Pact Making: Pact Making

(3 of 3)

ITALY AND FRANCE (Jan. 7, 1935), nagging neighbors ever since the War, buried their grievances when Foreign Minister Laval arrived in Rome to sign with II Duce specific pacts: 1) ceding to Italy 45,000 sq. mi. of French Africa; 2) pledging to France II Duce's aid toward causing Germany to sign the Eastern Locarno, re-enter the League of Nations and stop trying to Nazify Austria.

THE EASTERN LOCARNO PACT if and when signed, will pledge Germany and her eastern neighbors to permit no aggression in either direction across Germany's eastern frontiers, just as the original Locarno Pact is a mutual pledge to prevent aggression across Germany's western frontiers. This goal took new French Premier Flandin and M. Laval to London for urgent conference fortnight ago with British Foreign Secretary Sir John Simon and Mr. Eden. When Britain promptly agreed with France and cabled their Eastern Locarno proposals to Berlin last week, Realmleader Hitler at once canceled all appointments on all other subjects for ten days, conferred Eastern Locarno-wise with every German best mind available.