| Summary, etc. |
The documents in this volume cover the period-roughly nine weeks from April 4 to June 7, 1939. Chapters I and II deal with M. Beck's visit to Lon don, the Italian attack on Albania, and the announcement of the British guarantees to Greece and Roumania. Henceforward the two main themes. of the volume are the increasing German threats to Poland, and the efforts of His Majesty's Government to bring into existence a common front, including Turkey and the U.S.S.R., against further German and Italian aggression.<br/><br/>The negotiations with the Turkish Government resulting in the Anglo Turkish Declaration of May 12, 1939, are narrated in Chapters II, III, IV, V, and VI. The negotiations with the Soviet Government continue through out the volume, and are brought down to the Prime Minister's statement of June 7, 1939, in the House of Commons on the course of the discussions, and the decision to send Mr. Strang to Moscow to inform H.M. Ambassador more fully of the views of His Majesty's Government. Throughout these. weeks of inconclusive exchanges with the Soviet Government His Majesty's Government were attempting, without success, to meet Soviet objections to their proposals and to harmonize the requirements put forward by the Soviet Government with the refusal of Poland, Roumania, and the other western neighbours of the U.S.S.R. to receive, directly or indirectly, any Soviet guarantee.<br/><br/>For the convenience of the reader the material on the period from April 14 to June 7 is divided into seven chapters, but, as the first title ('The European Situation') common to each chapter shows, there is no halting-place or decisive date during these weeks, at all events as the story is told from the. British side. Hitler's speech of April 28 denouncing the German-Polish Agreement of 1934 and existing Anglo-German Naval Agreements, the replacement of M. Litvinov on May 3 by M. Molotov as People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, the conclusion of the German-Italian Alliance of May 22 were important episodes, but it is clear from the narrative that no one of them appeared or indeed could appear to British observers in the Foreign Office or abroad as finally determining the question of peace or war. It is also necessary, in considering retrospectively the course of British policy during this period, to take increasing account of the situation in the Far East. The documents dealing with this situation will be printed in the two conclud ing volumes of this Series. |
