Word: barthou
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...this Sir John Simon flushed beet-red, his secretary paled amid French amazement. This climaxed the public spat over Sir John's proposal to grant a measure of rearmament to Germany which M. Barthou bluntly rejected (TIME, June 11). To all appearances they parted bitter enemies, but just before Sir John left Geneva, M. Barthou, having discovered the nature of his blunder, called to make a handsome apology which Sir John handsomely accepted...
...Exactly!" cried M. Barthou, "I should have preferred to speak a little naughtily rather than so clumsily. Hélas! What I am least ready to forgive myself is my clumsiness...
Since then secret negotiations have been proceeding between Paris, London and Moscow. The fathers of the new scheme to keep Europe's peace are M. Barthou and Soviet Foreign Commissar Maxim Maximovitch Litvinoff, but they need a potent godfather to urge their plans upon Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. Last week Sir John Simon assumed this role with Augustan magnanimity...
...peerless civil servants of the British Foreign Office took charge of all details. M. Barthou, who crossed the channel for a personal conference with Sir John, ostentatiously returned last week to Paris. British public opinion was prepared for what was coming by a few intimations that what Europe needs is a return to "the Spirit of Locarno." Nine years ago at Locarno, Switzerland, gold pens squiggled in the hands of Benito Mussolini, Austen Chamberlain, and the late great peace men of France and Germany. Aristide Briand and Gustav Stresemann. Today the Locarno Treaty, still in full force, binds...
...Nazidom's most cherished dreams for expansion?so much the better for peace. The opening gambit last week faced the Hitler Government with proof that Nazi Germany has been diplomatically encircled. In blazoning this encirclement to the whole world Godfather Sir John acted as he did partly because Fathers Barthou and Litvinoff of the Eastern Locarno had warned him that, should he refuse to put pressure on Germany, they were ready to protect themselves by signing a mutual pact of military alliance. Since France and Russia possess the two largest armies in the world such an alliance would gravely upset...