Foreign News: Great Expectations

In Berlin more than 200 mass meetings were held last week. Their slogan: Up the flag, for Germany determines the future. In Great Britain the Schrecklichkeit (frightfulness) was expected soon; Britons got out their gas masks and remarked that late in February the ground is soggy and receptive to gas. Eire’s Prime Minister Eamon de Valera and Northern Ireland’s Prime Minister John Miller Andrews both warned Ireland that an invasion was coming soon. The moon waned.

At Bordighera, on the Italian Riviera,

Spain’s Generalissimo Francisco Franco and Foreign Minister Ramón Serrano Suñer paid a visit to Benito Mussolini (see col. 3), which caused a bright Englishman to observe that he had never before heard of rats boarding a sinking ship. At Merano, in northern Italy, Germany’s Grand Admiral Erich Raeder conferred with Admiral Arturo Riccardi, Italian Chief of Naval Staff, about the sea war against Britain in the Mediterranean.

In the Balkans, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Turkey all cowered before German threats, leaving Greece to face the probable alternatives of an enforced peace or attack by Germany (see p. 28).

In the Far East, Japan stealthily crept up on Singapore (see p. 29).

As far away as Mexico the scare was on. Germans in Mexico City talked about the coming assault on Britain with gas, bombers, gliders, submarines and everything but poisoned arrows. At the same time the Fifth Column in Mexico got ready to kick up trouble to divert the U. S. the minute the big push started.

Where would it start? When would it start? were the questions men asked each other from Wales to New South Wales. In the Balkans they even set a date: Feb. 25. That is also the date the Thailand-French Indo-China armistice is to expire, by which time Japan was expected to have French Indo-China in her clutches. By then, too, the moon would be dark over the English Channel. If nothing happened by the end of February, those who expected attack might relax—something Hitler, Mussolini, Konoye & Co. may have been counting on.

Three weeks ago Germany’s Propaganda Minister Paul Joseph Goebbels said: “We will start on five fronts at the same time and have the war ended before the fall harvest.” The four most likely objects of attack were the fortresses of British sea power: the British Isles, Gibraltar, Suez, Singapore. And if Adolf Hitler is not too sure he can reduce the British Empire by harvest time, he may go into the Near East for oil.

Adolf Hitler is a strategist of parts and he has more than one plan ready. Last week’s world-girdling scare was a characteristic part of his super-plan, designed to keep his enemies guessing and to find out how they reacted. On those reactions his next move depends, and even he may not have known last week where it would be, or when.