-3-
 
to me in Rome or in Berlin, but that I felt sure that I was violating no confidence when I said to 
 
him that I gained the very definite impression from my conversations with the Duce that the latter 
 
believed that there was still time for the establishment of such a peace, and that the Duce himself 
 
was disposed to do what he could to further that objective.
 
          We then spoke for some moments upon the subject of Italian policy and the history of 
 
Franco-Italian relations since the Sanctions controversy of 1935.  M. Daladier expressed the very 
 
positive belief that both British and French policy at that time had been unrealistic and in
 
the highest degree unwise.
     
          He said that in 1935 French policy towards Italy had been neither one thing nor the other. 
 
It had neither prevented the Italian Government from obtaining the raw materials it required in 
 
order to carry on successfully its war in Abyssinia, nor had it made possible the continuation of 
 
really friendly relations with Italy.  Publicly France had said to Mussolini that Sanctions would be 
 
imposed for high moral reasons; privately France had said to Mussolini: "All of this is just for 
 
public consumptlon, and we will really let you get the oil and other supplies that you need."  The 
 
result naturally had been to throw Italy into the arms of Germany, and M. Daladler expressed the 
 
very positive conviction that the mistake made by Great Britain and France in 1935 had been the 
 
direct cause of Mussolini's supporting the occupation by Hitler of the Rhineland, and acquiescing 
 
in the seizure of Austria. If from 1935 to 1938 the French and British had