FROM OCTOBER 10 TO NOVEMBER 10
AMERICA AND THE WAR
Sea Rights Restored. —Further sinking of American ships and attacks on American naval vessels hastened Congressional action for repeal of the vital provisions of the so-called Neutrality Act which prevented American vessels from mounting armament for anti-submarine defense or entering war areas and ports of belligerents. In response to a Presidential message, the House on October 16 voted 259 to 138 to remove the ban on arming merchant vessels. In the Senate the Foreign Relations Committee approved this and also the repeal of the clauses forbidding entry into belligerent ports and combat areas, and in this form the repealer passed the Senate on November 7 by a vote of 50 to 37. It was assured that the House would also approve the repeal of all three clauses within a week’s time. Testifying in support of the repeal, Secretary of State Hull justified it as a restoration of the traditional rights of neutral nations. He added, in justification of anti-sub- marine measures, that “the rules of neutrality, of course, are superseded when the law of self-defense intervenes.”
Attacks on American Ships. —Naval warfare in the Atlantic involving the United States reached graver proportions in October with submarine attacks on American destroyers and additional sinking of merchant ships of American register or ownership. On October 17, south of Iceland, the U. S. destroyer Kearney was struck by a torpedo but reached port despite severe damage and the loss of 11 killed and 10 injured. On October 30 the older destroyer Reuben James was sunk west of Iceland, while engaged in convoy defense, with a loss of 101 of a complement of 145. On the night preceding, the U. S. naval tanker Salinas was also hit by a torpedo in Iceland waters, but suffered no loss of life and managed to reach port. In a statement on November 1 the German Government admitted firing on the Greer and Kearney but declared that on the basis of both German and American reports, the American vessels had “attacked U-boats and therefore the United States has attacked Germany.” Informed spokesmen added, however, that the question of invoking Japanese aid under the Three Power Pact did not “arise at this time.” In a speech on November 8 Adolf Hitler stated that he had ordered German ships, whenever they saw an American, “not to shoot thereupon but to defend themselves as soon as they are attacked.” However, these same German ships were engaged in indiscriminate sinking of merchant vessels of all nations on the high seas.
Merchant vessels sunk included the U. S. merchant ship Lehigh on October 19, en route in ballast from Bilbao, Spain, to the African coast, on a trading mission outside any recognized war zone. The crew were picked up by a British patrol. Three days earlier the Bold Venture, an American-owned former Danish ship under Panamanian register, was sunk 500 miles south of Iceland with a loss of 19 out of her crew of 36.
Robin Hood Claims. —Apparently for the chief purpose of keeping the record straight, the American State Department on November 3 made public the correspondence with Germany over the sinking of the American merchant vessel Robin Hood in the south Atlantic last May. On June 20 the State Department transmitted to the German Embassy in Washington the President’s message to Congress in which he condemned the sinking as an act of piracy. This statement the Embassy declined to forward to Berlin. On September 19 the State Department in a second note announced that the United States was prepared to accept $2,967,092 in settlement of claims, in which sum no amount for punitive damages was included. The German Charge d’Affaires, Hans Thomsen, replied that neither of the two communications were “such as to lead to an appropriate reply.” There the matter rested.
Warning to Finland. —In a press statement of November 3, Secretary Hull made it known that his department had received no official reply to the American note of August 18 suggesting that Finland seek peace with the Soviet Republic and offering American support for a satisfactory settlement. In the interview the Secretary again raised the question whether Finland’s continued warfare might not subject her completely to the dictates of Germany and force an abandonment of friendly relations between Finland and the other democratic powers. The Finnish legation at Washington transmitted this statement to Helsinki. Though first indications were that any official reply from Finland was likely to be evasive, the Finnish radio on November 6 stated that military operations were “drawing to a close, as far as this country is concerned.” Secretary Hull made it clear by official records that Russia’s willingness to discuss peace on a basis of territorial concessions had been presented to the Finland Government by American representatives on August 18 and again on October 3.
An obvious advantage of a Finnish- Soviet settlement would be the relief of pressure on the Murmansk Railway as an avenue of supplies. In the way of positive aid for Russia, President Roosevelt at the end of October announced a billion dollar loan, payable without interest in ten years, against which were to be credited any Russian exports to this country. Maxim Litvinoff, who arranged for resumption of United States-Soviet relations in 1933, was appointed new Ambassador to Washington.
Joint Action with Canada. —Following conferences at Hyde Park between President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Mackenzie King of Canada on November 1-2, it was announced that a Joint Defense Production Committee would be set up, with six representatives from each country, to co-ordinate production of defense materials. This new committee was to function in addition to the existing joint bodies on military strategy (the Permanent Joint Board of Defense), on supply of primary materials (the Joint Materials Co-ordination Committee), and on economic relations (the Joint Economic Committee). In defense production, the new body would facilitate exchange from one country to the other of “the defense articles which it is best able to produce and produce quickly.”
