A HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO ALL. From President Roosevelt’s Christmas Eve broadcast to the nation --
"At this Christmastide of 1940 it is well for all humanity to remind itself that while this is in name a Christian celebration, it is participated in reverently and happily by hundreds of millions of people who are members of other religions or belong actively to no church at all. The reason is not to seek. It is because the spirit of unselfish service personified by the life and teachings of Christ makes appeal to the inner conscience and hope of every man and every woman in every part of the earth. It transcends in the ultimate all lines of race, of habitat, of nation. It lives in the midst of war, of slavery, of conquest. It survives prohibitions and decrees and force. It is an unquenchable spring of promise to humanity."
"Let us make this Christmas a merry one for the little children in our midst. For us of maturer years it cannot be merry. But for most of us it can be a happy Christmas if by happiness we mean that we have done with doubt, that we have set our hearts against fear, that we still believe in the Golden Rule of all mankind, that we intend to live more purely in the spirit of Christ, and that by our works, as well as by our words, we will strive forward in faith and in hope and in love. In that spirit I wish a happy Christmas to you all, and happier Christmases yet to come."
TAKING A BREAK. I’ll be boarding the Chesapeake & Ohio shortly for some extended holiday visiting. And since my kerosene-powered laptop is still not functioning...there’ll be no blogging until Jan. 12. Here’s hoping we can all enjoy a brief respite from the worries of this cataclysmic year, and that the courageous struggles of all who love freedom will result in lots of good news throughout 1941.
Sunday, December 25, 2016
Saturday, December 24, 2016
Tuesday, December 24, 1940
TODAY’S ITALIAN DEFEATS (PART XXXVII). British troops continue their advance into Italian-held Libya, and the Associated Press reports that the Royal Air Force continues to pound some 20,000 besieged Fascist troops in the fortress of Bardia -- which appears likely to fall shortly. British planes are also bombing Marshal Graziani’s tougher defenses farther west, at Bengasi. This sounds bad enough, but the A.P. makes Italian prospects sound absolutely catastrophic -- "Since there was no apparent move by the Italian leader to send aid to his beleaguered forces in the Eastern Libyan port it was assumed by military sources that the Bardia garrison had been chosen to hold up British forces while Marshal Graziani prepared a ‘last ditch’ stand in Western Libya." Can Mussolini’s armies really be that close to being completely chased out of northern Africa? That’s dumbfounding, but given the extent of the Italian military collapse since October, I suppose it’s now credible.
Italy appears to be putting up a stiffer fight in Albania, where fresh troops have been sent into battle with Greek forces around the towns of Tepelini and Klisura, while wave after wave of Italian bombing planes have been sent out in a desperate attempt to stop the Greek advance. According to Ben Ames of United Press, some 50,000 Italian troops are said to be "locked in a mountain trap" by blistering Greek attacks on three sides. For all of the increased Fascist resistance, the Greek advance appears to continue, albeit slowly.
And Marshal Graziani has just submitted a report to Mussolini which explains that Italian troops have fought well in Egypt and Libya, but were outnumbered in men and machines. An A.P. dispatch says he gives backhanded credit to the British Navy’s blockade for helping to turn the tide -- "The Fascists failed to start an offensive on Matruh, Egypt, early in December because they lacked armored cars, tanks, and other mechanized equipment which had not arrived from Italy in due time."
WHO STANDS AGAINST BRITAIN? Britain has ordered about $2,500,000,000 worth of steel and other equipment from the U.S., and is expected now to receive de facto credits of $3,000,000,000 in additional war supplies during the coming year. But Harold Callender writes in Sunday’s New York Times just who’s trying to derail this urgently-needed aid --
"While all signs indicate that a large majority of the public wants to help Britain win, but without going to war, the dissenting minority, though it may have diminished, remains highly vocal in and outside Congress, and it has not been silenced by the proposed shift of the British credit question from the sphere of finance to the sphere of barter. Some, like Brig. Gen. Robert E. Wood, would prefer that this country press for peace negotiations now instead of placing American industrial resources behind Britain for a perhaps prolonged struggle to defeat Hitler. The new ‘No Foreign War Committee,’ a foil to the White Committee to Aid the Allies, opposes the President’s barter-loan scheme and asserts that Americans again, as in 1917, are being ‘played for suckers.’ Senator Holt of West Virginia suspects some Americans want to plunge into the war to help Britain, and Senator Nye argues that Britain needs no credits and that anyhow she herself declared ths war."
Mr. Callender also aptly sums up the current differences between interventionists and isolationists, and hints at where both sides might even find agreement -- "Mingled together in the minds of the dissenters are fear of America being in war, doubts about the outcome of the struggle and a traditional suspicion of everything British. Some deny that Britain is America’s first line of defense; others question the endurance of that line. Even many who ardently favor helping Britain would recoil from carrying that help so far as fighting by her side and from measures entailing risk of war. The basic division is between those who think the greatest danger for America is involvement in war and those who think the greatest danger lies in a Nazi victory."
HITLER’S WOES SINCE JULY. Why did the German Foreign Office abruptly issue an angry denunciation of American foreign policy last week, after months of contemptuous indifference on the question of U.S. aid to Britain? Washington Post columnist Barnet Nover says it reflects a growing lack of confidence among the Nazis. In detailing this he offers what amounts to a six-month roundup of Axis troubles, contrasting mightily with their spring and summer triumphs --
"The last few months have been most unsatisfactory from the German point of view. The serial assault on Great Britain has failed to bring that great nation to her knees. But the alternative policy of an attack on Britain’s Mediterranean positions has also proved unworkable. In the first place, Hitler’s diplomatic offensive met with failure; secondly, the Greek resistance placed an unexpected obstacle in the way of an Axis advance to the Near East through the Balkans; and most recently, the defeat of the Italians in Egypt and Libya has made it impossible for Hitler and Mussolini to carry out a pincers movement against the Suez Canal. Indeed, Mussolini will be fortunate if he emerges from the African struggle with his whole skin. Because of these developments Hitler has had to revert to this original plan of winning the war by an assault on Great Britain. He must do so soon for if he waits too long American production may weigh the scales against him. But if such an assault is to be undertaken in the proximate future there must be an intensification of the efforts to wear down Great Britain by means of bombing raids on British centers and U-boat and bombing attacks on British shipping."
Italy appears to be putting up a stiffer fight in Albania, where fresh troops have been sent into battle with Greek forces around the towns of Tepelini and Klisura, while wave after wave of Italian bombing planes have been sent out in a desperate attempt to stop the Greek advance. According to Ben Ames of United Press, some 50,000 Italian troops are said to be "locked in a mountain trap" by blistering Greek attacks on three sides. For all of the increased Fascist resistance, the Greek advance appears to continue, albeit slowly.
