765.84/3086: Telegram
The Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Bingham) to the Secretary of State
[Received December 16—6:58 p.m.]
629. The Foreign Secretary returned to London today. Inasmuch as he is not yet able to assume his duties, I called by appointment on the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs this afternoon, who immediately launched into a statement, substantially as follows:
He said that despite the situation existing in the world and its obvious complications, a realistic view would be comparatively simple. In fact, it might be reduced to a mathematical formula. In the case of Manchukuo, the League itself and no member of it was willing to stem the aggression of Japan and consequently the aggressor secured 100%. In the present situation between Italy and Abyssinia, Great Britain alone was willing to take steps and to incur dangers and if necessary to go to the limit, so that in this instance it was possible for the aggressor to get only about 50%. He said that the question was whether or not the members composing the League, and the rest of the world, desired Italy to have 100% or whether it is a mark of progress when the aggressor succeeded in obtaining only 50% and that from the standpoint of his Government was the whole situation in a nutshell.
He said that the British Government had been criticized in many countries, for example in Sweden, but that no other country had made any offer whatever of any real support; that so far as the French were concerned the British had exhausted every resource in bringing them into support of their position as against the aggressor in this instance; that the French had vacillated; that Laval’s leadership was and is weak and uncertain and that it was only at the end of months of the utmost effort that finally France had agreed to support the British in the event Italy attacked the British fleet in the Mediterranean. He said that while his Government had moved its fleet into the Mediterranean, no other Government had made any similar contribution to prevent the onslaught on Abyssinia; that if the French had been willing to mobilize on their Italian border and, for example, the Yugo Slavs on their Italian border, and had given the British active and actual support, the whole trouble could have been averted. The Under Secretary said further the world must face now the imminent danger from Germany and that the small nations composing the League, who had been unwilling to take any actual or active steps against Italy, in his opinion, in a short time would be compelled to face the menace of German aggression. For example, he expected within a comparatively [Page 712] short time that Germany will take Memel; that then those nations, which now say that Italy and Abyssinia are far away from them, will have an aggressor near their own borders and be compelled to answer the question as to whether or not the aggressor shall take and keep what he can without any military effort on their part. I asked him about reports that there had been some further conversations between Britain, France and Germany, tending possibly towards some sort of conversation between these three nations. He said there had not; that several months ago his Government approached the German Government and did so on several occasions without any response from Germany; that now within the last few days the British Ambassador in Berlin had again approached the German Government and it had made a flat refusal to accept any kind of agreement. He added that his Government knew that the German war factories had been on a war basis at least since the first of last January, and now they are merely biding their time watching the difficulties aroused by the Italian-Abyssinian situation with the determination to strike as soon as they think the time is most favorable, and in his opinion that time is not very far off. He said that the Germans will play the game the same way that Japan has done, and that it is extraordinary to him that many of his own countrymen seem to have no realization at this time of the fact that they may be at war with Germany and that there will be a general European war provoked by Germany within the near future, in his opinion at the outside in not more than one year. The Under Secretary said that at the debate on Thursday in the House of Commons the present situation would be put frankly and bluntly before the people of this country and the British position stated clearly, not only for the British people to see and know, but for the rest of the world. He then repeated that it was idle to take any but a realistic view of the situation which was full of menace, and folly for anyone, including his own countrymen, to attempt an idealistic point of view in the face of the situation with which the world is confronted. He believed that in a comparatively short time it might well happen that the Italian-Abyssinian difficulty would appear to be of minor importance compared with the impending dangers he saw over Europe.