ITALY INVADES GREECE. Finally, after weeks of tension in the Balkans comes an explosion. And it arrives on a typically flimsy Axis pretext -- a three-hour ultimatum from Mussolini demanding Greek territorial concessions. At the moment that ultimatum expired, at 11 p.m. Eastern standard time on Sunday night, ten divisions of Italian troops, numbering about 200,000 men, crossed the Albanian frontier into Greece’s mountain passes, where they were met by units of the small Greek Army. According to the Associated Press, Fascist warplanes and ships have joined in the assault, and the first air-raid alarms were sounded in Athens one hour after the ultimatum expired.
One bright spot so far is that the smaller countries have learned there’s nothing to be gained from appeasement. Greek Premier Mextaxas responded to the Italian threats by telling his people, "The moment has arrived for Greece to fight for her independence and honor."
The radio reports this morning are contradictory -- one report says the Italians have advanced ten miles into Greek territory, while another claims the Greeks are putting up ferocious resistance and that Fascist troops are being handicapped in their drive by an uprising of Albanian guerrillas.
ANOTHER POLAND -- OR ANOTHER FINLAND? Shouldn’t we have seen this coming? After weeks of military build-up and maneuvering in the Balkans, the Axis didn't go after the huge armies of Russia, or take on Turkey’s "2,000,000 bayonets" -- instead, they try to bully one of the smallest countries in Europe, possessing one of the weakest armies. Alas, a report in Monday’s Chicago Tribune demonstrates that militarily the Greeks are far fewer in number than the Italians, and are by comparison poorly armed and inexperienced.
The numbers available from a year ago showed Greece having 145,000 men on active duty and 455,000 trained reserves, as compared to 2,240,000 men under arms in the Italian army, and 5,175,000 trained reserves. Perhaps the gap in those numbers has lessened over time, but the Greek Air Corps is still piddly compared to Mussolini’s -- 1,600 active airmen and 4,500 reservists in Greece, compared to 116,000 active airmen and 102,000 trained reserves in Italy. The Tribune adds, "Italy, too, has the advantage, a big one in modern mechanized warfare, or having trained many of her soldiers and airmen in real fighting in Ethiopia and Spain."
The British Navy, which is on the way to aid the Greeks, could hamper the Italian war effort by occupying the islands of Crete and Corfu, as well as the Cyclades and Aegean Islands -- if they get there before the Fascists do. And the mountainous regions of the Greek-Albanian border give maximum advantage to a defender. But the Italian advantage in this invasion is so great that, like Poland, she could well succumb to invasion inside of one month. The radio says this morning that Mussolini expects his troops to be in Athens in three weeks.
WHY ROOSEVELT IS SLIPPING. In Sunday’s New York Times, Turner Catledge tries to explain why the war issue, which has seemingly helped President Roosevelt so much during this campaign, appears to have boomeranged on him in these final days --
"Mr. Roosevelt’s popularity with the voters has gone up and down in almost direct ratio to the fluctuation of their emotions about the war. When with each new German aggression the wrath of the people went up, Mr. Roosevelt’s popularity went up with it. When these thrusts seemed in any way to imperil the national safety of this country or its interests, his percentage curve went even higher in the Gallup poll and other indices. He apparently not only represented best the belligerent emotions of the people, but was also the personification in their minds of the information and experience we needed to meet the emergency at hand. By his own acts and words the President seemed to be directly in tune with these emotions and, indeed, may be said to have helped create many of them. But as each emergency passed, or the people became used to it, their regard for or dependence upon Mr. Roosevelt waned, just as it is obvious today throughout much of this Midwestern country that his popularity curve is bent downward. There is no getting away from the appearance...that the war and the apprehension of our getting into it are beginning to have tremendous political weight, and against Mr. Roosevelt."
This could be due, Mr. Catledge writes, to the onset of draft registration and the flap over Elliot Roosevelt’s entering the Air Corps as a captain. But he offers one other, more profound, explanation -- "There has been no recent outstanding or dramatic event abroad to throw the people into an emotional fever or alarm them about their own security. England’s heroic stand is building up a confidence that our own defenses will not need to be tested soon, if ever, and American voters, like the English themselves, are growing used to the bombings of London."
WILL THE WAR IN GREECE AFFECT THE ELECTION? In that light, Italy’s assault on Greece might work in the President’s favor politically. Or, it might be viewed by Americans as much more remote to our interests than Germany’s campaign against Britain, and thus have little effect on the election. On the other hand, I’d argue that it might even work a bit in Willkie’s favor -- by confirming further that the European war will be a long, complicated, drawn-out affair, and thus not the quickly-resolved, immediate threat to U.S. security that everybody feared it could be at the beginning of the summer.
GALLUP SAYS WILLKIE’S STILL GAINING. Dr. Gallup has a new nation-wide survey in Sunday’s Washington Post, and in sum it says that Wendell Willkie continues to narrow President Roosevelt’s lead -- albeit slowly. In the new survey, the President’s share of the popular vote nationally is 54.5%, compared to Willkie’s 45.5%. Roosevelt’s total is down from 55% on October 18 and 56% on October 6. While the President is leading in thirty-six states with 410 electoral votes, Willkie leads in twelve states with 98 electoral votes. But Gallup warns it could get far closer by election day -- "Mr. Roosevelt’s lead in popular votes has never in this campaign approached his vote in 1936, and a continuing trend to Willkie in the final week -- if such a trend should continue -- would make the November 5 election one of the closest in history."
Once again, Dr. Gallup reminds us that the "danger line" for President Roosevelt isn’t 50% -- it’s more like 52%. That is, the President would likely lose the election in the electoral college with a popular vote of 52% or less, because the extremely high popular-vote totals Democratic candidates rack up in Southern states. (In South Carolina, for instance, the new survey shows an astonishing popular vote of 98% for Roosevelt and 2% for Willkie – numbers unheard in electoral contests not involving Bolsheviks).
No comments:
Post a Comment