Tuesday, January 9, 1940

THE BIG QUESTIONS OF 1940. The New York Times rang out the old year the other Sunday with a large graphic entitled “Five Questions Facing Europe in 1940”. The questions, and my own predictions, are as follows --

(1) “Will the Allied blockade be effective?” Yes, but unfortunately not enough to put an end to Hitlerism this year. Maybe in 1941, though.

(2) “Will Germany try to outflank the Maginot Line?” No, if the Nazis launch an offensive it will be aimed at Britain, through Belgium and the Netherlands. The Germans will bypass France entirely and try, through withering air raids on Britain, to demoralize and divide the Allies. This is a dreadful possibility to contemplate -- last summer’s apocalyptic predictions of the war's course may yet come to pass. (At least the Nazi bombers would kill fewer people this year, now that some 3,000,000 of London’s peacetime population of 8,500,000 have been evacuated or mobilized.)

(3) “Will Russia be able to conquer Finland?” Six weeks ago the smart answer would have been “undoubtedly yes.” Now, as the Finns reclaim almost all of Karelia and continue to drive the Russians back on every other front, the reply would have to be “who knows?”

(4) “Will Germany and Russia hold together?” One wishes it weren’t so, but Russo-German interests will continue to coincide enough to draw the Nazis and Communists closer together. It wouldn’t be too surprising for the old enemies to sign a formal military alliance, in spite of Russia’s devalued status due to her misadventure in Finland.

(5) “Will Germany and Russia move into the Balkans?” Without a doubt.

Grim tidings these might be. But best wishes, anyway, to everyone for a happy and prosperous 1940.

A STORM OVER BRITISH WAR CHIEF’S OUSTER. Articles in Sunday’s and Monday’s editions of the New York Times by Raymond Daniell describe a storm of criticism facing Prime Minister Chamberlain over the sudden retirement of Leslie Hore-Belisha from the war cabinet. Hore-Belisha is well-regarded among Britons for his past three years of service as Secretary of State for War, specifically for pushing liberal and democratic reforms onto Britain's caste-like military. He was also one of two members of the liberal opposition in Chamberlain’s war cabinet. Now he’s gone, and new men have also been named to head the ministry of information and the board of trade.

Daniell quotes an editorial in London’s Star as summarizing press demands for a full government accounting -- “There is no satisfactory reason adduced for shifting a man who had the public confidence and was doing a fine job. If it is shown that Mr. Hore-Belisha was thrown overboard to satisfy a clique of generals who disliked him on social grounds or because he was pressing the pace of democracy in the army too strongly then public resentment will be wide, deep, and lasting.”

Daniell wrote Sunday there would be repercussions in Parliament when that body reconvened one week from today, but Monday’s story indicates the “major political crisis” taking shape has brought demands for an emergency recall of that body even before then. “M.P.’s of various parties,” the Times says, want an explanation from Chamberlain for the change as quickly as possible. Hore-Belisha’s replacement, Oliver Stanley, has “failed to arouse great enthusiasm.”

THE DUTCH ARE WORRIED. J.T. Jessurun writes in a Monday dispatch from the International News Service that the Netherlands is worried her neutrality might be jeopardized by Hore-Belisha’s removal --

“In an official statement, believed to have been directed mainly at the Anglo-French Allies and prompted by fears that the British Cabinet shakeup might herald a wider Allied war policy, the Dutch government reaffirmed its determination to defend Holland’s neutrality. The declaration furthermore notified Holland’s warring neighbors that the Dutch are resolved not to trade away their national sovereignty for one or the other side in the western European conflict.”

The Dutch seem to base this on the fact that Hore-Belisha supported Britain’s go-slow approach to the war, namely the policy of methodically squeezing the Nazis via blockade. He opposed proposals for launching ambitious offensives against Germany. But does his departure really made a British attack more likely? It seems like if the British really have decided to send masses of troops and planes against the Nazis, it would be idiotic to telegraph their intentions so obviously in advance, and precipitate an internal crisis in the process, by dismissing a popular cabinet member.

DEWEY FOR PRESIDENT? MAYBE. Dr. Gallup’s latest poll in Sunday’s Washington Post shows that the Republican rank-and-file favor a 37-year-old newcomer to national politics, Thomas E. Dewey, to be the party’s nominee for President this year. And his popularity is overwhelming right now with the G.O.P. -- he’s now the choice of 60% of Republicans in the new Gallup survey, a long ways ahead of two other, better-known rivals for the nomination, Senator Vandenberg of Michigan (16%) and Senator Taft of Ohio (11%).

But Gallup cautions that “although they are trailing Dewey with the rank and file as of today, it is entirely possible that these other candidates will prove to have greater support with the party leaders who will meet in the convention itself and whose votes will decide the nomination.” He notes that Newsweek’s poll of Washington political writers last month picked Vandenburg and Taft as the “most likely” Republican candidates, with only four of 50 writers choosing Dewey.

SCREWY WEATHER. According to the Associated Press, the high temperature in Nome, Alaska on Saturday was 24 degrees -- making that city, located 100 miles south of the Arctic Circle, a warmer place than Kansas City, Buffalo, Des Moines, Helena, Minneapolis, Oklahoma City, and New York.