Good Offices

WORLD WAR

A tall young man, dressed in a general's uniform, accompanied by an aide de camp and an elderly statesman, hopped into his car at Brussels after dinner one evening last week and sped through northern Belgium into The Netherlands. Shortly before 11 o'clock the car raced up the Noordiende, one of The Hague's main streets, and stopped abruptly before a small but stately white Palace.

Before long the placid inhabitants of the placid Dutch seat of government were spreading the news that for some unexplained reason--and they feared the reason was ominous--Leopold III, King of the Belgians, was paying an unheralded visit to their Queen Wilhelmina. Despite a constant drizzle, a sizable crowd gathered on the sidewalks outside Her Majesty's little Palace.

Once they glimpsed King Leopold pacing up & down inside, gesticulating while he talked. Later they saw Prince Bernhard zu Lippe-Biesterfeld, husband of Princess Juliana and a member of the Dutch Army General Staff, dash out of the Palace's single entrance, get into a car and leave. At 1:30 a.m. Dutch Foreign Minister Eelco N. van Kleffens left. Gradually the Palace lights went out.

Next day the conferees were at it again early. The mystery and the tension grew. Rumors flew that German troops were about to strike through The Netherlands, that a Nazi ultimatum had been delivered to the Low Countries. Not until nightfall, after Leopold had returned to his own capital, was released the text of an appeal for peace signed by the two sovereigns and sent to George VI of Britain, President Lebrun of France, and Fuehrer Hitler of Germany:

"At this hour of anxiety for the whole world, before the war breaks out on the Western front in all its violence, we have the conviction that it is our duty once again to raise our voice.

"Some time ago the belligerent parties have declared they would not be unwilling to examine a reasonable and well-founded basis for an equitable peace. . . . We are ready to offer them our good offices. . . . We hope our offer will be accepted and that thus the first step will be taken toward establishment of a durable peace."

Why? On August 23, only nine days before Adolf Hitler ordered his Army to invade Poland, Leopold and Wilhelmina, joined by the heads of the three Scandinavian States and Finland and Luxembourg, had offered their "good offices" in mediating Europe's crisis. Five days later the offer was repeated. Since these appeals, then politely rejected, presumably still stood open, observers wondered why the two practical sovereigns found it necessary to renew their peace effort at a time when there was less likelihood than ever before that the belligerents would lay down their arms. Moreover, this new appeal contained no formula for calling off hostilities.

One popular explanation of Leopold's hasty night ride was that Wilhelmina had become perturbed when she read an article by the French political writer Rene Pinon in Paris' Revue des deux mondes which suggested that Germany, about to pounce on the Dutch, had offered Belgium a piece of The Netherlands in return for Belgian neutrality; that His Majesty rushed to Her Majesty to deny the story personally, and then the royal telegram was drawn up to serve as an excuse for the sudden visit.

A more likely story was that the two sovereigns wanted to let Adolf Hitler know that they would defend their neutrality, and their frontiers, together. The concentration of Nazi troops on the Belgian and The Netherlands border and the recent tone of the German press and Foreign Office toward the Low Countries made Belgians and Netherlanders fear that both might well need defending.

"Paper Protests." "When the toes of small powers are trampled upon by England, Germany expects them to do more than take it with a smile," declared a Nazi Foreign Office spokesman.

Propaganda Minister Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels' Der Angriff raged: "It is now a question whether., acquiescence of these states to England has reached a point where they are entirely under her thumb."

The Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung declared: "Neutrals have gone all too willingly to The Downs and have submitted to the Caudinian yoke of the British blockade. Alleged resistance to illegal British blockade practices has been confined to paper protests and resolutions discreetly submitted behind closed doors."

War of Nerves. Thus the typical Nazi build-up prior to invasion had begun, and the excuses that Adolf Hitler's Government would give in case the Fuehrer did invade The Netherlands or Belgium could be anticipated. Instead of declaring that "necessity knows no law" or asking "what's in a scrap of paper?" as she did last time, Germany's reasoning would be that, by submitting to the British "tyranny on the seas," Belgium and The Netherlands were, in effect, no longer neutrals but had really become British-dominated territory--hence, a proper object of attack.

Under the impact of Nazi press agitation and their own large-scale defense preparations, the peoples of the Low Countries began to experience a real war of nerves, complete with mobilizations, floodings, frontier incidents (see p. 19). The two Governments, with their Cabinets meeting almost continually, got out assuring and reassuring statements, persuaded the Dutch and Belgian press to keep cool heads. But all Belgians and Dutchmen had to do to learn the newest sensation of the moment was to turn on British and French radios. In the U. S. eight-column streamers shouted "GUNS ROAR ON DUTCH-NAZI BORDER," "ULTIMATUM TO HOLLAND REPORT." Piqued, the Dutch Government threatened to expel foreign newsmen who sensationalized.

"Provided." In Berlin, the Foreign Office persistently pooh-poohed the idea of an invasion of either country. When, however, Nazi diplomats were asked point-blank to reaffirm Germany's respect for Belgian and The Netherlands neutrality, they simply pointed to previous declarations, in which Germany had agreed to respect Belgian and Dutch neutrality provided the other side also respected it. That did not necessarily mean a great deal.

Meanwhile, the peace appeal itself got less than nowhere. The press and unofficial spokesmen of both sides gave it perfunctory respect. Then, after a decent five days, King George VI and President Lebrun gave it the works.

"Reparation." Said the British Sovereign: "The documents which have been published since the beginning of the war clearly explain its origin and establish the responsibility for its outbreak. . . . The larger purposes for which my peoples are now fighting are to secure that Europe may be redeemed, in the words of my Prime Minister in the United Kingdom, 'from perpetually recurring fear of German aggression so as to enable the peoples of Europe to preserve their independence and their liberties.' " He would always be willing to examine the basis of an "honorable peace," he said, but he did not say when, where or with whom.

President Lebrun took half as many words to express the Allies' thoughts twice as clearly: "France has taken up arms to put a definite end to enterprises of violence and force which for two years, in contempt of the most solemn engagements, in violation of the pledged word, already have subjugated or destroyed three nations in Europe and threaten today the security of all. A lasting peace cannot be established except by reparation of the injustices that force imposed on Austria, Czecho-Slovakia and Poland. . . ." Fuehrer Hitler was scheduled to make his reply this week, but it seemed unlikely that he would see his way to repairing the "injustices" toward the three countries listed by the French President.

Meanwhile, Armistice Day, the date widely feared as the time for a big German push, came and went. Belgian and Dutch nerves were calmed a trifle. It seemed certain that Germany had delivered no ultimatum to the Low Countries. Then what had the Nazis done or said to spread fear? The Cabinets of the two nations kept their own counsel, and, for once, even "well-informed circles" were singularly uninformed. Best and most tenable guess was made by a New York Times correspondent at Amsterdam:

"The Germans, having informed The Netherlands and Belgium that an attack of extreme violence was scheduled to start before November 15, asked what would be the attitude of the Low Countries in case of mass flights over their territory with the possibility of more or less forced landings and more or less forced shelterings of submarines in their territorial waters. The reply obviously was, 'absolute neutrality will be maintained by all means.' . . . Berlin thereupon did not announce whether there was a consideration of any change of plan or not. Complete uncertainty is the result."

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