; and that the British Chairman of the International Committee, Treasury Expert William (“Shakespeare”) Morrison, was at Geneva.

The British finesse had therefore to be made by politically unheard-of Ivor Miles Windsor-Clive, Earl of Plymouth, Baron Windsor (a title dating from 1529) and Captain of the Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms under King George. All this blue-blood had to do was to infringe the agreed procedure of the International Committee (of which Spain is not a member) by bringing before it charges recently made at Geneva by Madrid’s representative that the Spanish Whites were receiving munitions from Germany, Italy and Portugal in violation of the 27 nations’ formal pledge of Non-intervention (TIME, Sept. 7). By bringing this up the British Conservatives hoped to cut a favorable figure in the eyes of British voters who hate “Fascism.” Later the issue raised by Lord Plymouth was to have been laid away in the cotton wool of a “committee investigation.” Instead last week the issue became red-hot as the Soviet Charge d’Affaires in London, Comrade Samuel Cahan, insisted upon airing two notes from Moscow in which the Soviet Government blatantly rehearsed the Spanish charges which the British were trying to finesse. The notes concluded by saying that Russia “fears” the Non-intervention Pact has become “non-operative”; that Moscow cannot consent to the use of this Pact as a “screen” by nations aiding the Spanish Whites secretly; and that the Soviet Union “if violation [of the Pact] is not halted immediately will consider itself free from any obligation”—i. e. free to send Soviet war aid of every sort to Madrid.

Comrade Cahan roared at the Committee in broken English, accusingPortugal of being the arch gunrunner to Spain’s Whites. Huffing & puffing, Portuguese delegate Francisco Calheiros retorted that since the Portuguese Government has never recognized the Bolshevik Government, the Committee was countenancing a “wanton act of hostility” in permitting Comrade Cahan to “tell such lies.” Gathering up his papers, the Portuguese stalked out never to return last week, though blue-blood Lord Plymouth, whose finesse was being spoiled, bleated that Portugal must not be considered to have withdrawn from the Committee.

Upon the unhappy Earl of Plymouth jumped both Prince Otto von Bismarck, the German Charge d’Affaires, and Italian Ambassador Dino Grandi, a fierce and scathing fighter in debate. With concentrated sarcasm Signer Grandi asked Comrade Cahan why, if Russia was so strong for non-intervention in Spain, she did not protest the British planes sold to Madrid, the British ships running guns to Spanish Reds, and the British fighting with the Red Militia, as well as the openencouragement to Spanish radicals given by such British members of Parliament as Laborite William Dobbie. This belaboring of Comrade Cahan in such fashion as to swish Lord Plymouth, Signor Grandi left off to shout: “The Spanish Government’s charges are fantastic and devoid of any foundation whatsoever! I refuse to transmit them to Rome.” Chimed Prince von Bismarck, “I refuse to transmit them to Berlin!” At this exciting moment of Conference deadlock, correspondents concluded that Europe was splitting wide open between Whites and Reds. Dispatches from seasoned London correspondents reported “The British are aghast. … To the British at least there is a world of difference between a trickle of arms sent furtively to Spain and open rivalry that would flood the country with war material. . . . Dismay in London tonight.” Amid feverish excitement British Broadcasting Co. put on the air that Chancellor of the Exchequer Neville Chamberlain, as Acting Prime Minister, had just promised Labor Party leaders that Britain would join Russia in considering herself no longer bound by the Non-intervention Pact if the charges that it had been violated were proved. This last week was the high point of European tension—from which things fell like plummets.

B. B. C. soon broadcast that Mr.

Chamberlain had been “misunderstood”; Comrade Cahan ceased fulminating; Moscow appeared willing that its notes should suffer the delay of being sent to Rome, Berlin and Lisbon to be answered atleisure; Ambassador Grandi and Prince von Bismarck agreed on second thought to transmit the notes to Rome and Berlin; Lord Plymouth undertook to inform the Portuguese Government; and Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, who had left Monte Carlo in a hurry, ate a placid lunch in Paris with socialist French Premier Leon Blum. The Frenchman calmed his British guest greatly by saying that Paris would not join Moscow in precipitant intervention to save Madrid but would continue with London to go through the motions of observing the Non-intervention Pact while unofficial and semi-official gunrunning to both Whites & Reds flourishes in Spain.