-5- to explain to me that the main fault of the panic in September was with the French politicians who refused to give any hint last September even to suggestive questions put to them by Ch. and Sir John Simon if they were prepared to fight if Hitler asked for more than an autonomy for the Sudeten Germans. He said if the war really came,about which he had no longer any doubts, he was afraid that there would be just enough left of the French youth fo make a victory parade at the Champs Elysees. What depresses me so much is that people like him who are very decent talk such things apparently without any emotion, perhaps because they prefer an end to the strain of the last years to any faint hope of saving the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. I was very interested in what you wrote about your conversations with Benes. I am glad he agreed with you about the turning point in 1932. I believe he is now again in a role for which he is better fitted than for constructive statesmanship. The Czechs are doing well in pinpricking demonstrations. They are the most gifted nation for that. But if Mussolini and Hitler win Jugoslavia over and can concentrate against Poland and Russia they have to wait a long time before getting their freedom back. But as regards Mussolini's policy, I have some doubt left if it is really a policy in loyal concordance with Hitler. I would be very sure of it and was so until to-day when reading in "The Times" that Mussolini is quite definitely following |