Confidential report from Michael MacWhite to Joseph P. Walshe (Dublin)¹
(Confidential)

More Italian reservists have been called to the colour this month for training purposes. At the same time the Italian troops in Libya, whose effectives were reduced to about half strength in accordance with the promise given the British Ambassador on the occasion of the signature of the Italo-British accord, have now been increased to 70,000 and may be increased still more. The French are said to have 100,000 men occupying the Daladier line on the Tunis-Tripoli frontier.

Anti-British feeling in the Italian press is gradually growing. Chamberlain's umbrella has now become a blunderbuss, a sword and a stiletto and British diplomacy would no doubt be described as Machiavellian if it were permissible to associate an Italian name with such dubious methods. America is, however, coming in for most of the hard knocks and Roosevelt is referred to as a war monger.

Until a few weeks ago the Totalitarian States were convinced that the United States had definitely turned her back on Europe and that nothing would tempt her again to intervene in affairs on this side of the Atlantic. It came as a great shock to them to discover that, on the contrary, Roosevelt was giving moral and material aid to France and Britain in such a way as could leave no further room for doubt. As their eyes are being opened, their cries are becoming less strident.

One of the spokesmen of the Foreign Office in a recent article said it was immaterial whether Roosevelt spoke about the Rhine frontier or not as the essential thing was the state of mind revealed by the resulting discussion. Further he said 'the mechanism which leads to a "war for democracy" is beginning to go into action and American spiritual rearmament is more serious than her enormous material rearmament'. This fear of American intervention is another factor in the preservation of Peace in Europe.