Confidential report from Charles Bewley to Joseph P. Walshe (Dublin)¹
(43/33)

The press and public opinion are very largely occupied with the Polish question, but so far as I can judge there is not expectation of an immediate war, although the gravity of the situation is realized: if the account of persons who have recently visited London and Paris can be believed, there is far more confidence here than in those capitals. It is assumed that Poland cannot adhere indefinitely to her present attitude, and that as time passes England and France will become even less desirous of fighting for a Polish Danzig. The introduction of conscription in England is treated as ineffective and rather ridiculous, and the rush of young men into the territorial force for the purpose of avoiding military training receives its due share of attention.

This view is shared by the new Roumanian Minister² here, who predicts that Poland will be forced to come to terms, because she cannot permanently keep a million men under arms, and because the Entente powers would find it, on moral as well as on national grounds, as hard to fight for Danzig as they did not Czechoslovakia. Anticipations of Germany's possible action must necessarily remain mere conjecture, but his view coincides with my own, namely that the German Government will probably take no step for some months in the belief that time will work more effectively on the morale of their opponents, - although he gave it as his opinion that, even if Germany occupied Danzig tomorrow, England and France would not move.

German opinion is much encouraged by the removal of Litvinoff, with the probability of a change in Russian policy in the direction of isolation. To judge by the denunciations by the Moscow wireless of the attempts of the Western democracies to involve Russia in a war with Germany in English and French interests, such a change does not seem improbable. The treaties of non-aggression recently concluded with Estonia and Latvia and a little earlier with Lithuania are also regarded as very favourable to Germany's position, as is the withdrawal of Spain from the League of Nations. Finally the alliance between Germany and Italy is regarded as a guarantee of unity and rapidity of action against an obviously indecisive and disunited opposition.

There has been much conjecture on the Nuncio's recent visit to the Chancellor at Berchtesgaden, but it is not definitely known whether the three hours' discussion was concerned with the tension between Germany and Poland or the position of the Catholic Church in Germany or both. In any event, it is a striking proof of the new policy in regard to Germany inaugurated by his Holiness Pope Pius XII, and is of good augury for a future settlement of the religious question