Читать книгу In Search of Peace - Neville Chamberlain - Страница 7

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On 25th June, a few days before Mr. Chamberlain spoke at Birmingham, he had made his first speech as Prime Minister in the House of Commons on Foreign Affairs. The subject was the Spanish civil war which had broken, out a year earlier, when the Army and the Catholic North had risen in arms against a Popular Front Government on the grounds that it had deliberately failed to preserve the elements of order and to secure the rights of worship. This bitter internecine conflict had been complicated by the intervention of large numbers of volunteers from almost every country in the world, including the four great Continental Powers, Soviet Russia, Italy, France and Germany. A cockpit was thus provided for a miniature world war between what seemed to some the champions of Fascism and Democracy and to others of Fascism and Communism. From the start it was plain that the situation might well precipitate a world war—a disaster which the British Government consistently endeavoured to avert by the expedient, admittedly imperfect, of the London Non-intervention Committee, on which representatives of the Powers concerned were officially joined together to discuss ways of evacuating those foreign combatants who were already in Spain and of preventing the arrival of new ones. In June, 1937, a serious crisis had arisen as a result of an attack made by Spanish Republican aircraft on the German battleship Deutschland while on Non-intervention patrol duty in the Mediterranean—an attack which had been avenged by a bombardment by German warships of the town of Almeria. As a result of a further though unsuccessful attack alleged to have been made on the German cruiser Leipzig by a Spanish Republican submarine, the Germans had withdrawn their ships from the Non-intervention Patrol and the Italians had followed suit.

“The right hon. Baronet (Sir Archibald Sinclair, leader of the Liberal Opposition), has given us a comprehensive, thoughtful survey of the whole field of foreign affairs, and I have listened to him with all the more pleasure because here and there I heard a phrase with which I was not in disagreement. I do not rise at this moment for the purpose of replying to him, or indeed of developing most of the subjects on which he touched. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State of Foreign Affairs (Mr. Eden) will have an opportunity of speaking later and I have no doubt he will be able to make reply to the points that have been raised. I rise only in order to say a few words about one aspect of foreign policy, and it is one which at present is uppermost in all minds in Europe, the situation arising out of the civil war in Spain. I do not think it ought to be necessary for me to state what is the policy of His Majesty’s Government in regard to that situation, because it has already been so frequently repeated, but, all the same, I will state it again, because it seems to me that every now and then there is a tendency, amid the strong feelings that are aroused in this connection, to forget what it is that the Government really are aiming at.

“In this Spanish situation there is one peculiar feature which gives it a specially dangerous aspect. That is that to many people looking on from outside, it presents itself as a struggle between two rival systems each of which commands an enthusiastic, even a passionate body of support among its adherents in their respective countries, with the result that supporters of these two rival systems cannot help regarding the issue of the struggle in Spain as a defeat or a victory, as the case may be, for the side to which they are attached. I am not expressing an opinion as to whether that view of the struggle is correct or not, but I say that the fact that it is held constitutes a perpetual danger to the peace of Europe, because, if some country or Government representing one of these two ideas attempts to intervene beyond a certain point, then some other country taking the opposite view may find it difficult, if not impossible, to refrain from joining in, and a conflict may be started of which no man can see the end.

“In these circumstances, the policy of His Majesty’s Government has been consistently directed to one end, and one end only, namely, to maintain the peace of Europe by confining the war to Spain. It is for that purpose that, in conjunction with France, we have worked to set up and, since then, to maintain the Non-intervention Agreement. No body could have had a harder task than the Committee, and we in this country have suffered the usual fate of those who have tried to be impartial. We have been deliberately accused by both sides of partiality towards the other. But although we have had to express as a Government our dissatisfaction with the failure of the scheme of non-intervention, we maintain, though it is true that intervention has gone on, and is going on in spite of the Non-intervention Agreement, that it is also true that up to the present we have succeeded in achieving the object which has been at the back of our policy the whole time. We shall continue to pursue that object and that policy as long as we feel that there is a reasonable hope of avoiding a spread of the conflict. I do not take the view myself that it is fantastic to continue this policy successfully even to the end.

“The situation is serious, but it is not hopeless, and, in particular, although it may be true that various countries or various governments desire to see one side or the other side successful, there is not a country or a government that wants to see a European war. Since that is so, let us try to keep cool heads and neither say nor do anything to precipitate a disaster which everybody really wishes to avoid. I think we are bound to recognise that as long as this civil war is going on in Spain incidents are bound to occur which involve foreign Powers. The very fact that we are trying to maintain a policy of non-intervention, which is exercised through a patrol by ships belonging to various Powers stopping ships taking arms and ammunition into Spain, involves an interference with the hostilities and, therefore, is bound to create strong feelings of resentment among those in Spain who feel that they are thus being handicapped. That leads to accusations of want of impartiality and counter-accusations, and then to such deplorable incidents as the bombing of the Deutschland and the bombing of Almeria. Once this chain begins, it goes on, first on one side and then on the other.

“I am not going to discuss the incidents in which the cruiser Leipzig was involved. The German officers on that ship were convinced, on what they thought was indisputable evidence, that they had been the subject of attack by torpedoes. I do not exclude the possibility of a mistake. I know that in the course of the Great War many British naval officers thought that they saw torpedo tracks when afterwards it was proved that there could have been no torpedo, and we did not think any the worse of them on that account. They were perfectly genuine in what they said and thought at the time. But whether the German officers are right or wrong, that is what they believe, and in those circumstances it seems to me that their claim, that they could not allow their ships to be exposed any longer to the risk of such incidents as that, was a reasonable claim, and ought not to be the subject of hostile criticism.

“In fact, I go a little further than that. When I think of what the experiences of the German Navy have been, the loss of life and mutilation of men on the Deutschland and the natural feelings of indignation and resentment which must be aroused by such an incident, with all that, I must say that I think the German Government in merely withdrawing their ships and then stating that this question is closed have shown a degree of restraint which we all ought to recognise. At any rate, the result of this disappearance of German and Italian ships from the patrol means that there should not be any longer any danger of further incidents of this kind and, in my view, the best thing we can do now is to turn our minds back again to the two practical steps which have to be taken, the first one being to fill the gap in the patrol which has now been left open and the other to re-start our endeavours to obtain the withdrawal of foreign volunteers in Spain.

“That is all I have to say at present, and I want to conclude with a very earnest appeal to those who hold responsible positions both in this country and abroad—and I am including the Press and the Members of this House—to weigh their words very carefully before they utter them on this matter, bearing in mind the consequences that might flow from some rash or thoughtless phrase. I have read that in the high mountains there are sometimes conditions to be found when an incautious move or even a sudden loud exclamation may start an avalanche. That is just the condition in which we are finding ourselves to-day. I believe, although the snow may be perilously poised, it has not yet begun to move, and if we can all exercise caution, patience and self-restraint, we may yet be able to save the peace of Europe.”