RUSSIANS ON THE MOVE IN FINLAND. Reports from Finland vary in detail this week-end, but everybody seems to agree that the Red Army’s blistering attacks on Finland’s Mannerheim Line are bearing fruit. One Associated Press dispatch says the Soviets claim to have taken two Finnish railroad towns, Leipaesuo and Kaemaerae, located north and northeast of Summa. Red troops are said to have captured twenty-two more “defensive fortifications” over the last two days, bringing the total to 175 of such positions occupied since the Russian offensive began seventeen days ago. A.P. writer Thomas F. Hawkins, in a separate dispatch, says the offensive includes 500 Soviet planes in support of the land attack, and that the Finns acknowledge the drive has “made a dent in the main Finnish fortifications.” The fighting continues about twenty miles southeast of Viipuri (Viborg), the Finns’ second largest city and the apparent goal of the Russian attack.
Harold Denny reports from Helsinki in Saturday’s New York Times that Summa itself appears to have fallen in the “desperate and costly fighting,” but calls it “an unimportant little hamlet on tbe Viborg-Leningrad highway” and of little military importance. More serious, he says, is the Russian penetration east of Summa. Also, Red forces are trying to silence the Finnish shore batteries at Koivisto which have up until now effectively cut down Russian troops trying to advance over the open ice of the Gulf of Finland. While the Soviets have not yet got into the structure of the Mannerheim Line itself, they’re keeping up the offensive with an incredible disregard for their losses – “The Russian dead are heaped four feet high in front of their positions,” the Times says.
Two days earlier, Mr. Denny recorded an oral communique delivered by a spokesman of the Finnish General Staff -- “In spite of the fact that the Russians are falling tens of thousands, they always have more men to put in. That is why we need help. We need more men, more guns, more airplanes. Thus far Finland has been able to hold on, but we rely on other civilized nations to do their utmost to relieve us in this situation.”
THANKS A LOT, SWEDEN. The answer from the brave Swedish government seems to be -- “Who, us?” According to Ralph W. Barnes’ account in Saturday’s New York Herald Tribune, Sweden has flatly rejected Finland’s urgent requests for military aid, and to allow the Allies to send troops and war supplies to the Finns over Swedish territory. The announcements from Stockholm have “caused astonishment and some dismay in London, where it is now the prevailing view that foreign assistance for the Finns in the form of men and war materials must be expanded greatly and speedily if they are not to be overcome by the inexhaustible Soviet hordes.” On the other hand, the Swedes have agreed to allow volunteer fighters from Allied countries to travel across their country en route to the Finnish front.
That’s better than Norway, which according to a Saturday New York Times dispatch “is showing signs of timidity, even about allowing unarmed, ununiformed, unenlisted recruits to pass through its northern port of Narvik.” The Times cable notes the Finns have not made any specific appeal to the Allies for aid, and offers a sour-grapes argument that such an appeal “would probably invite attack from Germany as well as Russia before any such appeal could bear fruit.” On the other hand, one presumes that the Allies fit in the category of “civilized nations” to which the Finnish government has appealed for help of all kinds.
AN ARMISTICE -- VICTORY FOR GERMANY? Secretary Welles’ mission to Europe has raised hopes among neutrals that the U.S. might broker an “early armistice” between Germany and the Allies, followed by lengthy peace negotiations. But Livingston Hartley asserts in a Washington Post column Saturday that an armistice in the current circumstances would be a terrible idea --
“If an armistice were declared now, the German government could claim to have won the war. Surface factors, such as the possession of most of Poland and the maintenance of the frontier in the west, would support this claim....An early armistice might hence have a very damaging effect upon Allied morale. After years of retreat before the Nazi menace in an effort to preserve peace, the British and the French people are now keyed up to the task of terminating this menace by war. In these circumstances, a halt in the fighting, followed by lengthy negotiations, might cause such a deterioration in their fighting spirit that they could not resume the struggle if Germany refused an equitable settlement....The Allies have other compelling reasons to refuse an armistice at this time. To relinquish the blockade even temporarily would allow Germany to enhance her capacity to continue the war. A breathing space would permit her to improve the organization of war material supplies from Russia and the Balkans.”
This is not to say that Mr. Hartley thinks the Welles mission is a dangerous idea. He believes it might postpone an outbreak of total war this spring and spare neutral countries which would be endangered in that event – “The Allies are unlikely to initiate such a war in the west because they believe that time is on their side. And the German government might find difficulty in justifying a dangerous and costly offensive to its own people while even the slightest prospect of peace by negotiation were in view.” The Roosevelt administration’s current strategy is thus useful not for a quick peace, but for postponement.
NO SIGN OF NAZI INVASION IN BELGIUM. An article in Friday’s Chicago Tribune by Larry Rue says things are pretty quiet on the Belgian and Dutch border with Germany. The correspondent took a motor tour “to see if there were any indications along the route that Germany was concentrating troops or otherwise preparing an offensive against the Netherlands or Belgium. The answer is no.” Mr. Rue does admit, however, that he didn’t see it all – “The trip required five days, twice the amount of time expected, [in part] because of...detours that had to be made over secondary roads, because many main highways had been secretly closed.”
Still, he asserts, “the frontier villagers in touch with Germans are less frightened than the people in the interior.” He found this true in Belgium, Holland, and Luxemburg alike. Near the Belgian border at Aachen, Germany, “I observed normal civilian activity. This is presumed to indicate the Germans contemplate no attack. Along the frontier at Luxemburg German fortifications appeared to be for defensive purposes.”
Good news for the Low Countries -- if it’s true.
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