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to Washington in 1933.
 
          He then delivered to me an address which lasted well over an hour, and which was 
 
beautifully phrased and highly emotional in character. The gist of the address was that his entire 
 
life, during the past twenty years, had been devoted to the attempt to lay the foundations for a real
 
and lasting friendship and understanding between the German and French peoples; that time and 
 
again his efforts had failed; that time and again German statesmen like Stresemann and Marx had 
 
lied to him, and had deceived him, and that he had reached the positive conviction that the 
 
German people were themselve, the cause of the present situation, and not their leaders alone. He 
 
told me that when he had visited London in 1924 in order to meet the members of the German 
 
Government who were then visiting England upon the invitation of  Ramsay MacDonald, then 
 
Prime Minister, Stresemann in a secret meeting with Herriot had done his utmost to persuade the 
 
latter to enter into an alliance with Germany to the exclusion of England. Herrlot said that he had 
 
rejected the proposal in no uncertain terms.
 
          Insofar as the present situation was concerned, M. Herriot saw no solution other than a 
 
military victory by France. He told me that the result of a "real war" would be devastating, that 
 
French economy would be in ruins for many decades to come, and that he believed that as a result 
 
of the war the social and economic structure of Europe would be completely changed.  He was 
 
utterly pessimistic, completely without hope, and without an iota of any constructive suggestion 
 
or proposal with regard to the possibility of any lasting peace at this time.
 
                   
 
 
 
ii~~