Eric Ambler - Cause for Alarm

“… any assessment… of the situation must be based on the knowledge gained during the past few weeks.

“Several factors have operated to produce the present easement of tension. The first and most potent has been the hardening of American financial opinion in relation to possible aggressor states. The clear expression by responsible persons of the opinion that, from the point of view of capital, a falsified national balance sheet is no better for being national instead of private, was timely. The second has been the decision with which the Anglo-French bloc has functioned now that misunderstandings have been disposed of. A third influence has been the unexpected coolness which has developed lately between two partners of the Axis. The cause is understood to be of a military nature and to concern the Brenner Pass. The details are obscure, but it appears that the mutual assurances given in Rome not so long ago have not proved as durable as had been expected by the parties concerned.

“This much is clear. Extended co-operation on the part of the three great European democracies, France, Great Britain and our ally, Soviet Russia, backed by the moral support of the United States, would be an irresistible force for peace. But…”