ANTHONY EDEN

of late. In fact, if Italian support were withdrawn from him,
it is unlikely that he could resist the pressure of the Austrian
Nazis for a closer agreement with Germany.'

The Evening Standard^ version of the Hitler-Halifax
meeting was given a week before it took place.1 According to
this forecast the Prime Minister asked Eden to prepare during
this week-end (i3th—i4th November) the Government's
instructions for Lord Halifax. The indications given here
roughly bore out the Manchester Guardian $ commentary.
* The British Government,' it was reported, * have informa-
tion from Berlin that Herr Hitler is ready if he receives the
slightest encouragement to offer Britain a ten years' truce on
the colonial issue. In return Hitler was to ask Great Britain
for a * free hand * in Central Europe. By c free hand' Hitler
meant that Germany presses for a free election or plebiscite in
Austria, and that Germany presents a demand to Czecho-
slovakia for the immediate recognition of the right of the
German minority in that country to administrative autonomy
within the State and to cultural unity with the people of the
German Reich.' There was the significant comment that
' Herr Hitler believes that a free vote in Austria would mean
a Nazi regime in Vienna, and that political autonomy for the
Germans in Czechoslovakia would paralyse Russian in-
fluences in Prague. He attaches most importance for the
moment* to the solution of the Austrian problem in a sense
favourable to Germany. . . . Herr Hitler will find the British
Government are anxious to discover the exact extent and
nature of Germany's demands for a lasting settlement of
pending issues.' The information about Maisky was all
wrong, but the remainder of the prophecy assumes a some-
what sinister significance when lined up with the crowded
narrative of Europe in 1938.

Otherwise nothing happened to Eden in public, nor was
he responsible for any statement between December 1937 an^

1 Issue of Saturday, November I3th.
* The italics are mine.

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