ADSS 1.137 Tardini notes: France and UK prepared to fight

ADSS 1.137 Domenico Tardini, notes.

Reference: AES 6821/39

Location and date: Vatican, 27.08.1939

Summary statement: Counsellor of the French Embassy called.  France and UK are prepared to negotiate but will not repeat the Czechoslovakian situation and are prepared to fight.  Press reports in Italy are told to be less pessimistic.

Language: Italian

Text:

Nothing new.

The Counsellor of the French Embassy calls. (1) He expresses the usual fears and confirms that France and Great Britain are ready to negotiate for a peaceful and reasonable solution offering complete guarantee for the future (to avoid the repetition of what happened in Czechoslovakia); but they are more than ever resolved to react with violence.

Monsignor Pucci (2) tells me that yesterday a small group of the more influential newspapermen was called to the Ministry and was informed that nothing justified the excessive optimism of the Italian papers.  However, the news received during the night might have changed the directives because this morning (so says Monsignor Pucci) the Popolo di Roma publishes a very serene article.

Notes: 

(1) Jean Riviere, attached to the French Embassy to the Holy See until 1940; later French Ambassador to Ireland 1944-46.

(2) Enrico Pucci, (1879-1952), priest of Rome diocese, journalist for L’Osservatore Romano..