Der Fuehrer - Hitler's Rise to Power (1944) - Heiden

WAR IN THE RUHR 159policy of compromise and conciliation toward defeated but by no meansbroken Germany, even at the expense of some momentary advantages;or to build on the supposition that Germany never would rise again, atthe risk of dire vengeance in the event of having guessed wrong. BothPoland and Czechoslovakia chose the latter policy. They concludedmilitary pacts with France (1921, 1924), thus encircling Germany. Liketwo daggers Poland and Czechoslovakia thrust into Germany, menacingBerlin at a distance of less than one hundred and forty miles.But in the south there was a cleft in the system; narrow as a hair atfirst, it gradually widened. Along the Alps, virtually separating northernand southern Europe into two continents, extended the Republic ofAustria, inhabited by eight million German-speaking people, the humbleand helpless remnant of a once great empire. In 1918, this fragmentwanted to exercise the right of self-determination and join Germany.This the victors of Versailles forbade. The Anschluss idea, nevertheless,remained alive. Czechoslovakia was opposed to it, because in the eventof Anschluss, she would have been almost surrounded by Germany;France was opposed because she feared any enlargement of Germanpower. Italy, too, was against it.Italy was the existing, yet missing, link in the military chain aroundGermany. In the World War she had not really fought against Germany,but against Austria; this main enemy had been destroyed, the Italianspeakingprovinces of Austria, Trieste, and South Tyrol had been'redeemed'; for ostensibly strategic reasons, Italy had advanced hernorthern border to the main Alpine watershed, the Brenner Pass, thuswinning sovereignty over a quarter of a million Germans in the northernpart of South Tyrol. These Germans — at least in their cultural life,language, habits, even names — were worse oppressed by the ItalianFascists than their compatriots by the Czechs or even the Poles;moreover, Italy was more bitterly opposed to Anschluss than anyoneelse because Austria constituted a buffer against Germany, and totallycovered the northern boundary of Italy. Italy might have fitted intoFrance's system of military alliances against Germany if there had notbeen deeper reasons to the contrary. Though numbered among thevictors of