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cover for 1,500,000 people, have already been distributed, and 80,000 are being delivered each week.
    It is also revealed that twelve regional commissioners, ‘men of national standing, capable of undertaking great responsibilities’, are to be appointed. They will have sweeping powers in the event of their region being cut off from London by enemy action.
    7 April, R OME
    Mussolini, piqued at Hitler’s foreign policy successes and bloodless conquests, occupies his own client state of Albania. King Zog, Queen Geraldine and their day-old son Prince Leka flee the country, and Italian King Victor Emmanuel is proclaimed King of Albania. Count Ciano notes in his diary that ‘international reaction (is) almost nonexistent’ and that the British ‘protest’ note ‘might have been written by our own offices’.
    7 April, W ORTHING
    ‘On an extra news bulletin at one o’clock heard that Italy has “smashed and grabbed” Albania. Just like Hitler and his methods. What will result? The nine o’clock news reports fighting there.’ (Joan Strange)
    8 April, V ATICAN
    Much to the annoyance of Mussolini, the new Pope Pius XII denounces violations of international treaties.
    8 April, L ONDON
    Picture Post publishes an article which argues that an Anglo-French alliance with Russia is now vital. It concludes, ‘Let Mr Chamberlain fly there.’
    8 April, T EDDINGTON
    ‘20,000 Italians land simultaneously at four Albanian towns. Zog’s queen had to travel to Greece two days after her baby was born. King Zog is expected to have gone too . . .’ (Helena Mott)
    13 April, B UCHAREST and A THENS
    Roumania and Greece accept British and French guarantees similar to that already given to Poland.
    15 April, W ASHINGTON DC
    President Franklin D. Roosevelt dispatches personal messages to both Hitler and Mussolini. He proposes an exchange of pledges of non-aggression pacts for ten or possibly twenty-five years between the dictators and thirty-one states. The pledges would then be followed by an international conference to discuss disarmament, raw materials and international trade. Mussolini is contemptuous of FDR’s proposal. ‘A result of progressive paralysis,’ he tells Count Ciano.
    16 April, W ORTHING
    ‘Germany and Italy seem somewhat stunned by Roosevelt’s proposal. There is a very bitter anti-British press campaign going on in the German press just now and now Roosevelt will be vilified too.’ (Joan Strange)
    20 April, B ERLIN
    Hitler’s fiftieth birthday is celebrated with a massive military parade. The British, French and American ambassadors are all conspicuous by their absence, but among the guests is Emil Hacha, now puppet President of the Reich Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. The parade goes on for nearly five hours, and propaganda minister Dr Josef Goebbels enthuses, ‘The Fuehrer is fêted like no other mortal has ever been.’ Among the telegrams of congratulations is a restrained one from King George VI.
    20 April, T EDDINGTON
    ‘Hitler’s birthday. He had an immense show of tanks, arms and aeroplanes for five solid hours. I hope he enjoyed himself.’ (Helena Mott)
    23 April, L ONDON
    Roumanian foreign minister Grigore Gafencu, on a tour of European capitals, arrives in Britain. At an audience at Buckingham Palace with the King and Queen, Queen Elizabeth asks Gafencu what Hitler is like. The foreign minister replies that he got the impression that the Fuehrer could be ‘very simple in manner if he wished, but that made him all the more to be feared’. The Queen replies, ‘If he is simple, it might be that he is really great, unless it should be greatness of another sort.’ When Gafencu meets with Chamberlain, the Prime Minister is more forthright in his opinion of Hitler. ‘He is a liar,’ he tells the Roumanian statesman.
    26 April, L ONDON
    Chamberlain announces to the Commons the introduction of compulsory military training. This is the first time that conscription has been introduced in peacetime