But that does not complete the picture. The Comite des Forge and Schneider-Creusot were not at all unwilling to see Hitler gain ascendancy in Germany. Here the documentary proof is lacking, but the Inferential proof is close to inescapable. In 1933 Hitler sued a German journalist for having made the statement that Skoda (and, through Skoda, Schneider-Creusot) had contributed to his campaign expenses. When, however, he was challenged to make a direct denial that this was so, he stormed from the witness stand, cursed the opposing lawyer for a Jew, never specifically answered the question, and was subsequently fined 1,000 marks for contempt of court, as a result. De Wendel and Schneider, according to their immemorial custom, said nothing, and nowhere has a denial of the accusation ever been made.

In other words, as the record stands, the leading armament makers not only in Germany, but in France, united in their support behind the one man most capable of stirring up a new outbreak of international anarchy in Europe. And by a curious coincidence (here is where the sword presents its other gleaming edge) the De Wendel-controlled newspapers in Paris immediately broke out in a fever of denunciation against the Hitler regime and called for fresh guaranties of security against the menace of rearming Germany. Awake, La Patrie!

Armorer's Philosophy

In that one example the whole philosophy of the armament makers reveals itself. Keep Europe in a constant state of nerves. Publish periodical war scares. Impress governmental officials with the vital necessity of maintaining armaments against the "agreesions" of neighbor states. Bribe as necessary. In every practical way create suspicion that security is threatened. And if you do your job thoroughly enough you will be able to sink into your armchair and reach the contented words of Eugene Schneider, announcing a dividend to his shareholders; "The defense of our country has brought us satisfactions which cannot be ignored."

For the armament industry operates with one curious advantage over any other business in the world: the greater the competition the greater the amount of business for ALL competitors. Perhaps it was Sir Basil Zaharoff who first discovered this economic fact when he played his one-submarine-two-submarine game with Greece and Turkey. At any rate, salesmen for the armament industry know the fact well and build on it today. If a Schueider-Creusot salesman sells 100,000 rifles to Yugoslavia he has already eased the path of the Vickers-Armstrongs salesman in selling 200,000 rifles to Italy. "Under this strange system," the French economist, Delaisi, wrote not long ago, "the war potential of a great country, or of a group of countries, is strengthened by the development of the adverse military power.

*An example: In March, 1933, the Rumanian government discovered that the Skoda works had evaded taxes to the extent of 65,000,000 let (something over $600,000). It looked into the safe of Bruno Seletski, Skoda's agent in Rumania, and discovered that he had distributed more than 1,000,000 let (close to $10,000,000 among the "right" officials of both the government and the army, and their wives and mistresses, and that hundreds of thousands had gone to "charity" and "entertainment" because the beneficiaries "will be used by us some day."

There was an intense amount of internal and international noise over the scandal, but it subsided in the general political turnover in Rumania last fall. And everything, including the bribes, is just about where it was, except General Popescu, who, in a fit of conscience, shot himself fatally through the head.