And Marshal Graziani has just submitted a report to Mussolini which explains that Italian troops have fought well in Egypt and Libya, but were outnumbered in men and machines. An A.P. dispatch says he gives backhanded credit to the British Navy’s blockade for helping to turn the tide -- "The Fascists failed to start an offensive on Matruh, Egypt, early in December because they lacked armored cars, tanks, and other mechanized equipment which had not arrived from Italy in due time."
WHO STANDS AGAINST BRITAIN? Britain has ordered about $2,500,000,000 worth of steel and other equipment from the U.S., and is expected now to receive de facto credits of $3,000,000,000 in additional war supplies during the coming year. But Harold Callender writes in Sunday’s New York Times just who’s trying to derail this urgently-needed aid --
"While all signs indicate that a large majority of the public wants to help Britain win, but without going to war, the dissenting minority, though it may have diminished, remains highly vocal in and outside Congress, and it has not been silenced by the proposed shift of the British credit question from the sphere of finance to the sphere of barter. Some, like Brig. Gen. Robert E. Wood, would prefer that this country press for peace negotiations now instead of placing American industrial resources behind Britain for a perhaps prolonged struggle to defeat Hitler. The new ‘No Foreign War Committee,’ a foil to the White Committee to Aid the Allies, opposes the President’s barter-loan scheme and asserts that Americans again, as in 1917, are being ‘played for suckers.’ Senator Holt of West Virginia suspects some Americans want to plunge into the war to help Britain, and Senator Nye argues that Britain needs no credits and that anyhow she herself declared ths war."
Mr. Callender also aptly sums up the current differences between interventionists and isolationists, and hints at where both sides might even find agreement -- "Mingled together in the minds of the dissenters are fear of America being in war, doubts about the outcome of the struggle and a traditional suspicion of everything British. Some deny that Britain is America’s first line of defense; others question the endurance of that line. Even many who ardently favor helping Britain would recoil from carrying that help so far as fighting by her side and from measures entailing risk of war. The basic division is between those who think the greatest danger for America is involvement in war and those who think the greatest danger lies in a Nazi victory."
HITLER’S WOES SINCE JULY. Why did the German Foreign Office abruptly issue an angry denunciation of American foreign policy last week, after months of contemptuous indifference on the question of U.S. aid to Britain? Washington Post columnist Barnet Nover says it reflects a growing lack of confidence among the Nazis. In detailing this he offers what amounts to a six-month roundup of Axis troubles, contrasting mightily with their spring and summer triumphs --
"The last few months have been most unsatisfactory from the German point of view. The serial assault on Great Britain has failed to bring that great nation to her knees. But the alternative policy of an attack on Britain’s Mediterranean positions has also proved unworkable. In the first place, Hitler’s diplomatic offensive met with failure; secondly, the Greek resistance placed an unexpected obstacle in the way of an Axis advance to the Near East through the Balkans; and most recently, the defeat of the Italians in Egypt and Libya has made it impossible for Hitler and Mussolini to carry out a pincers movement against the Suez Canal. Indeed, Mussolini will be fortunate if he emerges from the African struggle with his whole skin. Because of these developments Hitler has had to revert to this original plan of winning the war by an assault on Great Britain. He must do so soon for if he waits too long American production may weigh the scales against him. But if such an assault is to be undertaken in the proximate future there must be an intensification of the efforts to wear down Great Britain by means of bombing raids on British centers and U-boat and bombing attacks on British shipping."
Thursday, December 22, 2016
Sunday, December 22, 1940
ROOSEVELT’S NEW "SUPER-COMMISSION." The big story this week-end (except in some of the isolationist papers) is President Roosevelt’s appointment of a four-member "superagency" to oversee the nation’s defense effort. It’s humble title is the Office for Production Management. It sounds like a promising attempt to speed up preparedness and eliminate the monkey wrenches which plague defense production. But the newspaper accounts provide as many questions as answers. The Board will have "full powers," according to George Bookman in the Washington Post -- but it "would not supercede the Army and Navy in the actual signing of contracts." Bruce Pinter in the New York Herald Tribune writes that the Board will be independent and its decisions will not be "subject to [Roosevelt’s] immediate approval." But "if any action was taken which he deemed contrary to the nation’s best interests he would call in the board and put them straight." Will the Board speed up production? Production has been speeding up every day, said the President elliptically.
As is his habit these days, the President claimed constitutional power to form the Board without the approval of Congress. He will form the agency through a series of executive orders, in a process expected to take about ten days. Interestingly, of the Board’s four members -- Secretary of War Stimson, Secretary of the Navy Knox, automobile production wizard William S. Knudson, and union leader Sidney Hillman -- none is a Democrat. That’s a smart move politically, though it seems on the surface to increase the chances that the Board and the President might soon be publicly at odds.
STRAIGHT (AND SCARY) TALK IN TOKYO. If you’re looking for reassurance that the U.S. and Japan might smoothe over their frayed relations anytime soon, you won’t find it in Friday’s New York Times. Hugh Byas’ story on a blunt exchange of views between U.S. Ambassador Grew and Foreign Minister Matsuoka adds up to two things -- (1) the Roosevelt Administration is warning Japan unambiguously that America won’t cooperate with Japan’s plans for a "new order in Greater East Asia," and (2) according to Matsuoka, "Japan’s policy in the future will revolve around the three-power pact" with Germany and Italy.
The occasion was a mixed Japanese-American gathering in Tokyo honoring Japan’s new ambassador to Washington, Admiral Nomura. To Minister Matsuoka’s insistence that Japan’s aggression in China, and now in Indo-China, was a "moral crusade," Ambassador Grew retorted, "Let us say of nations as of men, by their fruits ye shall know them." On the other hand, Matsuoka warned that if the Administration brought the U.S. into the European war, the result would be "Armageddon and total destruction of our culture and civilization." This contrasts with the foreign minister’s tone a week ago, when he emphasized "safeguards" and "delays" in the wording of the three-power pact which would give the Japanese some leeway in its decision-making if the U.S. went to war with Germany.
The upshot of this seems to be that in recent months Japan has been telling America to stay out of Asia, and now they’re telling us to stay out of Europe as well. Fortunately, at least for the time being, they will allow to us remain involved in the affairs of North and South America.
THE ARGUMENT FOR NEGOTIATIONS. Just in time for Christmas, the Chicago Tribune’s editorial page insists once again that Europe’s warring powers should agree to a compromise peace treaty --
"In spite of sea and air attacks, the two belligerents are making no progress whatever toward a decision. If the war isn’t a stalemate, it at least is as far removed from anything promising success to either side. Apparently both can continue to withstand anything the other can throw at it for an indefinite period. There is great loss and suffering, but there is nothing promising a victory in any of the operations. British ingenuity is at work on methods to meet the attacks on its shipping. There has been success at that before and it may be expected that each new development in attack will be followed by a counteracting development in defense....Italy is suffering reverses. Before these reverses go too far the Nazis will probably give their fascist allies some effective aid....Germany’s inability to get at Great Britain for a fight to the finish is matched by Great Britain’s inability to get at Germany....People who reject all idea of a negotiated peace and talk of destroying the enemy must reject the facts. Unless something unforeseen or unforeseeable happens, the war remains one in which neither side can see an outcome favoring the continuance of unavailing but destructive efforts. Payment is deferred, but all this will be paid for. The longer it is deferred the more punishing the costs will be. Europe nearly cracked up in 1918."
A chilling possibility to contemplate, but once again the Tribune editors ignore the central question -- could Britain or the U.S. hope to live in peace with a Nazi Europe? Those who believe so "reject the facts" of what happened to Austria, Czecho-Slovakia, Poland, Denmark, Norway, the low countries, France, and most recently Rumania. Aside from the moral question of turning our backs on the fate of these conquered peoples, it is folly to think that Hitler will miraculously begin living up to agreements with anyone. Every one of these tragic nations once received a hands-off guarantee from Germany. Could anyone really imagine the U.S. enjoying equitable trade relations with such a cynical, deceitful regime ascendant in Europe? Even if every one of the Tribune’s points were true -- pretty debatable in itself -- a negotiated peace could only be worse.
As is his habit these days, the President claimed constitutional power to form the Board without the approval of Congress. He will form the agency through a series of executive orders, in a process expected to take about ten days. Interestingly, of the Board’s four members -- Secretary of War Stimson, Secretary of the Navy Knox, automobile production wizard William S. Knudson, and union leader Sidney Hillman -- none is a Democrat. That’s a smart move politically, though it seems on the surface to increase the chances that the Board and the President might soon be publicly at odds.
STRAIGHT (AND SCARY) TALK IN TOKYO. If you’re looking for reassurance that the U.S. and Japan might smoothe over their frayed relations anytime soon, you won’t find it in Friday’s New York Times. Hugh Byas’ story on a blunt exchange of views between U.S. Ambassador Grew and Foreign Minister Matsuoka adds up to two things -- (1) the Roosevelt Administration is warning Japan unambiguously that America won’t cooperate with Japan’s plans for a "new order in Greater East Asia," and (2) according to Matsuoka, "Japan’s policy in the future will revolve around the three-power pact" with Germany and Italy.
The occasion was a mixed Japanese-American gathering in Tokyo honoring Japan’s new ambassador to Washington, Admiral Nomura. To Minister Matsuoka’s insistence that Japan’s aggression in China, and now in Indo-China, was a "moral crusade," Ambassador Grew retorted, "Let us say of nations as of men, by their fruits ye shall know them." On the other hand, Matsuoka warned that if the Administration brought the U.S. into the European war, the result would be "Armageddon and total destruction of our culture and civilization." This contrasts with the foreign minister’s tone a week ago, when he emphasized "safeguards" and "delays" in the wording of the three-power pact which would give the Japanese some leeway in its decision-making if the U.S. went to war with Germany.
The upshot of this seems to be that in recent months Japan has been telling America to stay out of Asia, and now they’re telling us to stay out of Europe as well. Fortunately, at least for the time being, they will allow to us remain involved in the affairs of North and South America.
THE ARGUMENT FOR NEGOTIATIONS. Just in time for Christmas, the Chicago Tribune’s editorial page insists once again that Europe’s warring powers should agree to a compromise peace treaty --
"In spite of sea and air attacks, the two belligerents are making no progress whatever toward a decision. If the war isn’t a stalemate, it at least is as far removed from anything promising success to either side. Apparently both can continue to withstand anything the other can throw at it for an indefinite period. There is great loss and suffering, but there is nothing promising a victory in any of the operations. British ingenuity is at work on methods to meet the attacks on its shipping. There has been success at that before and it may be expected that each new development in attack will be followed by a counteracting development in defense....Italy is suffering reverses. Before these reverses go too far the Nazis will probably give their fascist allies some effective aid....Germany’s inability to get at Great Britain for a fight to the finish is matched by Great Britain’s inability to get at Germany....People who reject all idea of a negotiated peace and talk of destroying the enemy must reject the facts. Unless something unforeseen or unforeseeable happens, the war remains one in which neither side can see an outcome favoring the continuance of unavailing but destructive efforts. Payment is deferred, but all this will be paid for. The longer it is deferred the more punishing the costs will be. Europe nearly cracked up in 1918."
A chilling possibility to contemplate, but once again the Tribune editors ignore the central question -- could Britain or the U.S. hope to live in peace with a Nazi Europe? Those who believe so "reject the facts" of what happened to Austria, Czecho-Slovakia, Poland, Denmark, Norway, the low countries, France, and most recently Rumania. Aside from the moral question of turning our backs on the fate of these conquered peoples, it is folly to think that Hitler will miraculously begin living up to agreements with anyone. Every one of these tragic nations once received a hands-off guarantee from Germany. Could anyone really imagine the U.S. enjoying equitable trade relations with such a cynical, deceitful regime ascendant in Europe? Even if every one of the Tribune’s points were true -- pretty debatable in itself -- a negotiated peace could only be worse.
Monday, December 19, 2016
Thursday, December 19, 1940
ROOSEVELT PROPOSES "LENDING" ARMS. Early in the next congressional session, President Roosevelt will propose a novel method of aiding Britain. While gifts and loans to purchase war materials have been discussed (and denounced), the President’s reportedly opting for something that sounds in-between. As George Bookman in the Washington Post explains it, under this plan "the United States would pay for all future British arms orders, and lease or mortgage the equipment to Great Britain, with a ‘gentleman’s agreement’ that England would make repayment in kind after the war." In other words, when the war is over Britain will owe the U.S. a debt not of money, but in goods, and she could pay that debt either by returning the goods she has used, or manufacturing new items to replace goods destroyed in combat. It’s the President’s way of getting around the "silly dollar sign" that Secretary Morgenthau warns will soon prevent the British from obtaining further U.S. war supplies. Administration officials have said for some time that Britain is not in financial shape to buy war aid from us much longer.
It’s a smart step, a thoughtful way to get around Britain’s financial concerns without doing damage to the fragile political consensus that aid to the British is necessary for America’s own defense. It also gets around the necessity to alter the Johnson Act. The isolationists think otherwise, of course. The Chicago Tribune’s Walter Trohan writes a fairly balanced story on the plan in Wednesday’s editions, although the opening paragraph declares sensationally that "the full resources of the United States will be placed at the disposal of Great Britain for the duration of the war against Germany, without one cent of immediate cost to the British empire." A more level-headed newspaper reader, on the other hand, has good reason to doubt the British would denude our own defenses, or that the Administration has given Prime Minister Churchill carte blanche over how U.S. military resources might be deployed.
One other clever aspect of the plan in particular -- it would help a victorious Britain stay afloat financially after the war, by providing a ready-made market for production of British goods.
WHY "AID" HAS BEEN A MISNOMER. Up until the President’s announcement, much of the discussion about aid to Britain centered on loans of various kinds. But that reduces the question of Britain’s survival and the cause of democracy to a penny-pinching argument over whether the British are a good credit risk. James S. Pope in the Louisville Courier-Journal has written one of the best critiques of this narrow, penny-pinching approach, in words reprinted in this week’s issue of Time magazine --
"The phrase of the moment is ‘Aid to England.’ I, for one, am sick of it. Dr. Gallup says practically all Americans favor ‘aid to England.’...Columnists speak learnedly of the ‘aid’ we already are giving Britain. Our President delivers himself of the odd observation that our ‘aid to England’ has reached its peak....In heaven’s high name, how have we aided England? When? Whose sacrifice produced the aid?...We have sold England an indeterminate number of military airplanes. She has paid cash. She has come and got them. We have sold England, I understand, some old rifles and various shipments of ammunition. She paid cash. She came and got them....Finally, in a moment of benign generosity, we traded England some rotting destroyers for some air and naval bases so valuable to our defense that even Mr. Churchill had difficulty justifying the deal to his Parliament."
"We are going to sell her more and more planes, if our factories will just decide to push them fast enough. We are going to sell England practically anything she wants – if we don’t want it first.... And Napoleon called England a nation of shopkeepers! Oh, America, thou valiant, thou strong. Land of freedom. Eternal foe of cruelty and oppression. defender of men’s minds and men’s properties – of men’s ‘rights.’ What an inspiration we are....We are opening our hearts. We are opening our order books....We are in the throes of a pleasant national orgy of ‘aid to England.’ Ain’t it wonderful?"
A WINTER INVASION OF BRITAIN? It’s a real possibility. At least that’s what they’re saying now -- Lord Beaverbrook in a British radio broadcast Tuesday night (as reported in the New York Herald Tribune), and Alf Landon, quoted in an Associated Press dispatch. Speaking from Topeka, Mr. Landon said that while in Washington recently "from reliable official resources I was advised that Hitler plans to start his English invasion in the middle of February." An earlier date makes more sense to me than a later one. It’s not in the Fuehrer’s personality to fulfill widely-held expectations that he would wait until sometime in the spring. Moreover, the element of surprise would by now be indispensable to the success of any invasion plan, given the toughness of British resistance.
It’s a smart step, a thoughtful way to get around Britain’s financial concerns without doing damage to the fragile political consensus that aid to the British is necessary for America’s own defense. It also gets around the necessity to alter the Johnson Act. The isolationists think otherwise, of course. The Chicago Tribune’s Walter Trohan writes a fairly balanced story on the plan in Wednesday’s editions, although the opening paragraph declares sensationally that "the full resources of the United States will be placed at the disposal of Great Britain for the duration of the war against Germany, without one cent of immediate cost to the British empire." A more level-headed newspaper reader, on the other hand, has good reason to doubt the British would denude our own defenses, or that the Administration has given Prime Minister Churchill carte blanche over how U.S. military resources might be deployed.
One other clever aspect of the plan in particular -- it would help a victorious Britain stay afloat financially after the war, by providing a ready-made market for production of British goods.
WHY "AID" HAS BEEN A MISNOMER. Up until the President’s announcement, much of the discussion about aid to Britain centered on loans of various kinds. But that reduces the question of Britain’s survival and the cause of democracy to a penny-pinching argument over whether the British are a good credit risk. James S. Pope in the Louisville Courier-Journal has written one of the best critiques of this narrow, penny-pinching approach, in words reprinted in this week’s issue of Time magazine --
"The phrase of the moment is ‘Aid to England.’ I, for one, am sick of it. Dr. Gallup says practically all Americans favor ‘aid to England.’...Columnists speak learnedly of the ‘aid’ we already are giving Britain. Our President delivers himself of the odd observation that our ‘aid to England’ has reached its peak....In heaven’s high name, how have we aided England? When? Whose sacrifice produced the aid?...We have sold England an indeterminate number of military airplanes. She has paid cash. She has come and got them. We have sold England, I understand, some old rifles and various shipments of ammunition. She paid cash. She came and got them....Finally, in a moment of benign generosity, we traded England some rotting destroyers for some air and naval bases so valuable to our defense that even Mr. Churchill had difficulty justifying the deal to his Parliament."
"We are going to sell her more and more planes, if our factories will just decide to push them fast enough. We are going to sell England practically anything she wants – if we don’t want it first.... And Napoleon called England a nation of shopkeepers! Oh, America, thou valiant, thou strong. Land of freedom. Eternal foe of cruelty and oppression. defender of men’s minds and men’s properties – of men’s ‘rights.’ What an inspiration we are....We are opening our hearts. We are opening our order books....We are in the throes of a pleasant national orgy of ‘aid to England.’ Ain’t it wonderful?"
A WINTER INVASION OF BRITAIN? It’s a real possibility. At least that’s what they’re saying now -- Lord Beaverbrook in a British radio broadcast Tuesday night (as reported in the New York Herald Tribune), and Alf Landon, quoted in an Associated Press dispatch. Speaking from Topeka, Mr. Landon said that while in Washington recently "from reliable official resources I was advised that Hitler plans to start his English invasion in the middle of February." An earlier date makes more sense to me than a later one. It’s not in the Fuehrer’s personality to fulfill widely-held expectations that he would wait until sometime in the spring. Moreover, the element of surprise would by now be indispensable to the success of any invasion plan, given the toughness of British resistance.
Saturday, December 17, 2016
Tuesday, December 17, 1940
BRITISH MARCH INTO LIBYA. Britain’s victorious troops in northern Africa haven’t paused for breath after clearing the Italians out of Egypt, according to a United Press dispatch published Monday. Mechanized forces have invaded Libya "through a desert sandstorm to carry the war into Italian-owned territory," says the U.P. Fort Capuzzo, just insider the Libyan border, now flies the Union Jack. The Fascist coastal base of Bardia is already said to be afire and under seize by British warships and bombers. Bardia is ten miles west of the Egyptian border. Italian forces are also reported to be reeling from heavy Royal Air Force attacks on Tobruk, just west of Bardia, and at Tripoli, a full 700 miles west of the front. The U.P. also says the British have taken an astounding 50,000 Italian prisoners in the week-long campaign.
And meanwhile, pressure by Greek troops in southern Albania is said to be caving in the center of the Italian line there, reports A.E. Angelopoulos of the International News Service. There’s speculation the Fascist high command is "preparing for a possible Dunkerque-like retreat through the port of Valona back to Italy."
This amazing collapse of Italian armed force makes one wonder if the Fascists might indeed be completely driven out. The Chicago Tribune notes editorially (and correctly, for a change), that German intervention in the African and Albanian battles might "restore the spirit of victory, but not the Italian pride" and reduce Italy to "a satellite and not a sun." However, "unless Hitler does intervene, Italy may not be able to repair the damages. The spirit of the people isn’t in the war and a bad winter with no mitigating military successes will not inspire them. It is probably futurist speculation to inquire what Hitler would do if Italy were to ask for a negotiated peace, what the Italians themselves, reverting to the king as the head of their government, would do to Mussolini if peace were proposed, and whether the British would want to come to terms with Mussolini or would prefer to keep him as a Nazi liability."
THE FOOD CONTROVERSY. David Anderson writes in Sunday’s New York Times that Britons are worried about proposals circulating in the U.S. to provide humanitarian shipments of food to Nazi-occupied countries in Europe. It’s a troubling question in both countries. Shouldn’t we try to do what we can to save starving civilian populations this winter, especially since Britain’s war policies are in part responsible for Europe’s food shortages? The answer isn’t an easy one, in light of the fact that Germany can appropriate foodstuffs from relief ships and convert them to military supplies, such as potatoes to alcohol, which could widely be used as a substitute for fuel oil. Also --
"What nettles the British people as much as anything is the futility, as they see it, of the argument. The situation of France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Norway varies only in degree. Their plight may be desperate before the war is over, but the fault is seen clearly as Germany’s, since the food problem confronting them hinges mainly on the matter of distribution....No one denies that the motive is a good one, but all declare that it is based upon ‘misguided idealism’ at a time when ‘common sense’ can alone be trusted to save their country and they feel the United States as well....The blockade imposed by the British Navy is directed primarily at cutting off raw materials, oil, etc. It is not dictated by humanitarianism, but by the way the cards fall. The food blockade of Europe is a secondary factor."
Britain herself is getting by, writes Mr. Anderson, but not particularly well -- "The British housewife is now obliged to get along with a quarter pound of bacon per person per week, which will be cut so that the present three weeks’ supply stretches over four weeks. The sugar ration stands at a half pound, which is four ounces less than that of last Christmas. All fruits except oranges have been crossed off the import list."
DOES HE KNOW SOMETHING WE DON’T? Bruce Pinter reports in Monday’s New York Herald Tribune on President Roosevelt’s ominous farewell to the patients of the Warm Springs Foundation. After the visit with polio patients there on Sunday, the President vowed to spend two weeks with them next March "if the world survives." This was the same place where, just over eighteen months ago, F.D.R. concluded a customary visit to the Foundation by promising he’d be back in the fall, "if we don’t have a war." Isolationists made a lot of hay out of the President’s use of the first plural pronoun.
But there was a war in the fall. Will there still be a world next March?
And meanwhile, pressure by Greek troops in southern Albania is said to be caving in the center of the Italian line there, reports A.E. Angelopoulos of the International News Service. There’s speculation the Fascist high command is "preparing for a possible Dunkerque-like retreat through the port of Valona back to Italy."
This amazing collapse of Italian armed force makes one wonder if the Fascists might indeed be completely driven out. The Chicago Tribune notes editorially (and correctly, for a change), that German intervention in the African and Albanian battles might "restore the spirit of victory, but not the Italian pride" and reduce Italy to "a satellite and not a sun." However, "unless Hitler does intervene, Italy may not be able to repair the damages. The spirit of the people isn’t in the war and a bad winter with no mitigating military successes will not inspire them. It is probably futurist speculation to inquire what Hitler would do if Italy were to ask for a negotiated peace, what the Italians themselves, reverting to the king as the head of their government, would do to Mussolini if peace were proposed, and whether the British would want to come to terms with Mussolini or would prefer to keep him as a Nazi liability."
THE FOOD CONTROVERSY. David Anderson writes in Sunday’s New York Times that Britons are worried about proposals circulating in the U.S. to provide humanitarian shipments of food to Nazi-occupied countries in Europe. It’s a troubling question in both countries. Shouldn’t we try to do what we can to save starving civilian populations this winter, especially since Britain’s war policies are in part responsible for Europe’s food shortages? The answer isn’t an easy one, in light of the fact that Germany can appropriate foodstuffs from relief ships and convert them to military supplies, such as potatoes to alcohol, which could widely be used as a substitute for fuel oil. Also --
"What nettles the British people as much as anything is the futility, as they see it, of the argument. The situation of France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Norway varies only in degree. Their plight may be desperate before the war is over, but the fault is seen clearly as Germany’s, since the food problem confronting them hinges mainly on the matter of distribution....No one denies that the motive is a good one, but all declare that it is based upon ‘misguided idealism’ at a time when ‘common sense’ can alone be trusted to save their country and they feel the United States as well....The blockade imposed by the British Navy is directed primarily at cutting off raw materials, oil, etc. It is not dictated by humanitarianism, but by the way the cards fall. The food blockade of Europe is a secondary factor."
Britain herself is getting by, writes Mr. Anderson, but not particularly well -- "The British housewife is now obliged to get along with a quarter pound of bacon per person per week, which will be cut so that the present three weeks’ supply stretches over four weeks. The sugar ration stands at a half pound, which is four ounces less than that of last Christmas. All fruits except oranges have been crossed off the import list."
DOES HE KNOW SOMETHING WE DON’T? Bruce Pinter reports in Monday’s New York Herald Tribune on President Roosevelt’s ominous farewell to the patients of the Warm Springs Foundation. After the visit with polio patients there on Sunday, the President vowed to spend two weeks with them next March "if the world survives." This was the same place where, just over eighteen months ago, F.D.R. concluded a customary visit to the Foundation by promising he’d be back in the fall, "if we don’t have a war." Isolationists made a lot of hay out of the President’s use of the first plural pronoun.
But there was a war in the fall. Will there still be a world next March?
Thursday, December 15, 2016
Sunday, December 15, 1940
FRENCH "COUP" FAILS, LAVAL FIRED. The radio news this morning offers sketchy reports of government upheaval in Vichy France, with the big loser said to be the archly pro-Nazi foreign minister, Pierre Laval. Neutral correspondents are hearing despite strictest censorship that M. Laval plotted to get the country’s "leader", Marshal Petain, moved from Vichy to Paris, as the Marshal desires. Once the Petain regime was set up in Paris, the story goes, Laval would have declared himself the head of a new government, seizing power over all of unoccupied France. He might have even gone to the extent of declaring war on Britain, something the Germans would be very happy to see. But for now, Laval frets under house arrest at his estate just outside Vichy, watched by members of France’s fascist-style elite police corp.
I’ve heard little speculation so far as to just what this means. I suppose optimists might call it another reflection of the current wave of Axis setbacks in the war. Surely Marshal Petain would be vehemently opposed to a weakened France entering the war on Germany’s side, especially with Nazi victory more uncertain than ever. But I can’t believe that Hitler would sit idly by and let Laval, one of his more useful puppet statesmen, be treated so shabbily when Germany holds all the cards in this part of Europe.
TODAY’S ITALIAN DEFEATS (III). A dispatch from Rome in Saturday’s New York Herald Tribune says that the Fascist press has been quietly preparing Italians for some big, bad news. Readers of independent newspapers already know what it is -- Britain has abruptly, rudely, violently thrown the Italians out of western Egypt, in just a few days’ time. Not only has the Italian Army’s seventy-five-mile march eastward to Sidi Barrani been completely wiped out, but some reports say this morning that the British have also just taken Fort Capuzzo, just inside Libya. According to Phillip S. Tayler of United Press, five Italian divisions totally about 75,000 men were all but cut off from Libya by a fierce British naval assault on Solum, just inside Egypt. The Italians’ food and oil supplies were seized by British troops attacking from the desert south, and they fought a desperate rear-guard action to escape encirclement. But many of them quit in the end -- the Associated Press reports the British Army has taken over 40,000 Fascist prisoners in this brief blitz campaign.
Herbert L. Matthews says in effect in Saturday’s New York Times that Mussolini’s regime is pathetically blaming "defeatists" for reverses on the battlefield. The Times’ story quotes one Italian newspaper as raging against "frequenters of bars, salons and banquets who listen to the British radio." Ludicrously, the Rome radio warns, in a broadcast monitored by C.B.S., that British troops had better watch out or they’ll make the Italian Army mad -- "The Italian is a light-hearted and easy-going fellow until he is aroused. Sometimes what he needs is just a little slap, then he stands up and fights to a finish, and the more blows the more dangerous he becomes. The British ought to remember this." Scary, eh?
Those easy-going fellows on the Albanian front have lost yet another battle against the Greeks, being forced to give up Porto Palermo. The city’s Fascist defenders are now under heavy bombardment as they retreat thirty miles northward toward Valona, Albania’s second-biggest port. There, Italian cargo ships, also under near-continuous bomber attack, wait to evacuate what’s left of their army. The only troubling sign in all this for the Greeks is a note in Sam Brewer’s account, in Saturday’s Chicago Tribune, of how the Greeks pushed the Italian Army out of Greek territory. Mr. Brewer writes -- "Among the Greek troops there is a shortage of blankets and warm clothing. The men are now going on short rations because of the shortage in trucks and seven days of heavy rains, which make transportation all the more difficult."
TWO VIEWS ON OUR "SLUMP." If you don’t want to get depressed about the state of the war and the status of national preparedness, don’t read this week’s Time magazine article on the subject --
"The prevailing mood in Washington was gloom. Apprehensively the country read the Washington columnists, whose reports of U.S. defense preparations read last week like the opening chapters of so many ghost stories. ‘We are in a pause,’ gloomed Columnist Ray Clapper (Scripps-Howard). ‘Slump,’ wailed Columnist Dorothy Thompson (New York Herald Tribune), who printed reports that the President is in a ‘down’ mood....Lifting censorship revealed England harder-hit than most had realized. Reports came, true or false, that Nazi Germany’s war-making capacity was actually increasing, and increasing faster than that of Great Britain and the U.S. put together. Japan teetered at the edge of a war plunge into the rich islands of the Western Pacific. England was running out of merchant ships, its very life line to the food, supplies, war materials of the U.S.....When would U.S. capacity be great enough to meet any defense task? The soonest possible date was late autumn 1941 -- ten months. Many men believed Hitler would try for a knockout blow of England in April. Between Hitler’s April and America’s October stretched a hell-to-pay period that no man could foresee, that few dared to contemplate."
Chilling thoughts, those. But a New York Herald Tribune editorial says our attack of the blues is a thing of the past, and they credit Hitler’s speech last week with administering a pick-me-up to the U.S. – "The slump into which many Americans fell after the election is unquestionably over....It is, primarily, events which have caused this revival of courage and common sense. In the first rank must be placed Mr. Hitler’s own self-revelation. In this latest utterance Der Fuehrer made it clear beyond any possibility of doubting that he is fighting not just England but the whole democratic world, including , specifically, the United States. Words could not make the challenge clearer. The pleasant theory that after the Nazis have conquered England this country could strike hands with them and do business comfortably in their world received a rude and final rejection in this speech....It happens that here and now the best chance of keeping this country out of war is to aid Great Britain to the limit and with all speed."
I’ve heard little speculation so far as to just what this means. I suppose optimists might call it another reflection of the current wave of Axis setbacks in the war. Surely Marshal Petain would be vehemently opposed to a weakened France entering the war on Germany’s side, especially with Nazi victory more uncertain than ever. But I can’t believe that Hitler would sit idly by and let Laval, one of his more useful puppet statesmen, be treated so shabbily when Germany holds all the cards in this part of Europe.
TODAY’S ITALIAN DEFEATS (III). A dispatch from Rome in Saturday’s New York Herald Tribune says that the Fascist press has been quietly preparing Italians for some big, bad news. Readers of independent newspapers already know what it is -- Britain has abruptly, rudely, violently thrown the Italians out of western Egypt, in just a few days’ time. Not only has the Italian Army’s seventy-five-mile march eastward to Sidi Barrani been completely wiped out, but some reports say this morning that the British have also just taken Fort Capuzzo, just inside Libya. According to Phillip S. Tayler of United Press, five Italian divisions totally about 75,000 men were all but cut off from Libya by a fierce British naval assault on Solum, just inside Egypt. The Italians’ food and oil supplies were seized by British troops attacking from the desert south, and they fought a desperate rear-guard action to escape encirclement. But many of them quit in the end -- the Associated Press reports the British Army has taken over 40,000 Fascist prisoners in this brief blitz campaign.
Herbert L. Matthews says in effect in Saturday’s New York Times that Mussolini’s regime is pathetically blaming "defeatists" for reverses on the battlefield. The Times’ story quotes one Italian newspaper as raging against "frequenters of bars, salons and banquets who listen to the British radio." Ludicrously, the Rome radio warns, in a broadcast monitored by C.B.S., that British troops had better watch out or they’ll make the Italian Army mad -- "The Italian is a light-hearted and easy-going fellow until he is aroused. Sometimes what he needs is just a little slap, then he stands up and fights to a finish, and the more blows the more dangerous he becomes. The British ought to remember this." Scary, eh?
Those easy-going fellows on the Albanian front have lost yet another battle against the Greeks, being forced to give up Porto Palermo. The city’s Fascist defenders are now under heavy bombardment as they retreat thirty miles northward toward Valona, Albania’s second-biggest port. There, Italian cargo ships, also under near-continuous bomber attack, wait to evacuate what’s left of their army. The only troubling sign in all this for the Greeks is a note in Sam Brewer’s account, in Saturday’s Chicago Tribune, of how the Greeks pushed the Italian Army out of Greek territory. Mr. Brewer writes -- "Among the Greek troops there is a shortage of blankets and warm clothing. The men are now going on short rations because of the shortage in trucks and seven days of heavy rains, which make transportation all the more difficult."
TWO VIEWS ON OUR "SLUMP." If you don’t want to get depressed about the state of the war and the status of national preparedness, don’t read this week’s Time magazine article on the subject --
"The prevailing mood in Washington was gloom. Apprehensively the country read the Washington columnists, whose reports of U.S. defense preparations read last week like the opening chapters of so many ghost stories. ‘We are in a pause,’ gloomed Columnist Ray Clapper (Scripps-Howard). ‘Slump,’ wailed Columnist Dorothy Thompson (New York Herald Tribune), who printed reports that the President is in a ‘down’ mood....Lifting censorship revealed England harder-hit than most had realized. Reports came, true or false, that Nazi Germany’s war-making capacity was actually increasing, and increasing faster than that of Great Britain and the U.S. put together. Japan teetered at the edge of a war plunge into the rich islands of the Western Pacific. England was running out of merchant ships, its very life line to the food, supplies, war materials of the U.S.....When would U.S. capacity be great enough to meet any defense task? The soonest possible date was late autumn 1941 -- ten months. Many men believed Hitler would try for a knockout blow of England in April. Between Hitler’s April and America’s October stretched a hell-to-pay period that no man could foresee, that few dared to contemplate."
Chilling thoughts, those. But a New York Herald Tribune editorial says our attack of the blues is a thing of the past, and they credit Hitler’s speech last week with administering a pick-me-up to the U.S. – "The slump into which many Americans fell after the election is unquestionably over....It is, primarily, events which have caused this revival of courage and common sense. In the first rank must be placed Mr. Hitler’s own self-revelation. In this latest utterance Der Fuehrer made it clear beyond any possibility of doubting that he is fighting not just England but the whole democratic world, including , specifically, the United States. Words could not make the challenge clearer. The pleasant theory that after the Nazis have conquered England this country could strike hands with them and do business comfortably in their world received a rude and final rejection in this speech....It happens that here and now the best chance of keeping this country out of war is to aid Great Britain to the limit and with all speed."
Monday, December 12, 2016
Thursday, December 12, 1940
HITLER CALLS FOR A FINISH FIGHT. Hitler gave a radio speech from a suburban Berlin munitions plant Tuesday, and he laid it on the line -- the world isn’t big enough for the Nazis and the democracies. Or, as C. Brooks Peters put it in his New York Times account Wednesday, "when the Fuehrer had finished, the inescapable conclusion was that in his opinion the only possible terminus to the present conflict between democratic capitalism and totalitarian ‘socialism’ could from the very nature of the struggle be found in the vanquishment of one of the contending systems." Significantly, in discussing "democracy" Hitler equated the United States with Britain, and according to the Associated Press translation, he didn’t leave much room for neutrality -- "we will defeat the entire world."
The Chicago Tribune, on the other hand, cites a different cabled translation which rendered Hitler’s incendiary phrase in relatively milder terms -- "I can beat any other power in the world." Who’s to say whether this is an honest difference in transcription, or another example of the isolationists’ late habit of putting the words and deeds of fascist dictators in a kindlier light. But Sigrid Schultz’s coverage of the speech in Wednesday’s Tribune grasps the main point well -- "To an American listener the striking feature of Hitler’s speech was that for the first time he mentioned England and America in the same breath....He ridiculed America, which despite her wealth, he said, has 10,000,000 to 13,000,000 unemployed year after year."
TODAY’S ITALIAN DEFEATS (II). Can it get worse for Mussolini? Definitely, yes. Not so much in Greece, although an Associated Press dispatch from Tuesday reports that "the entire Italian right wing behind the Greek-occupied port of Porto Edda has been put to flight." But the big news this week is in Egypt, where an Italian invasion army that marched seventy miles eastward from Libya earlier this fall has languished after taking the port of Sidi Barrani. The Fascists were said to be making elaborate preparations to continue their drive, with Alexandria the goal. Now they are cut off from troops and supplies in their rear -- by a line of British troops which, according to an A.P. story Wednesday, marched 75 miles northwestward from positions in the interior of Egypt and fought their way through surprised Italian troops to the Mediterranean, between Sidi Barrani and Buqbuq.
The A.P. describes the British army in Egypt as "applying in the desert wastes the very tactics of extraordinary speed and shock used by the Germans in the blitzkrieg of the west." The Italian press doesn’t describe it at all -- according to Herbert L. Matthews in Wednesday’s New York Times, Italian war communiques haven’t yet uttered an official peep on the subject. However, newspapers in Italy are talking about the need to administer "beatings" to ordinary Italians who read Swiss newspapers to find out just what’s going on, says the Times.
ITALY’S SOLUTION – QUIT THE AXIS. In his New York Herald Tribune column Tuesday, Walter Lippmann argues that the Mussolini regime has one chance of saving Italy. It is to withdraw from the tripartite pact --
"The Italians are the chief example in this war of a people who have more to fear from their nominal partners than from their avowed enemies. For the defeat of Italy by Great Britain and her allies would leave Italy intact, would preserve Italy as an independent power in the Mediterranean, as an influence in the Balkans and Central Europe, and with some kind of colonial empire in Africa. But the victory of Germany would certainly put an end to Italian independence and would surely mean the loss to Germany of the territory which Italy won from Austria in the other war....They will be absolutely defenseless against anything Hitler chooses to ask of them, and they know quite well that the Tyrol is Germany territory, Trieste is a German city, and the dominion of the Balkans and Turkey and the Middle East is an essential part of the ancient pan-German ambition."
