INTERNATIONAL: Cross Into Crusade?

Up from their coastal bases on the Italian peninsula last week rose the dripping hulls of 80 Savoia-Marchetti seaplane bombers. Their glossy-headed young pilots turned them north, over Ostmark, over Bohemia-Moravia, over German Poland and East Prussia and up the Baltic to the besieged shores of Finland.

Officially they never started, never got there—just as the Italian planes and legions were not in Spain for a year or more.

Officially they did not cross Germany, on their way to bomb the Latvian air bases of Germany’s pledged partner Russia. But if the Savoia-Marchettis did not cross German territory, then they arrived in Finland through some fourth dimension, for the British Intelligence Service pointed out that they did not take and were not given permission to take the roundabout route across the German-Allied western battle zone.

All in all, it was a mass flight of first historic importance. Not because of its distance (over 1,000 miles). Not because it brought invaluable and much needed help to the Finns and lots of trouble to the Russians, who are short on seaplanes. But because it cast the brightest landing light to date on the tangled surface of the Russian-German agreements, did much to illuminate the contemplated future policies of both those countries, and foreshadowed a major alteration in the course of World War II.

Obscured on one hand by the world’s moral indignation at the Finnish invasion, on the other by Russia’s childish duplicity in announcing its reasons for starting the war, is one plain strategic fact. The Baltic States, including Finland, are primarily buffers between the two big Baltic powers: Germany and Russia. Buffers can also be jump-off points for invasion, and in invading Finland, Joseph Stalin was clearly protecting himself against the friend he has never met, Adolf Hitler. At the same time, no matter what are her other commitments with Russia, Germany cannot look with equanimity on any move which upsets the buffers and the balance in the Baltic.

That the chancelleries of Europe had these facts straight, and that the outbreak of Finnish-Russian war had done much to bring about the ultimate choosing-up of sides in World War II, was evident in many places last week:

> In Moscow, Tass, official Soviet news agency, not only reported (from Scandinavian sources) the arrival of the Italian planes in Finland, but stated that they had even landed to refuel in their flight across Germany. Furthermore, said Tass, it had heard that Germany herself was forwarding planes, munitions and even gasoline to Finland. To this Germany issued a cagey denial.

>Also in Moscow. German diplomats made the most of the evident German double cross on Russia (in partial payment for Russia’s double cross in taking control of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania). They suggested to neutral diplomats that now was a very good time for the Allies to make peace with Germany—i.e., before Communism spread further.

> In Rome, where any kind of diversion in the Baltic is a welcome respite from Russian pressure on the Balkans, the game was played for all it was worth. Students marched to cheer the Finnish Minister, yelled “Abbasso il Comunismo!” and signed up for service in Finland “if transportation could be found.” In other words, one of Germany’s allies was now fighting its other ally, just as one of Finland’s friends (Germany) was fighting other friends (Great Britain and France) on the Western Front—a situation not too abnormal for 1939 world diplomacy.

> Apprehensive lest they be made the victims of the fanciest sort of diplomatic feint, in London and Paris Lord Halifax and Premier Daladier sat tight, kept their guns trained on one enemy at a time—the Nazis. There would be plenty of time to see if an amazing double cross was the beginning of an entirely different crusade, a fantastically crooked diplomatic square dance with everybody suddenly changing partners.