863.00/1440: Telegram
The Ambassador in Germany (Wilson) to the Secretary of State
[Received March 12—2:20 p.m.]
117. After seeing Henderson (my 114, March 12, noon) I called on François-Poncet. The contrast between the two men was striking. Poncet was in a state of extreme nerves and exasperation. His thesis is simple: the states of the world have made irretrievable mistakes in giving in step by step to Germany. They have merely whetted Germany’s appetite and who could tell who will be the next victim. The only thing that might still save the world would be all states getting together to serve formal notice on Germany that it had to behave or take the consequences.
He felt that Mussolini was now condemned to subservience to Germany. Mussolini’s intelligence, according to François, had been overrated. In the long view he had been wrong in every great international decision and the crowning piece of his ineptitude was that he had placed his country in a position where it now lay at the mercy and under the direction of a group of leaders in Germany without scruple and of insatiable appetite.