Word: danzig
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Early this week, at long last, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain got around to uttering the dread word Danzig. In a statement approved in advance by Poland and France, the Prime Minister tried to set at rest any lingering doubts that his Government would back up the Poles in resisting a German conquest of the Free City...
Taking cognizance of widely held suspicions that the Nazis intend to seize Danzig by promoting an internal coup in the city, Mr. Chamberlain said that such action would "at once raise grave issues affecting Polish national existence and independence." Added the Prime Minister: "We have guaranteed to give our assistance to Poland in case of a clear threat to her independence which she considers it vital to resist with her national forces and we are firmly resolved to carry out this undertaking...
Another power in Danzig, Mr. Chamberlain said, could "block Poland's access to the sea and so exert an economic and military stranglehold upon her." While there was no question of "any oppression of the German population in Danzig" and the present status of the City was "not basically unjust or illogical," he believed that in a "clearer atmosphere possible improvements could be discussed...
Although the Prime Minister was not as clear and definitely not as blunt in his Danzig warning as Nazi officials usually are, he in effect served notice that Britain did not think the Germans could win their lightning-war. And the British Government fitted actions to its words...
...Before the July 4 holiday or the Danzig crisis could be blamed, Bethlehem Steel shut down two furnaces at its mammoth Buffalo (N. Y.) works...