Nazis in Greenland Seized. —The U. S. Navy Department announced on October 11 that a German radio station in Greenland had been discovered and disposed of by American patrol forces late in September, and that a supporting vessel with its crew had been seized and sent into an American port. Later the vessel, the little Norwegian steamer Buskö of 60 tons with a crew of 21, including an agent of the German Gestapo, was brought into Boston by the revenue cutter Bear.
LATIN AMERICA
Panama President Ousted. —On October 7, only a day after he had declared a ban on anti-submarine armament for ships of Panamanian register, President Arnulfo Arias of Panama left his country for a brief airplane trip to Havana. On the next day he was deposed from his office by a group of political leaders headed by Ricardo Adolfo de la Guardia, a member of the Arias Cabinet, on the technical grounds that he had violated the Constitution by leaving the country without approval of the National Assembly. After the resignation of Arias’ legal successor, de la Guardia was elected President, and on October 20 the new government issued a decree canceling the ban on ship armament. In reply to Axis accusations that United States officials had connived in the upset, Secretary Hull on October 16 issued a statement denying any foreknowledge on influence and publishing all correspondence exchanged at the time between the State Department and the Ambassador at Panama. The change, however, ended a government inclined to obstructionist tactics, and set up a regime more likely to cooperate in joint action of American nations and in United States measures for defense of the canal area. In November the new government declared “insulting” and declined to consider a Japanese protest against a recent law which withdrew the right to do business in Panama from members of a race whose immigration was forbidden.
Argentine-American Trade Pact. — On October 14 Argentina and the United States signed at Buenos Aires a reciprocal trade agreement which had long been under discussion, and which was noteworthy as the first such agreement between the two countries since 1853. In the treaty, United States exporters gained reduction or stabilization of tariffs on 127 articles, chiefly fruits and machinery, which counted for $32,000,000 out of last year’s total export to Argentina of $106,000,000. There was a cut of 30 per cent in the United States duty on Argentine canned meat, though none on fresh meat, and concessions to Argentina also on 84 articles counting for 90 per cent of the total Argentine export trade with this country, which amounted last year to $83,000,000. The chief significance of the agreement lay less in the field of trade than in the promise of closer co-operation with a nation that has frequently opposed the United States in plans for hemisphere solidarity.
British-Mexican Accord. —At the close of October it was announced that diplomatic relations between Britain and Mexico, terminated three years ago over the oil expropriations controversy, would soon be resumed. While this was made possible by the more favorable attitude of the Camacho Government in Mexico, Foreign Secretary Eden stated in the House of Commons that Britain had not receded from her 1938 contentions in the oil dispute, but had left the whole question for future negotiation.
In the meantime the United States- Mexican agreement, providing for a loan of about $30,000,000 and a similar provision for stabilization of the peso, was held up chiefly by the unwillingness of American oil companies to accept certain terms of the settlement.
“NEW ORDER” IN EUROPE
Repression Measures. —During the early autumn insurrectionary moves and German countermeasures continued on the Continent from Norway to Greece. In Norway it was announced on November 3 that 6 had been executed for “assisting the enemy” and that the entire fishing fleet of 70,000 boats had been put under state control, largely to prevent escapes to Britain. At Belgrade on the same date 100 “Communists and Jews” were shot in reprisal for an attack on German soldiers. In Serbia, in fact, the revolt against the Axis was described as a “second war,” with 80,000 or more men engaging German and Italian occupation forces along a 125- mile front in the Serbian uplands. In Bohemia the “kernel of unrest” was said to have been eliminated by repressive measures of the new Governor Reinhard Heydrich, including numerous executions for sabotage. Discontent was also rife in Rumania. It was perhaps significant of this dissatisfaction that the Rumanian Government, in view of its assistance to Germany in the Russian campaign, proceeded to denounce the Vienna settlement of August, 1940, which gave half of Transylvania to Hungary.
Reprisals in France. —In France reprisal measures were intensified after the killing on October 20 of the German commander of occupation forces at Nantes, who was shot in a public square at 8:00 A.M., and the shooting on the next day of a German major at Bordeaux. Rewards totaling 30,000,000 francs offered for information leading to capture of the assassins failed of results. On the 22nd 50 hostages were executed at Nantes, and two days later 50 more for the attack at Bordeaux. The execution of 100 more was threatened, but either as a result of Vichy appeals or the hostile reaction elsewhere, General Stuelpnagel, Commander of Occupation Forces, granted a reprieve as “a last chance to all Frenchmen to cooperate in the investigation of these crimes.”
