Thursday, April 25, 1940

TWO BATTLES COULD DECIDE NORWAY’S FATE. Otto D. Tolischus writes in Wednesday’s New York Times that the struggle over Norway might be decided by two major battles going on right now. The first battle, north of Oslo, involves British and Norwegian forces moving south from Lillehammer, in a drive toward German positions at Hamar. The second fight is taking place north of the port of Trondheim, where a day ago the British were reported to have advanced to within 15 miles of that city. In both sectors the Germans are using motorized troops.

Who’s winning? Mr. Tolischus insists it’s too early to tell, but his article gives a lot of space to German claims of “a major Allied reverse” in the fighting south of Lillehammer. The Nazis insist they have in fact taken Lillehammer, attacking with mobile armored forces from the west, and cutting off the Allied armies in the rear. “If the German claims are true the Allied troops...may find themselves caught in a bag,” according to the Times. The Germans are also reportedly trying a flanking maneuver in the action near Trondheim, landing troops on the Inderoy Peninsula south of Steinkjer. And Sigrid Schultz gives a similar account from Berlin in Wednesday’s Chicago Tribune. Citing the German high command, she reports that a campaign to “encircle and annihilate” the Allied forces is “in full swing.”

Another reason for worry -- Edward R. Murrow said from London in his C.B.S. broadcast the other night that Britons would “be grateful for a little more news” on how the fighting in Norway is really going. The optimistic headlines in so many British newspapers about the Allied expeditionary force moving ahead, seizing towns from the Germans, etc., are based on “unsubstantial support,” he says. He didn’t quite say those stories were lies, but came a little too close for comfort.

SWEDEN NOW THE “NO. 1 DANGER SPOT”? It seems like every day now the papers come to a different conclusion about which country the Germans will invade next. Last week everybody seemed to agree it was Holland. Then, a couple of days ago there were several alarming stories about Yugoslavia. And now, suddenly late this week the press focus has shifted to Sweden. But this time it just might be true.

Writing from Paris, David Darrsh trumpets the menace to Sweden in Wednesday’s Chicago Tribune, quoting a French source who says the danger of Nazi invasion has become “more precise.” And John Elliott writes in Wednesday’s New York Herald Tribune that sources at the Allied Supreme War Council in Paris have expressed “grave fears” that Sweden is next on Hitler’s list. There are reports, Mr. Elliott says, of “large German troop concentrations along the German-Baltic coast and on the island of Bornholm, a Danish possession in the Baltic which was seized by the Nazis when they overran Denmark.”

Paris sources have been wrong before on Hitler’s plans, but Harold Callender of the New York Times adds an ominous note in Wednesday’s editions -- the German press has suddenly taken on “a strong anti-Swedish tone.” Specifically, Nazi papers have begun complaining that the Swedish press has been running stories of Nazi atrocities in Norway, such as the machine-gunning of civilians. The Nazis accuse the Swedish government of “tolerating” such criticism, which has to stop “before it is too late.” It’s the same kind of stuff Dr. Goebbels served up just before the Germans invaded Czecho-Slovakia and Poland. Will it lead to the same result?

SWEDEN “HITLER’S NEXT MOVE”? Barnet Nover, in his Wednesday Washington Post column, list some good reasons why it’s not in Germany’s interest to invade Sweden. And then he explains why Hitler will probably do it anyway --

“There are sound economic reasons why Germany should continue to respect Swedish neutrality. Sweden is the great German supply source for high grade ore without which her indispensable munitions and machine tool industries would be forced to work at a greatly reduced pace. Cut off from the Allies as a result of the struggle in Norway, Sweden now belongs almost wholly within the economic orbit of the Third Reich. Brought into the war as a result of a German invasion, the disorganization of Sweden’s economic life that would inevitably follow, particularly if she chose to resist, would certainly outlast the victory that Germany might achieve. But Hitler is no longer basing his war strategy on economic considerations. He is now moved by purely military considerations. Which means that he must win soon if he is to win at all. And if he is to win soon it must be by virtue of the application of overwhelming force regardless of the cost of lives, and the depletion of irreplaceable reserves.”

ITALY’S VULNERABILITIES. Dorothy Thompson joins all the other columnists who’ve been piling on Italy lately, writing about Italian military weaknesses in the New York Herald Tribune on Wednesday –

“[Italy] claims that she can mobilize 8,000,000 men, but she certainly would not equip them. Even her present army of a million is inadequately equipped. Indeed, that fact about the equipment of the army brought about the drastic changes in the army command which Mussolini instituted last fall. A considerable army is tied up in Albania, and another in Abyssinia, an Achilles’ heel for Italy....The industrial areas of Italy are concentrated in the north around Milan and Turin, near the French frontier, and are more exposed than the industrial areas of any other major power. This is certainly one reason why 99 per cent of the industrialists of Italy are vigorously against Italy going into the war.”

Miss Thompson adds that Mussolini’s regime does have some military value to Hitler -- “Italy’s nuisance power is great. She has a strong submarine fleet and can certainly make the Allies a great deal of trouble in the Mediterranean. In case the Germans make an offensive her army on the northwest border would at least divert some Allied troops, even if she didn’t use it. Her control of the Adriatic interferes with the British blockade and there are grave leakages through the Adriatic to Germany.” But much of that might be negated by one other fact about Italy -- “Her people...are tired and want peace.”

ARE DEMOCRATS THE “WAR PARTY”? Attempts by some Republican isolationists in Congress to portray the G.O.P. as the “peace party” and the Democrats as the “war party” haven’t had much effect, according to a Gallup poll published in Wednesday’s Washington Post. A new national survey shows that 33% of voters believed the Republicans are “more likely” to keep the U.S. out of war, while 35% feel that way about the Democrats. A total of 32% hold it makes “no difference” which party is in power in this respect. The only real change in these numbers since December is a marked decrease in the number of those in the “no difference” category -- but it’s certainly not surprising that people would become more partisan during an election year.