Book Review: Ally Betrayed
| Author | M. A. Western |
| Published date | 01 September 1947 |
| Date | 01 September 1947 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/002070204700200312 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
International Journal
effects
of
the
first
world
war.
He
censures
the
bourgeoisie
for
its indiffer-
ence
to Wilsonian
"dreams" and
its
dislike
of
the
forty-hour
week
of
the
Popular
Front,
forgetting
that,
at
the
focal
point
of
Geneva, the
bourgeois
governments
and
the employers
of
other nations revealed
attitudes
usually
more negative. In
a
passing
aberration
he
even
plays
with the
fantastic
notion
that
in
1933
his
own
country
should
have
used
force
to
prevent
Hitler's
domination
of
Germany-in
reality
that
a
peaceful
France,
in
the
midst
of
the
Disarmament
Conference,
ought
suddenly
to
have
committed
actual aggression
in
order
to
head
off
hypothetical
aggression-and
incidentally
to
have
been
outlawed
and
boycotted.
He
blames
his
bourgeois
predecessors for
having
failed
up
to
1936
to
renew
or
modernize
French
armament,
but
forgets
that
Britain
and
the
United
States
had
always
claimed
that
France
was
too
heavily armed.
In
the
matter
of
internal
reform,
M.
Blum
makes
few
definite
proposals. Distressed
at
the
feeble
functioning
of
Parliament,
he
glances
wistfully
towards
the
Swiss
and
American systems.
He
insists
that
an
efficient
parliamentary
r6gime
presupposes
strongly
organized
parties;
but
surely
the
prerequisite
is one
party
with
an
overall majority;
and
the
complex
pressures
of
French
history
have
thus
far
failed
to
produce
such
a
party.
The
Senate,
of
whose
defects alone
Blum
had
practical
experience,
has
now
made way
for
a
consultative
council.
Nevertheless,
in
spite of
the sustained
severity of
his
examen
de
conscience
on
behalf
of
his
people,
Leon
Blum
sometimes
relents.
He
finds
it
"ridiculous
to
denounce
these
twenty-odd
years
as
an
example
of
political corruption.
In the
main,
the Third
Republic
was
an
honest
r6gime.
. . .
Republican
members
of
Parliament
were
in
great
majority
honest
men."
He
confesses
that
the
fundamental
cause
.of
the
failure
of
the
Popular
Front
in
1936-37
was
the unfavourable
international
environment.
Finally,
as
we
prepare
a
new
German
treaty,
it
is
inter-
esting
to
read
a
Socialist
leader's
opinion
that
"The
Europe remolded
by the
Treaty
of
Versailles
[was]
less
absurd
and
less
iniquitous
than
at
any
other
known
moment
of
its
history."
University
of
Saskatchewan,
January
1947.
S.
Mack
Eastman
ALLY
BETRAYED.
The Uncensored
Story
of
Tito and
Mihailo-
vitch.
By David
Martin.
Foreword by
Rebecca
West.
1946.
(New
York:
Pentice
Hall.
Toronto:
McLeod.
372
pp.
$4.50)
The
great merit
of
ALLY
BETRAYED
is
that
it
presents,
in clear
and
highly
readable
form,
the
case
for
Draza
Mihailovitch, including
that
important
body of evidence
which was
deliberately
excluded
from
the
Belgrade
trial.
Its
weakness
lies
in,
the
fact
that
it
sets out
to
prove
altogether
too
much.
Just
as
Tito,
for
one
set
of
reasons,
attempted
to-
place
the
Western Powers
in
the
dock
at
Belgrade,
so
David
Martin,
for
diametrically
opposite
reasons,
seeks
to
indict
them
in
this
book.
The
author,
a
former Canadian
air
force
pilot,
has
not
apparently
visited
Yugoslavia
but
he
has
had
access
to
an
important
body
of
docu-
266
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