ABSTRACT
The aim of German diplomacy, as Ribbentrop sketched it in early 1938, was a situation in which England—because of insufficient armament or because of the threat to her empire by a superior coalition of powers tying down her military forces elsewhere—could not give France sufficient support in Europe. Through the spring of 1938, Ribbentrop indulged in a series of pro-Japanese gestures that were meant to prepare the atmosphere for alliance negotiations with Japan. When the Chinese government approached Berlin that winter with a new request for mediation in the China Incident, the German Foreign Ministry declined, for once satisfied that Japan should continue to be tied down on the Asiatic continent. The German navy claimed, Japanese attacks on British shipping would be even more beneficial to Germany than the attack on Singapore, since Britain's naval forces would then have to be even further dispersed. The navy recommended that Germany and Japan establish a "combined staff" or "supreme war council".
