Faked Passports (47 page)

“But how thrilling!” Angela exclaimed, her blue eyes shining. “Freddie darling, I
do
believe you're a genius, after all.”

He almost purred with satisfaction as he threw her a loving and triumphant glance. “The whole of the first part explains why Germany failed in her 1914–1918 attempt at world dominion. Apparently, Austria-Hungary precipitated the Great War before the Germans were ready for it and, later of course, Italy ratted on them. All the stuff about holding another Family Reunion is their plan for a second attempt to become masters of the world—or, at all events, to coerce all the other European countries, with the one exception of Britain, into a sort of United States of Europe under German leadership. It was drafted about 1936 or 1937, I should think, and it's extraordinarily interesting to see how many stages of their plan have already been carried out by peaceful means before the war even started.”

“Interesting!” Gregory echoed. “My God, it is! What else does the thing say?”

“It proposes what must have then been the revolutionary idea of a German tie-up with Russia. The Germans foresaw that such a step would offend their Axis partner, Italy, and the other anti-Comintern nations, Japan and Spain, but they didn't mean to let them know anything about it until it was a
fait accompli
. Anyhow, they never intended to drag Italy into the war on their side during its early stages. Her rôle is to gather the Balkan nations under her wing, then it will be an even greater blow for the Allies when she does come in.”

“That's counting their chickens before they are hatched, with a vengeance,” Gregory broke in. “Italy is basicly pro-British and would never have been anything else, even superficially, if Baldwin and Eden hadn't stabbed ‘Sam' Hoare in the back over the Hoare-Laval pact. If that had gone through the Italians would have got all they wanted but Haile Selassie would still be living in Addis Abbaba as Emperor of Abyssinia and Britain would be in control of the headwaters of the Nile. Instead Sanctions drove Mussolini into Hitler's arms and resulted in the Rome-Berlin Axis. But Mussolini's a much cleverer man than Hitler and he's only been using Germany for
what he can get out of her in the way of backing. It's all Lombard Street to a china orange that he'll remain neutral, unless we offer him British Somaliland and a slice of Tunisia to come in with us.”

“Wait a minute,” said Freddie. “This thing makes it quite clear that ‘Musso' is not a party to the German plan. He's only to be let into it a bit at a time. Italy may remain neutral for the present; in fact the Germans want her to. But if they succeed in gobbling up half Europe it wouldn't be so easy for her to keep out. Anyhow, the writer of this reckoned that by the time they wanted Italy to join them they would have been able to justify their Russian tie-up by results already achieved. The idea of trying to split the Anglo-French alliance is mentioned here too, as apparently they decided that France could not be left out of a European confederation whereas Britain could, and the grand design of the whole thing is the smashing-up of the British Empire.”

“How jolly,” said Angela. “Go on.”

“It particularly stresses the importance of getting as much territory as possible under German control by diplomatic pressure so as to stall off an armed conflict until absolutely unavoidable. The really interesting part, though, is the seventeen stages in which Germany planned to become master of Europe with Russian and Italian aid. Apparently they were very nervous about Stage
2
, which was the Czech business, but they thought that if they could get over that without having to fight they'd be all right down to Stage 8, which involves walking into Holland and Belgium. 13 was a sticky corner for them, too, as the Russians were to collar the oil-fields in Irak; but they had the sublime self-confidence to think that they might even get away with it right up to Stage 17, when they meant to rope in France; but I suppose they felt that we'd darned well have to fight then.”

Gregory had been studying the document and he looked up quickly. “Have you de-coded the whole of this thing, Freddie?”

“No; but I've got a list here of all the names and the countries they represent.”

“Let's have a look at it.”

Freddie handed over the sheet and Gregory read:

“You see how they run in series,” Freddie went on. “The Christian names of all the Schwartz's begin with ‘S' and those of the Heins with ‘H'. That's what enabled me to tumble to it. No members of any real family would all have the same initials or, anyhow, the practice wouldn't extend to a whole group of families connected by marriage. Whoever devised the code arranged for overlapping, too, in the most important cases. Mitzi is Hungary and, although one of the Mid-European ‘Engels', her name ties her with the Balkan ‘Müllers'. Finland is Hans and one of the Russian Mrs. Klein's sons but his first name connects him with the Scandinavian ‘Heins'. I expect it was arranged like that so that these dozens of names could be remembered easily from alphabetical association with various parts of the map. That would have enabled the Nazi leaders to mention the countries guardedly in the presence of people who weren't in the know, without much risk of giving anything away.”

Gregory nodded. “You've done a grand job of work, Freddie, in puzzling all this out; but you're looking pretty done-up now. I should go to bed if I were you and we'll talk some more about it in the morning.”

Freddie smiled his acknowledgements and climbed on to the oven with the two girls; but Gregory remained seated at the table. He was immensely intrigued at Freddie's discovery and wanted to run through the whole document with the key that Freddie had provided. When his friends woke again after a four hours' sleep he was still working on it.

That day the others went about their occupations much as usual, rubbing down the horses, thawing out the strips of dried
reindeer meat so that they should be ready for cooking in due course, and taking their hour's exercise in the crisp, crystal-white snow; but Gregory left all the work to them for once and seemed extremely preoccupied. In the afternoon he made a detour round the snow-covered barrier of trees to go and look at the empty road. That night after they had finished their evening meal he suddenly announced:

“I'm afraid you may not like what I've got to say but I want you to listen to me patiently for a while. I spent the early hours of the morning translating the famous document into ordinary language. I won't bother you with the early part of it but I think you ought to hear the last part, which consists of the stages by which Germany plans to dominate the world. I say
plans
rather than
planned
because the plan is still in active operation.”