By the Vichy Government, a further step in the slow prosecution of the war guilt prisoners was taken when on October 16 the Vichy Council of Political Justice ordered General Gamelin, ex-Premiers Daladier, Blum, and Renaud, and former Minister of Interior Georges Mandel to be taken from Riom to the Pyrenees fortress of Pourtalet. The trials of Gamelin, Blum, and Daladier were to begin at Riom on January 15, the prosecution having already accumulated 100,000 pages of evidence, or something like 300 volumes.
Italian Housecleaning. —In Italy at the close of October, while Count Ciano was reported to be conferring with Führer Hitler on the eastern front, Premier Mussolini ordered a shake-up of Fascist guild leaders comparable in scope with earlier house cleanings in the Cabinet and the Army. Of the 22 guild leaders, 19 were dropped or shifted. The change was described as part of an effort to improve Italy’s shaky economic set-up. At the same time there was news of a new economic arrangement with Germany, the details of which were not revealed. The statement that Germany would not raise coal prices suggested that the Nazi Government had found some means of increasing coal shipments to Italy, which during the summer had been reduced almost to none at all for lack of rolling stock.
Pact of Exiled Governments. —Early in November during the meeting in New York of the International Labor Organization, a League offshoot now attended chiefly by representatives of the Anti-Axis states, the delegates from Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Greece published a declaration of economic solidarity. The chief significance of the declaration lay not in the present, but in the future possibility, in the event of the overthrow of Germany, that the states of Central Europe and the Balkans might be brought into healthier economic co-operation. The declaration spoke of the problems and hopes of 100,000,000 oppressed people in southeastern Europe.
FAR EAST
New Japanese Cabinet. —On October 16 the Japanese ministry of Prince Konoye, the third to serve under his leadership, resigned after a week of conferences which failed to reach agreement on the direction of Japan’s foreign policy. The issue lay between members of the Cabinet who favored an all-out policy for the attainment of Japan’s aims in Asia, involving closer ties with the Axis and a break with the democracies, and on the other hand those who favored delay, with a continuance of American peace talks, pending a clearer clue to the trend of the European war. The general belief was that the new cabinet headed by General Eiki Tojo would adopt the former policy. Tojo was regarded as a fire-eater, a friend of the Axis, and a belligerent militarist. Yet the first moves of the Tojo Cabinet indicated no haste for decisive action. An extraordinary session of the Japanese Diet was set for November 15, and at this time it was thought the Prime Minister would take a decisive stand. The Japanese press declared he would set a time limit on American parleys. For foreign diplomats there was at least the satisfaction that the Japanese Army, long the dominant power behind the scenes in Japanese politics, was now actually in charge of the government, could be dealt with directly, and must take full responsibility. General Tojo himself, a military attaché in Germany in 1919 and former chief of staff of General Nishio in the War Office and the Kwantung Army, had served in the second and third Konoye ministries and was thoroughly informed on Japan’s problems abroad and at home.
Envoy to Washington. —While the Japanese press insisted that the United States must concede to Japan or face conflict, the Japanese Government on November 6 announced that one of its most experienced diplomats, Sabura Kurusu, had been dispatched by plane to Washington to take part with Ambassador Nomura in negotiations, and would arrive about the 17th. The Kurusu mission was regarded as placatory, though the possibility of an approach of views was still reckoned a one to ten chance. One possibility would be a limited modus vivendi, leaving permanent decisions in abeyance. What Japan would like at once was a relaxation of trade and oil embargoes, but this could come only with effective guarantees against further aggression north or south. All that Japan would like was set forth by the Japanese Times Advertiser, organ of the Foreign Office in the following program:
(1) All military and economic aid to Chungking must cease.
(2) China must be left “free to deal with Japan,” and Chungking must be advised to make peace with Japan.
(3) Military and economic encirclement of Japan must end.
(4) Japan’s “co-prosperity sphere” must be acknowledged, and Manchukuo, China, Indo- China, Thailand, the Netherlands Indies, and other States and protectorates must be allowed to establish their own political and economic relations with Japan without interference of any kind.
(5) Manchukuo must be recognized; “nobody will undo what has been done there.”
(6) The freezing of Japanese and Chinese assets must be ended unconditionally.
(7) Trade treaties must be restored and all restrictions on shipping and commerce ended.
Russia was reported to have suggested to Great Britain and the United States that their concerted threat of intervention would prevent Japan from aggression in Siberia. During October, however, there was no serious worsening of relations in this quarter. In mid-October a mixed commission at Harbin reached agreement on 150 miles of disputed frontier between Mongolia and the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo.