THE F.B.I. SMASHES A TERRORISTIC PLOT. We like to think we’re far away from the madness of Europe’s dictators, but right here at home a Nazi-style group has been planning to bomb a number of locations in New York City. According to F.B.I. chief J. Edgar Hoover, the G-Men have arrested eighteen members of an anti-Semitic outfit known as the “Christian Front,” who were found with eighteen cans of explosive cordite, plus twelve Springfield .30-06 rifles and 2,500 rounds of ammunition. The Associated Press reports the F.B.I. also discovered “the makings for explosives in various stages of completion.”
Some of the Christian Front’s weaponry was stolen from the New York National Guard, where several of the plotters served -- one holding the rank of captain. Their fantastic scheme called for bombing various Jewish and leftist targets in New York City, while recruiting a larger force to blast bridges and seize the United States Customs House, the General Postoffice and the Federal Reserve Bank -- and eventually to overthrow the entire U.S. government, replacing it with a Hitlerite regime. Their aim "was to spread a reign of terrorism so that the authorities would become thoroughly demoralized,” says Mr. Hoover.
COULD EUROPE’S TWO WARS BECOME ONE? An informative article in the new issue of Time magazine sums up what seems to be happening in Europe as of last week. “Two wars -- Allies v. Germany, Finland v. Russia -- seemed dangerously close to merging and swallowing all of Scandinavia.” Time explains that Russia’s troubles in Finland have emboldened nations sympathetic to the Finns, most notably Sweden, which is now rushing volunteers and armaments to help her neighbor. A motley collection of Finnish friends, including Britain, France, Italy, Uruguay, and the U.S., are giving or are set to give aid of some kind to Finland. “The British were said to be at Goteborg, Sweden, to examine the chances of landing British troops in Sweden via the Skaggerak,” Time reports.
But Time also points out that Germany, Russia’s “quasi ally,” isn’t standing by quietly. She “can hardly afford to let the world, particularly the Allies, join in beating up Russia,” and has warned the Scandinavians that their entire region will become a bloody battlefield if they don’t immediately cease aiding the Finns. But it might be a tall order for the Nazis to back up this particular threat, Time points out --
“[Germany’s] only means of preventing help to the Finns is herself to invade the Scandinavian countries, which not only are Finland’s first-line supporters but lie across all the routes through which aid can reach the Finns. To invade Scandinavia is something that Germany cannot well look forward to...Germany’s lifeblood of Swedish iron ore, most of which has been going out by Narvik (now subject to the British blockade)...might all be lost if the Allies go to the aid of an invaded Sweden....Germany could easily march through flat Denmark...but when the force reached Sweden’s lakes and mountains, the drive would be halted and a new front formed by Sweden’s well-disciplined, well-armed force, backed by Norway, Britain, France. To the new front the Allies could send reinforcements through ports on the deeply indented, ice-free Norwegian coast.”
RUSSIA THREATENS FINLAND’S NEIGHBORS. The Germans aren’t the only ones giving brusque warnings to the Swedes and Norwegians. According to an Associated Press dispatch published Monday, the Soviets have issued a strong protest to Sweden, saying the “impermissible campaign” in the Swedish press to aid Finland was only understandable “if Sweden were in a state of war with the U.S.S.R. or preparing for war.” The Russians aren’t just talking -- Soviet warplanes flew over Swedish and Norwegian airspace Sunday. The planes dropped bombs on the Swedish island of Kallaks, sixty miles from the Finnish border. Noway’s anti-aircraft batteries fired on Russian planes that violated Norwegian airspace near Finland’s Arctic port of Petsamo.
AN IDEOLOGICAL WAR? It seems more likely than ever that the European war is evolving into a grand showdown between the democracies and the dictatorships. In the war’s early days, the Chamberlain government denied this was an “ideological war” against tyranny, but instead a fight against military aggression. And it looked for awhile as if the British opposition to aggression was limited to the German variety. At the opening of the Russo-Finnish war at the end of November, the British seemed determined not to excessively offend Stalin’s regime and protested Russia’s attack with extreme mildness. Now, by contrast, both Britain and France seem willing to throw down the gauntlet to the Soviets. Britain has recalled its ambassador from Moscow and is said to be preparing a White Paper on the failed alliance negotiations between the two countries last summer -- a report so scathing of the Russians that its publication might lead to a rupture of British-Russian diplomatic relations, Time magazine reports.
Germany and Russia are sliding into a “Brown-Red” alliance. Of course it is built on need, not regard. Hitler must have war materials from Stalin to continue his fight against the Allies, while Stalin, now almost completely friendless, requires German support for his territorial demands, especially in the wake of the Finnish debacle. These two tyrannies comprise on paper a frightening coalition -- Russia’s gigantic stores of manpower married to Germany’s technological prowess and superb military tradition. If, in the end, they fight together against Britain, France, and Europe’s other remaining democracies, can those democracies endure? And most importantly, can America in good conscience stay out of such a war? I think that if Europe’s wars do merge, the U.S. would inevitably choose to fight alongside the democracies. And we should. We must.
A GERMAN OFFENSIVE ON JANUARY 20? If there aren’t enough alarms in Europe this week, the papers from Sunday and Monday report that Belgium has mobilized some 600,000 troops and begun evacuation of border areas, after receiving reports of new concentrations of German attack troops. In similar fashion, the Netherlands has cancelled army leaves and plans to bring its army up to 400,000 within two days, citing “less favorable symptoms in the international situation.” The British, taking their cues from all this, have cancelled army furloughs. And the New York Times reported yesterday that “in Paris...there was talk of a German offensive through the low countries fixed for January 20, but there was no indication of an authority for such statements.”
There’s very little indication as to why this is all happening right now, except for an intriguing tidbit mentioned in Monday’s New York Times story by James MacDonald --
“It had been expected all along that Belgium and the Netherlands would jump to arms from time to time when reports of danger reached them. The most recent of such reports originated several days ago when a German plane made a forced landing at Mechelen on the Meuse River. Unconfirmed rumors said the plane carried secret papers giving plans for a German invasion and that the German pilot tried unsuccessfully to destroy them before the authorities arrived. But London official quarters doubt such plans would be sent anywhere by airplane.”
Saturday, January 16, 2016
Thursday, January 14, 2016
Sunday, January 14, 1940
“ENGLAND IS NOW AT WAR WITH RUSSIA.” This startling statement came from Alfred Duff Cooper, former First Lord of the British Admiralty, and was reported Saturday by the International News Service. Though not literally true, of course, it gives another indication of how far Anglo-Russian relations have deteriorated. One week ago Ralph W. Barnes of the New York Herald Tribune reported that the British government would accept with “perfect calm” any announcement from Moscow that diplomatic relations were being broken. Moreover, Chamberlain’s government is determined to give Finland all aid possible and might even assist British volunteers who want to go fight the Russians in Finland -- the only consideration being whether it would weaken the British fight against Germany. Stalin has sternly warned the Allies to keep out of the Finnish war.
And now, says Mr. Cooper, “I consider that England is now at war with Russia, or will be shortly.” He offers some other predictions -- “Germany will have to move in the spring. I am convinced Hitler had intended to move through Holland or Belgium last fall, but was dissuaded by his army.” Ominous as that sounds, Mr. Cooper remains convinced that the British and French will eventually triumph over Hitler and Stalin -- but there is little chance for peace in 1940. This fits with Chamberlain’s remarks last week that a “grimmer” phase of the war is coming.
U.S. NAVY WANTS 2 BILLIONS FOR NEW SHIPS. If the British are trying to sound gloomy, they were topped this week by Admiral Stark, chief of U.S. naval operations. Testifying before the House Naval Affairs Committee on a bill to build 195 new warships for the Navy by 1945, the Admiral said point-blank, “We must face the possibility of an Allied defeat in the war, and then measure the strength of the powers which might combine for action against the Americas.”
As reported in John G. Norris in Friday’s Washington Post, Admiral Stark, as well as congressmen on the committee, have mentioned the possibility of a Grand Alliance of the dictators -- Germany, Russia, Japan, and Italy -- opposing the U.S. by itself. And the Admiral says that even this mammoth new appropriation, which would increase the size of the Navy by 25%, “is not sufficient to defend our home waters, the Monroe Doctrine, our possessions and our trade routes against a coalition...of Japan, Russia, Germany, and Italy. If we are attacked by the above combination, as has been asked me, something would have to be abandoned. Obviously, it cannot be our home coasts; and obviously, Hawaii, the Panama Canal and its approaches, and the Atlantic Coastal shipping are of vital interest.”
TWO MORE SOVIET ATTACKS BROKEN. In what by now seems like a broken record, the Finns have reportedly repulsed two new attacks by the Red Army, one near Salia and the other in the far north, near Petsamo. K.J. Eskelund writes in Friday’s New York Times that although small Soviet patrols have penetrated well into the country’s interior, Finnish ski troops have launched daring assaults against the 25,000 Russians in the Salia region and have greatly disrupted the invaders’ communications and supply route. Meanwhile, Walter Kerr writes in Friday’s New York Herald Tribune about how the Finns decisively won the Battle of Suomussalmi, in which the Finns “smashed one Soviet division and then crippled another.” He compares it to the historic German victory over the Russians at Tannenberg in the early days of the World War.
If the Russians have had any success at all lately, it appears to be in the air. Donald Day reports in Saturday’s Chicago Tribune that Russian warplanes made repeated raids on Finnish cities Friday, disrupting telephone communications and shutting off broadcasts from Finland’s largest radio station.
ROOSEVELT’S APPROVAL RATING IS 63%, BUT -- President Roosevelt’s continued popularity does not seem to translate into a mandate to run for a third term -- at least not yet. That is the finding of a new Gallup poll reported in Friday’s Washington Post. Dr. Gallup’s survey shows that a sizeable majority of Americans approve of the President -- 63.5%, to be exact. But only 46% of those polled say they would vote for F.D.R. if he ran for a third term.
Gallup explains the disparity by contrasting the unanimity with which Republicans oppose a third term bid (7% would vote for the President, 93% would not), with a split in the Democratic ranks (79% would vote for the President, but 21% would not).
However, there has been a notable and steady increase in support for a third term since the beginning of the European war crisis last summer. In May only 33% of those polled said they would vote for a third term -- but those numbers went up to 40% in August, 43% in October, and stand at 46% now. One wonders how much public support the President would need to feel comfortable about running. Surely he would want evidence of support from a clear majority, say 60% or so, before doing something so precedent-shattering. It’s hard to believe that he’ll get that support, barring an incredibly bad turn of events in Europe. I’m betting that he won’t do it.
And now, says Mr. Cooper, “I consider that England is now at war with Russia, or will be shortly.” He offers some other predictions -- “Germany will have to move in the spring. I am convinced Hitler had intended to move through Holland or Belgium last fall, but was dissuaded by his army.” Ominous as that sounds, Mr. Cooper remains convinced that the British and French will eventually triumph over Hitler and Stalin -- but there is little chance for peace in 1940. This fits with Chamberlain’s remarks last week that a “grimmer” phase of the war is coming.
U.S. NAVY WANTS 2 BILLIONS FOR NEW SHIPS. If the British are trying to sound gloomy, they were topped this week by Admiral Stark, chief of U.S. naval operations. Testifying before the House Naval Affairs Committee on a bill to build 195 new warships for the Navy by 1945, the Admiral said point-blank, “We must face the possibility of an Allied defeat in the war, and then measure the strength of the powers which might combine for action against the Americas.”
As reported in John G. Norris in Friday’s Washington Post, Admiral Stark, as well as congressmen on the committee, have mentioned the possibility of a Grand Alliance of the dictators -- Germany, Russia, Japan, and Italy -- opposing the U.S. by itself. And the Admiral says that even this mammoth new appropriation, which would increase the size of the Navy by 25%, “is not sufficient to defend our home waters, the Monroe Doctrine, our possessions and our trade routes against a coalition...of Japan, Russia, Germany, and Italy. If we are attacked by the above combination, as has been asked me, something would have to be abandoned. Obviously, it cannot be our home coasts; and obviously, Hawaii, the Panama Canal and its approaches, and the Atlantic Coastal shipping are of vital interest.”
TWO MORE SOVIET ATTACKS BROKEN. In what by now seems like a broken record, the Finns have reportedly repulsed two new attacks by the Red Army, one near Salia and the other in the far north, near Petsamo. K.J. Eskelund writes in Friday’s New York Times that although small Soviet patrols have penetrated well into the country’s interior, Finnish ski troops have launched daring assaults against the 25,000 Russians in the Salia region and have greatly disrupted the invaders’ communications and supply route. Meanwhile, Walter Kerr writes in Friday’s New York Herald Tribune about how the Finns decisively won the Battle of Suomussalmi, in which the Finns “smashed one Soviet division and then crippled another.” He compares it to the historic German victory over the Russians at Tannenberg in the early days of the World War.
If the Russians have had any success at all lately, it appears to be in the air. Donald Day reports in Saturday’s Chicago Tribune that Russian warplanes made repeated raids on Finnish cities Friday, disrupting telephone communications and shutting off broadcasts from Finland’s largest radio station.
ROOSEVELT’S APPROVAL RATING IS 63%, BUT -- President Roosevelt’s continued popularity does not seem to translate into a mandate to run for a third term -- at least not yet. That is the finding of a new Gallup poll reported in Friday’s Washington Post. Dr. Gallup’s survey shows that a sizeable majority of Americans approve of the President -- 63.5%, to be exact. But only 46% of those polled say they would vote for F.D.R. if he ran for a third term.
Gallup explains the disparity by contrasting the unanimity with which Republicans oppose a third term bid (7% would vote for the President, 93% would not), with a split in the Democratic ranks (79% would vote for the President, but 21% would not).
However, there has been a notable and steady increase in support for a third term since the beginning of the European war crisis last summer. In May only 33% of those polled said they would vote for a third term -- but those numbers went up to 40% in August, 43% in October, and stand at 46% now. One wonders how much public support the President would need to feel comfortable about running. Surely he would want evidence of support from a clear majority, say 60% or so, before doing something so precedent-shattering. It’s hard to believe that he’ll get that support, barring an incredibly bad turn of events in Europe. I’m betting that he won’t do it.
Monday, January 11, 2016
Thursday, January 11, 1940
MORE RUSSIAN SETBACKS IN FINLAND. Last week’s issue of Time magazine made it sound as if the Russians were finally making headway on Finland’s Karelian front, throwing a “nerve-breaking” artillery bombardment at Finnish troops and positioning 100,000 of Stalin’s best soldiers for a frontal attack on the Finns’ third largest city, Viipuri. But an article in Wednesday’s New York Herald Tribune says that the Russians are “fighting for their lives” in other sectors.
One Soviet division, the 44th, has been smashed by Finnish defenders east of Suomussalmi and is now limping back across the Russian border, according to the Herald Tribune. Another Russian force advanced on the north central city of Salla in an attempt to knife towards Sweden, cutting Finland in two at her “waist.” But here too, the Red forces were attacked and cut off from supplies, and have suffered “frightful losses,” according to the Finns. The Karelian front is now quiet, and the Associated Press found big news yesterday in a Russian communique which admitted what everyone else has known for awhile -- some of the Russian forces in Finland are retreating.
“GRIMMER” TIMES COMING, SAYS CHAMBERLAIN. For those of you who didn’t hear the Chamberlain’s speech on the radio Tuesday, the Prime Minister told a lord mayor’s luncheon in London that Britain is approaching “a phase of this war much grimmer than anything we have seen yet.” According to the Associated Press, he said action so far on land and in the air was “merely preliminary” to the real fighting ahead -- although he said full-scale fighting at sea has reduced the German Navy by 238,000 tons. Ominous words, but he certainly deserves points for being realistic.
Chamberlain also touched upon the kind of world he wanted to see after Hitler is defeated -- one in which a United States of Europe might grow out of the current level of military, political, and economic cooperation between Britain and France. Nothing would do more to help the cause of peaceful reconstruction, he said, than for Anglo-French ties to “develop into something wider and deeper.”
LORD LOTHIAN PREDICTS A “RUTHLESS” NAZI ATTACK. Along the same lines, Britain’s ambassador to the U.S., Lord Lothian, predicted in a speech to the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations last week that the Germans are gearing up for an enormous spring offensive, which will be carried out with “all the ferocity and ruthlessness the Nazis have taught us to expect.” Dorothy Thompson’s column in the New York Herald Tribune notes that Lothian, like Chamberlain, makes clear the choice in this war is between freedom and tyranny. Miss Thompson summarizes Lothian thusly --
“The question is whether we are to have a totalitarian world -- a world dominated by one race or by an association of master-races controlling through absolute governments the lives and work of their citizens and their helots -- or whether we are to give new, twentieth-century meanings to the words ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’ and develop a cooperative world in which nations and persons can enjoy freedom, a manifold world in which the various civilizations can be brought into harmonious interplay with each other, and in which the eternal struggle of western man for freedom and equality will again be vindicated.”
A RUSSIAN INVASION OF AFGHANISTAN? A Newsweek story last week discusses the possibility that Soviet Russia might make soon an aggressive move southward, either in the Middle East or in the Balkans, “to recoup prestige and divert attention from the Finnish fiasco both abroad and at home.” Newsweek quotes what an Italian newspaper, Lavoro Fascista, calls “reliable reports” that about 40 Soviet infantry divisions, comprising 720,000 men, have been massed along with aircraft and cavalry on Afghanistan’s northern border. The Italians say these troops are poised to overrun the mountainous kingdom and attack the 33-mile-long Khyber Pass, the gateway to British India.
But one wonders how such an attack would help the Russians “recoup prestige” if the following sentence from Newsweek’s article is true -- “Motorized sections would be commanded not by Russians but by ‘foreigners’ -- presumably Germans -- ‘to avoid the lack of success similar to that experienced by the Russians in Finland.’” Ouch.
One Soviet division, the 44th, has been smashed by Finnish defenders east of Suomussalmi and is now limping back across the Russian border, according to the Herald Tribune. Another Russian force advanced on the north central city of Salla in an attempt to knife towards Sweden, cutting Finland in two at her “waist.” But here too, the Red forces were attacked and cut off from supplies, and have suffered “frightful losses,” according to the Finns. The Karelian front is now quiet, and the Associated Press found big news yesterday in a Russian communique which admitted what everyone else has known for awhile -- some of the Russian forces in Finland are retreating.
“GRIMMER” TIMES COMING, SAYS CHAMBERLAIN. For those of you who didn’t hear the Chamberlain’s speech on the radio Tuesday, the Prime Minister told a lord mayor’s luncheon in London that Britain is approaching “a phase of this war much grimmer than anything we have seen yet.” According to the Associated Press, he said action so far on land and in the air was “merely preliminary” to the real fighting ahead -- although he said full-scale fighting at sea has reduced the German Navy by 238,000 tons. Ominous words, but he certainly deserves points for being realistic.
Chamberlain also touched upon the kind of world he wanted to see after Hitler is defeated -- one in which a United States of Europe might grow out of the current level of military, political, and economic cooperation between Britain and France. Nothing would do more to help the cause of peaceful reconstruction, he said, than for Anglo-French ties to “develop into something wider and deeper.”
LORD LOTHIAN PREDICTS A “RUTHLESS” NAZI ATTACK. Along the same lines, Britain’s ambassador to the U.S., Lord Lothian, predicted in a speech to the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations last week that the Germans are gearing up for an enormous spring offensive, which will be carried out with “all the ferocity and ruthlessness the Nazis have taught us to expect.” Dorothy Thompson’s column in the New York Herald Tribune notes that Lothian, like Chamberlain, makes clear the choice in this war is between freedom and tyranny. Miss Thompson summarizes Lothian thusly --
“The question is whether we are to have a totalitarian world -- a world dominated by one race or by an association of master-races controlling through absolute governments the lives and work of their citizens and their helots -- or whether we are to give new, twentieth-century meanings to the words ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’ and develop a cooperative world in which nations and persons can enjoy freedom, a manifold world in which the various civilizations can be brought into harmonious interplay with each other, and in which the eternal struggle of western man for freedom and equality will again be vindicated.”
A RUSSIAN INVASION OF AFGHANISTAN? A Newsweek story last week discusses the possibility that Soviet Russia might make soon an aggressive move southward, either in the Middle East or in the Balkans, “to recoup prestige and divert attention from the Finnish fiasco both abroad and at home.” Newsweek quotes what an Italian newspaper, Lavoro Fascista, calls “reliable reports” that about 40 Soviet infantry divisions, comprising 720,000 men, have been massed along with aircraft and cavalry on Afghanistan’s northern border. The Italians say these troops are poised to overrun the mountainous kingdom and attack the 33-mile-long Khyber Pass, the gateway to British India.
But one wonders how such an attack would help the Russians “recoup prestige” if the following sentence from Newsweek’s article is true -- “Motorized sections would be commanded not by Russians but by ‘foreigners’ -- presumably Germans -- ‘to avoid the lack of success similar to that experienced by the Russians in Finland.’” Ouch.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)