With an uneasy feeling of foreboding they settled down to listen as he read:

“‘STEPS IN THE WORLD PROGRAMME TO ACHIEVE WORLD DOMINION

“‘1. The Austrians are a part of the German race although their country formed part of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire. Therefore an
Anschluss
by which we must absorb Austria should arouse little opposition.

“‘2. With regard to the rest of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire, Hungary values her independence but once Austria has been absorbed into Germany we can move troops up to the Hungarian border upon which Hungary will be in no position to resist us. She can, therefore, be invaded at any time so it would be preferable to settle matters first with Czechoslovakia. The Czecho-Slovaks also value their independence, particularly the Czechs, who are extremely anti-German, but they are rich people and the Skoda arms-works are essential to us early in the game. Pressure can be brought to bear upon the Czechs and the Slovaks through the Sudetenland and Ruthenia respectively. The Czechs ill-treat the Sudeten Germans, who are a part of the German race, so it should not be difficult to present a case for the return of Sudetenland to Germany. The Ruthenians are also ill-treated by the Czecho-Slovaks and Hungary regards Ruthenia as one of her lost provinces. In order to divert Britain's attention from our own operations we should incite Hungary to claim Ruthenia. The Czechs will appeal to their
ally, France, which may precipitate a crisis, but the French will have great difficulty in giving military support to Czechoslovakia and the crisis must be faced. Unless Britain agrees to give France her aid there will be no war. Once the Sudetenland has been cut off Czechoslovakia will prove an easy prey.

“‘3. Albania is very badly governed and none of the Balkan countries give her any assistance. Here is an excellent pretext for involving Italy. She must be persuaded to take over Albania, by force of arms if necessary. It is a poor country but an excellent base for operations against the Balkans. Once Italian troops are stationed there Italy would be in a much stronger position to exert pressure upon Yugoslavia and Greece.

“‘4. Some inducement will have to be offered to Russia to bring her into a Russo-German alliance. Germany has considerable interests in the three Baltic States, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. It is proposed that we should sacrifice these interests to Russia, upon which she would have no difficulty in regaining possession of these three ex-Russian provinces.

“‘5. Poland should be dealt with next. Parts of Poland are by right German and other parts by right Russian. Danzig and the Polish Corridor are definitely a part of Germany. The Poles persecute their German citizens in these territories which gives us every justification for reabsorbing them into the Reich. Poland may go to war rather than agree to surrender them peaceably, but if she does she will have such a bad case that we shall be able to brand her as a warmonger before the world. Russia and Germany will then act in concert, invade Poland and divide the country between them.

“‘6. Finland is another portion of the old Tsarist Empire which should be reabsorbed into it. The Finns are an independent people who are making a success of their small country and they may give Russia a certain amount of trouble; but Finland has always relied on German support. If we cut that off, Finland will go the same way as Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.

“‘7. While Russia deals with Finland we must exert pressure upon the Scandinavian countries to prevent their going to Finland's assistance. When the Russians have advanced their frontier across the Mannerheim Line there will no longer be any danger of the Scandinavians combining against us, as they can be threatened by Russia and ourselves simultaneously. Sweden is strong enough to require a separate operation so she should be left for the time being, but Norway
and Denmark can be taken over together. Sweden will then be entirely isolated, and so in no position to resist us whenever we consider it convenient to take control there.

“‘8. Before going down into the Balkans it is essential that our right flank should be secured on the North Sea, otherwise Holland and Belgium may become alarmed at our operations and for their own protection invite Britain and France to attack us through their territories while we are occupied elsewhere. This reasoning also applies to any suggestion of attempting to absorb Holland separately. The Low Countries must, therefore, be overrun in one operation. At this point we must certainly anticipate a conflict with Britain and France, but having already established ourselves in Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Holland and Belgium, we should have ample resources and nothing to fear.

“‘9. Switzerland, like Sweden, having been almost encircled by the powers of the Pan-German Federation, can be absorbed at any time, but should a major war eventuate at Stage 8, Switzerland should be next on the list so that we can outflank the Franco-British front and drive straight down towards the Mediterranean.

“‘10. A sufficient interval will now have elapsed since our take-over of Austria and Czechoslovakia for us to have properly established ourselves in those countries; so our next move should be to exert pressure on Hungary and to absorb her also.

“‘11. If over a period of five or six years we have succeeded in absorbing Austria, Czechoslovakia, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Hungary and a part of Poland, and Italy has absorbed Albania, either without provoking war or through a series of short wars, Britain will not fight again until directly threatened. However, our next stage, being Yugoslavia and Greece, involves our coming down into the Mediterranean, so it is highly probable that this will provoke Britain, for the first or second time, to conflict, but as the masters of the whole of Northern and Central Europe our position will then be very strong. Yugoslavia will be sandwiched between German-Austria and Italian-Albania and Italy must now be forced into the open. With Yugoslavia in Italo-German hands, Greece will fall to the Federation naturally by pressure from Yugoslavia and Italy.