Thus, Mr. Lippmann writes, Italy must hope for the defeat of her own ally -- "The dilemma of Italy is that the Fascist regime and her internal economy will be ruined if Germany loses the war, whereas Italian independence, the territorial integrity of Italy and her empire, will be destroyed if Germany wins the war. There is no way out of this dilemma unless Italy is able to leave the Axis before there is a decision – that is to say, before Hitler wins or loses the war against Great Britain. But as long as Hitler has an immense unemployed army, Italy cannot leave the Axis. The time to leave it will have arrived only when, with Britain in firm control of the sea and with a growing air power, the Hiterlian empire begins to disintegrate as Napoleon’s did and a continental coalition comes into being against him."
BRITAIN’S OPPORTUNITY IN AFRICA. So far, the British attacks on Italian positions in Egypt are officially characterized as a "great raid," not the start of an offensive. But the attacks are large enough to have bagged 4,000 Italian prisoners, and Washington Post columnist Barnet Nover writes that it might lead to a much bigger victory for the British --
"The next days and weeks will reveal the nature and effectiveness of the British drive in western Egypt. If it is at all successful it may bear results way out of proportion to the numbers of troops involved. By forcing an indefinite postponement of the Fascist drive toward Suez it would enable the British to increase their assistance to Greece, and thus make it more difficult for Italy to recoup her losses in that theater of war. Mussolini must now realize, as he could never have done when he so lightheartedly ordered his legions into Greece, the full magnitude of the risk he took by creating a second front for the Italians, particularly since the more distant front was at the mercy of sea power. He undoubtedly calculated that Greek resistance would be speedily overcome and the consequent victory would make it possible for him to turn his full attention toward the British in Egypt. That calculation proved disastrously wrong. His failures in Greece now imperil the Italian position in East Africa. The increased pressure which the British now appear to be putting on the Fascist forces in that area may, in turn, make the Italian task in the Balkans more difficult. Between them the Greeks and the British are now in a position to put through a squeeze play which, if it succeeds, will greatly increase the cup of misery which the Duce is now being forced to drink."
The Chicago Tribune, on the other hand, cites a different cabled translation which rendered Hitler’s incendiary phrase in relatively milder terms -- "I can beat any other power in the world." Who’s to say whether this is an honest difference in transcription, or another example of the isolationists’ late habit of putting the words and deeds of fascist dictators in a kindlier light. But Sigrid Schultz’s coverage of the speech in Wednesday’s Tribune grasps the main point well -- "To an American listener the striking feature of Hitler’s speech was that for the first time he mentioned England and America in the same breath....He ridiculed America, which despite her wealth, he said, has 10,000,000 to 13,000,000 unemployed year after year."
TODAY’S ITALIAN DEFEATS (II). Can it get worse for Mussolini? Definitely, yes. Not so much in Greece, although an Associated Press dispatch from Tuesday reports that "the entire Italian right wing behind the Greek-occupied port of Porto Edda has been put to flight." But the big news this week is in Egypt, where an Italian invasion army that marched seventy miles eastward from Libya earlier this fall has languished after taking the port of Sidi Barrani. The Fascists were said to be making elaborate preparations to continue their drive, with Alexandria the goal. Now they are cut off from troops and supplies in their rear -- by a line of British troops which, according to an A.P. story Wednesday, marched 75 miles northwestward from positions in the interior of Egypt and fought their way through surprised Italian troops to the Mediterranean, between Sidi Barrani and Buqbuq.
The A.P. describes the British army in Egypt as "applying in the desert wastes the very tactics of extraordinary speed and shock used by the Germans in the blitzkrieg of the west." The Italian press doesn’t describe it at all -- according to Herbert L. Matthews in Wednesday’s New York Times, Italian war communiques haven’t yet uttered an official peep on the subject. However, newspapers in Italy are talking about the need to administer "beatings" to ordinary Italians who read Swiss newspapers to find out just what’s going on, says the Times.
ITALY’S SOLUTION – QUIT THE AXIS. In his New York Herald Tribune column Tuesday, Walter Lippmann argues that the Mussolini regime has one chance of saving Italy. It is to withdraw from the tripartite pact --
"The Italians are the chief example in this war of a people who have more to fear from their nominal partners than from their avowed enemies. For the defeat of Italy by Great Britain and her allies would leave Italy intact, would preserve Italy as an independent power in the Mediterranean, as an influence in the Balkans and Central Europe, and with some kind of colonial empire in Africa. But the victory of Germany would certainly put an end to Italian independence and would surely mean the loss to Germany of the territory which Italy won from Austria in the other war....They will be absolutely defenseless against anything Hitler chooses to ask of them, and they know quite well that the Tyrol is Germany territory, Trieste is a German city, and the dominion of the Balkans and Turkey and the Middle East is an essential part of the ancient pan-German ambition."
Thus, Mr. Lippmann writes, Italy must hope for the defeat of her own ally -- "The dilemma of Italy is that the Fascist regime and her internal economy will be ruined if Germany loses the war, whereas Italian independence, the territorial integrity of Italy and her empire, will be destroyed if Germany wins the war. There is no way out of this dilemma unless Italy is able to leave the Axis before there is a decision – that is to say, before Hitler wins or loses the war against Great Britain. But as long as Hitler has an immense unemployed army, Italy cannot leave the Axis. The time to leave it will have arrived only when, with Britain in firm control of the sea and with a growing air power, the Hiterlian empire begins to disintegrate as Napoleon’s did and a continental coalition comes into being against him."
BRITAIN’S OPPORTUNITY IN AFRICA. So far, the British attacks on Italian positions in Egypt are officially characterized as a "great raid," not the start of an offensive. But the attacks are large enough to have bagged 4,000 Italian prisoners, and Washington Post columnist Barnet Nover writes that it might lead to a much bigger victory for the British --
"The next days and weeks will reveal the nature and effectiveness of the British drive in western Egypt. If it is at all successful it may bear results way out of proportion to the numbers of troops involved. By forcing an indefinite postponement of the Fascist drive toward Suez it would enable the British to increase their assistance to Greece, and thus make it more difficult for Italy to recoup her losses in that theater of war. Mussolini must now realize, as he could never have done when he so lightheartedly ordered his legions into Greece, the full magnitude of the risk he took by creating a second front for the Italians, particularly since the more distant front was at the mercy of sea power. He undoubtedly calculated that Greek resistance would be speedily overcome and the consequent victory would make it possible for him to turn his full attention toward the British in Egypt. That calculation proved disastrously wrong. His failures in Greece now imperil the Italian position in East Africa. The increased pressure which the British now appear to be putting on the Fascist forces in that area may, in turn, make the Italian task in the Balkans more difficult. Between them the Greeks and the British are now in a position to put through a squeeze play which, if it succeeds, will greatly increase the cup of misery which the Duce is now being forced to drink."
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