GERMANY AND EASTERN EUROPE.

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 139, 29 June 1937, Page 4

GERMANY AND EASTERN EUROPE.

Herr Hitlei^ with his customary sqdden»ess, has given cause for diverting thoughts from Spain and'Western Europe to Czechoslovakia and Central and Eastern Europe. To-day 's cables tell us that he has addressed what reads like a. very summary qltirnatum to Prague, in whieh he deinaiids redrpss, for alleged ill-treatment by the Government there of a German citizen suspected of subversive Nazi activities against it. Eailing pomplianQe, this comniunicatipn concludes, "Germany has f urther -measures in reserve,' ' as to the. nature of which there can be little doubt. Both in the circumstances leading up to it and in the tenor of the note itself there is quite enough similarity to that which Austria, with German approval, addressed to Servia in 191 4> and which led up directly to the outbreak of the Great War, to give the Hitler ultimatum a suffieiently ominous aspect. In this case, as in many otliers, the German dictator has elected to be .sole judge in his own cause. He seemingly chooses to ignore the categorical denial of ill-treatment which the Prague Government sent him in reply to his first protest, though it is perhaps possible to read into the present primayy call for -a reinvestigation of the case some little modification of the abruptness of the other demands. On the other hand, however, it has been generally recognised that Germany has * for long been looking for pretext to pick a quarrel with her new republican neighbour, whose territory was mainly carved , out of the old Afastro-Hungamn Kingdom4 Germany 's chief but in the end not very helpful ally in the Great War. It is altogether too early to see through this latest German move or even to guess what it may forebode. It may, however, be recalled that only two or three months agO Germany was reported to have entered into a secret treaty with Austria, the ostensible purpose of which was to combine for the criishing of the Communist danger in Czechoslovakia. Under this treaty, so it was said, Autria was to substantially increase her regular army, Germany undertaking to provide it with modern eqnipment, airplanes, tanks and machineguns, while under certain circumstances the German and Austrian armed forces were to act together. Pursuant to it, too, Austria is said to have constructed a series of military airports close to the Czechoslpvakian frontier. It was an American writer who, commenting on this treaty wh§n fii'St jts terms gained sojnc publicity, pointed out that the direct road from Germany to tlie Soviet Ukraine-^-which Hitler covets — runs through Czechoslovakia and it is of this that he may seek to gain control. In view of what we are now hearing, it is noteworthy, too, that this same qorres? pondenf, writing from Prague, said the Czechoslovaks did not believe that Hitler wonld invade their country at the beginnning, but that he wonld follow the method used in Spain- — lirst foment a 'ascist cpup inside the country itself and then " interverie on the pretext that Germany was endangered. He tilso remarks on the intensive campaign qf viljfication against Czechoslovakia conducted by Dr. Goebbels in the German Press, which has been continued up to the present time. There are, however, two cpnsiderations that may serve to gjve pause to Herr Hitler before adopting any extreme measures such as his ultimatum suggests. In tlie first place, although Signor Mussolini was assumed to have concurred in the Anstro-German treaty above outlined, it was with obvious reluctance and by no means whole-heartedly. It might easily be that he would take alarm if it threatened to result in Germany securing a dominating sfcand in both Ans^ tria and Czechoslpvakia. In the second place, if Herr Hitler has in mind a drive still fnrther East to Russia, then, despite ' the armed might, of whi.ch, with some warrant he makes so much boast, his military advisers are altogether averse to his undertaking any such .great adventure. They have all got a wholesome deterrent conviction that they would have to conjtend not pnly with the imjnense spaces and teseyve man-powsr iof Riussia, but also with a m°dern, well armed and highly quajified army, that is not at all likely to be caught off its guard.