740.00/51
The Minister in Egypt (Fish) to the Secretary of State
[Received July 8.]
Sir: I have the honor to quote below, as representative of prevailing opinion in this country regarding the inevitability of a new world war, the concluding paragraph of an editorial which appeared in The Egyptian Mail of June 12, 1936, as follows:
[“]The truth of the matter is that no one on earth believes now that war in Europe can be averted. It may come tomorrow, it may come in a couple of years, but come it must and will. Mr. Chamberlain himself knows very well that he wants a heavily armed England, not to keep the peace but to be prepared for war, for ‘we have but a short while to prepare ourselves for eventualities’. The false optimism of politicians has no effect now-a-days on the fierce and profound despair of the common people in every country of the world.”
This paragraph speaks so well for itself in mirroring local public opinion on the subject of an inevitable world conflict that there is little for me to add.
One of the most general subjects of conversation in Cairo is concerned with speculation regarding the occasion which may give rise to the imminent new world war, whether it will come in 1937 or 1938, the nations which may be first involved, the position of England in such a conflict, whether Germany and Italy may be opposed to one another or associates in the war, and so forth.
It would be idle for me to repeat the speculative comments which are voiced or to add my own to their number. My German colleague remains convinced that Great Britain and Italy must eventually come to armed conflict over the supremacy of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Red Sea and that Great Britain is only biding its time to find the proper occasion for such a conflict. There are far too many imponderables and the factors which unite and divide the interests of nations are too many and too complex to make it even worth while to reproduce further such speculative comment.
[Page 315]The one important fact is that people in Egypt share the opinion generally that the world is being headed in the direction of war by irresponsible governments which are in no way representative of the longing of peoples for peace and security.
Respectfully yours,