Europe—whither bound? (Quo vadis Europa?) : $b being letters of travel from the capitals of Europe in the year 1921Graham, Stephen
History
Europe—whither bound? (Quo vadis Europa?) : $b being letters of travel from the capitals of Europe in the year 1921
Graham, Stephen
Europe -- Description and travel
A neutral baby has, therefore, appeared on the scene. It is a case for
the League of Nations to decide, We can only hope they will find it
possible to give it the status of a "good European."
LETTERS OF TRAVEL
XI. FROM MUNICH
The first day in Munich was marked by police inspection in bed. The
police come early to the hotels so as to catch people before they have
got up and gone out. The only people who are immune are Bavarians. If
you are a foreigner, even if you are a German from another part of
Germany--a Saxon, a Prussian, a Westphalian, it is all the same, you
must present yourself at the police-station and obtain permission to
reside in Munich. This means some hours in a stuffy room. You must
write a request for the permission in German and bring it some hours
later and answer the usual set of questions and be charged 150 marks.
I said I had not come to Germany to study the police system, and so by
dint of perseverance cut through half the formalities and the waiting
time and got away. An official wrote the request and even signed it
for me himself. Nowhere is red-tape more absurd than when it is being
wound by a defeated nation after a great war.
Bavaria is encouraged to think of herself as a separate country.
French policy foreshadows an independent State of Southern Catholics.
With that in view a French minister plenipotentiary has been sent to
Munich, and we British have just followed the French suit by appointing
our diplomatic representative also. Bavaria is not supposed to enter
into foreign relationships except through the Reich. To this Bavaria
has remained loyal. She has stood by the Reich even when the Reich has
protested an inability to control her. The appointment of the French
plenipotentiary was, therefore, taken as a calculated provocation and
the minister was accorded a very hostile greeting in the Press. This
annoyed him much, and he put it down, not to the general unpopularity
of French policy, but to the secret intrigue of the British who, as it
happens, are unusually intimate with Munich editors. The rivalry of
English and French in diplomatic action is as marked here as it is in
other capitals of Europe. Here, also, the natural antipathy which
French chauvinism arouses locally is thought to be aggravated by
British Intrigue. Our diplomats are given credit for being much more
active than they are.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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