INTERNATIONAL: Ides of March

Most fascinating game for foreign correspondents to play these days is to figure out when, how and where the next big world crisis is going to break. Last week prominent newsmen in many scattered points were not only predicting another international “squeeze” by the dictatorships but most of them managed to agree on a date for it. With astonishing accord they chose March 6 as der tag.

From Paris André Géraud (Pertinax), known for his information sources in the French Foreign Office, cabled to the Baltimore Sun: “Italy is hastening all kinds of preparations in Libya. She is accumulating war material and building an airdrome in Kufra. She is gathering troops along the borders of French Somaliland. As to Germany, she will have 1,500,000 men under arms about March 6.”

International News Service correspondents at Shanghai quoted Japanese “circles” as saying that Führer Adolf Hitler had assured Japan that he would serve Britain with an ultimatum—on March 6. The implication was that Japan was preparing for that day, too, probably with a squeeze on Russia.

Foreign Editor William Philip Simms of the Scripps-Howard newspapers told his readers that he had received from Nazi commercial sources information that Germany, Italy and Japan were planning a “showdown.” Almost alone of the correspondents, Editor Simms did not mention a specific day, said the crisis would come “within four to six weeks at the latest.”

In a radio broadcast from Washington Sir Willmott (“Bill”) Harsant Lewis, the London Times correspondent, quoted “two Englishmen who have had wide experience in European capitals” as warning: “It is on March 6 that Germany’s warlike preparations will reach the full limit Chancellor Hitler thinks necessary for frightening Britain and France into giving away firstly to Italian demands, and secondly to wider colonial concessions.” Sir Willmott himself was skeptical, did not himself believe Fuhrer Hitler wanted war.

Sir Willmott’s informants were the editors of The Arrow, latest of British weekly newssheets, recently started by the diplomatic correspondents of the Manchester Guardian and Yorkshire Post. Latest issue of The Arrow to reach the U. S. says that German air mobilization is now 95% complete, that the rest of the mobilization program is now progressing on this schedule:

“February 10—The first recruits to be called up instead of in the autumn.

“February 15—The beginning of mobilization proper, including the requisitioning of civil transport.

“February 28—The calling up of men from 25 to 30 years of age.

“March 5-6—Mobilization to be completed.”

Strangely enough, no correspondent in Germany reported that he saw anything extraordinary happening Feb. 10 or Feb. 15. From other places, however, came reports that backed up the newsmen’s dire forebodings and gave substance to predictions of a coming “Mediterranean Munich” crisis.

Italy. No doubt remained last week that there were abnormal military movements in Italy. Last month 60,000 reservists were called up. Last week, with the anti-French campaign in the Italian press gaining momentum, the number was put at 150,000, with 300,000 as the immediate goal. That would give Italy 600,000 men under arms, not counting territorials.

Foreign Minister Count Galeazzo Ciano was asked by British Ambassador Lord Perth to explain Italian reinforcements in Libya, which lies between Egypt and French Tunisia. To Lord Perth this was a violation of the Anglo-Italian Treaty of last April. Count Ciano admitted that the Libyan garrison had been doubled from 30,000 to 60,000 men, that even more might be sent. His reasons: the French had concentrated 200,000 men in Tunisia. French estimate of French and native troops in Tunisia: 35,000.

New, more substantial rumors seeped through that German troops had infiltrated Libya. Color to the rumor was lent by the fact that German Storm Troop Leader Viktor Lutze had just “toured” the Libyan frontier as a civilian. Also visiting Libya was Marshal Pietro Badoglio, Chief of the Italian General Staff.

France. The French acted as if they believed all they heard about Italian and German mobilization and more too. In Tunisia some troops were held in barracks, while others moved up to the fortified line near the Libyan border. French submarines patrolled the Tunisian Coast. The French Mediterranean fleet of 44 warships moved suddenly into the naval base at Bizerte, at the entrance to the narrowest part of the Mediterranean opposite Sicily. Carrying out “spring exercises” not far away were 92 men-of-war of the British Home and Mediterranean Fleets.

Even more dramatic were French preparations in East Africa, where Italy also has some unfulfilled “aspirations.” Artillery reinforcements were en route to Djibouti, French Somaliland. French authorities began recruiting natives to add to the 6,000 Somaliland defenders and to match Italy’s concentration of 15,000 men on the Ethiopian and Eritrean borders.

French troops “reoccupied” a strategic strip of territory in the Red Sea area, establishing six garrisons there. This zone, facing the narrowest point of the Strait of Bab el Mandeb, was ceded to Italy in a Franco-Italian treaty of 1935. The treaty was never ratified by France and was denounced by Italy two months ago. In Paris it was pointed out that Italy had never occupied the zone thus hinting at France’s right to retake it.

In the Moselle Department, along the German border, France planned to hold the biggest air-raid drill and preparedness test yet held. A “state of alert” for 36 hours was ordered.

Far East. No less ominous a note was sounded last week by the third anti-Comintern partner, Japan. Having occupied Hainan Island opposite French Indo-China and moved troops from China northward toward the Siberian border (TIME, Feb. 20), Japan adopted toward Soviet Russia last week a belligerent mood which suggested she was coordinating her activities with Germany and Italy. Deeply mired in China, Japan could scarcely afford to talk so threateningly unless assured of support in the West. An epidemic of clashes between Soviet and Japanese troops on the Siberian border occurred, any one of which in Europe might have led to war. What made Japan fighting mad, however, was the subject of fishing rights off Soviet Kamchatka Island, an old bone of contention between the two countries. Since the Japanese fishing industry in Soviet waters nets $13,650,000 annually, gives employment to 20,000 men and supports 100,000 Japanese, it is for Japan a highly important matter.

Last week Foreign Minister Hachiro Arita instructed Ambassador Shigenori Togo at Moscow to issue a “final warning” to Soviet Russia to negotiate for fishing rights or else Japan would resort to “free fishing” supported by arms. Japan’s House of Representatives had meanwhile unanimously instructed the Foreign Minister to take “swift, appropriate action, not stopping at the use of force to protect Japanese rights and interests” and Minister Arita had then seen Emperor Hirohito to get imperial assent for this strong line.

Gold. Huge shipments of European gold, reminiscent of those of last autumn, arrived in the U. S. earmarked for “foreign accounts,” probably deposited here by the French, British and Dutch Governments. Probable purpose: to buy food and to meet U. S. “cash-&-carry” laws governing arms sales.

All in all Europe seemed to be in for a spring rash of week-end alarms.