POWER POLITICS: Worst Week

By formally lining up Spain in their anti-Comintern Pact last fortnight, Italy and Germany welded an iron ring around France. Last week France and her ally, Britain, struck back by beginning at long last to forge an even bigger one around the Axis powers. Europe had not been so close to a general war since an armistice was declared to the last one, November 11, 1918.

In seven days of swift diplomatic action, punctuated by movements of men and ships, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and Premier Edouard Daladier: 1) committed their Governments to unqualified defense of Greece and Rumania in case of attack; 2) prepared to give a similar pledge to Turkey; 3) were able to report progress in bringing big, powerful Soviet Russia at least partly into their "Peace Front."* On the sidelines, Rumania and Poland (whose borders had already been guaranteed) doctored their own 18-year-old alliance against Russian aggression to include German aggression.

To coax the Soviet Union into the Grand Alliance was a ticklish business. The last thing the Polish and Rumanian Governments want is a Red Army on their soil, even one fighting in their defense. They are more than willing, however, to accept Russian planes and munitions. Off early this week from London for Moscow was Soviet Ambassador to the Court of St. James's Ivan M. Maisky. He was carrying home to Dictator Joseph Stalin and Foreign Commissar Maxim Litvinoff the outlines of a plan of "limited aid" in case of war. Far from being insulted at being told that only one kind of support was wanted, Russia was expected to be elated. A successful defense of Poland and Rumania would mean that never would Joseph Stalin's men have to face Adolf Hitler's across a common border.

Alarms. By lining up on their side Eastern European countries from the Baltic to the Aegean, the British and French did much to restore the balance of power that had recently been weighted heavily in the dictators' favor. They also convinced many an observer that war had been made inevitable. When the British guarantee to Poland was announced three weeks ago, the Axis answered by the seizure of Albania. With Greece and Rumania added to the Peace Front last week, all Europe knew that it was again Hitler's and Mussolini's move. The German press screamed again that the Führer would strike before he would allow the Reich to be "encircled" as it was before 1914.