NAZIS SPLIT HOLLAND, CAPTURE LIEGE. So far, all of the fighting in the Low Countries appears to be going Hitler’s way. Radio reports this morning say that Nazi armies have captured Liege, the Belgian fortress which had held out for twelve critical days in the World War. Prior to taking Liege, the Germans had already flanked it on Sunday, driving thirteen miles to the rear of the city. Meanwhile, the Dutch high command has confirmed German claims that an attacking column pierced the Grebbe water defense line Monday, then raced westward to seize a key bridge spanning a major estuary in western Holland. That move effectively cut the Netherlands in two, and severed rail contact between Belgium and the Rotterdam/Amsterdam area. The Dutch government has fled the Hague, and Queen Wilhelmina is said to have narrowly escaped to London via a British warship which was bombed and strafed by pursuing Nazi planes.
The news isn’t any better in Monday’s papers. Ralph W. Barnes writes in the New York Herald Tribune that the German high command is claiming the whole of Luxembourg and an important “break-through” on the fortified defense line in northeastern Belgium between the Dutch city of Maastricht and the Belgian city of Hasselt. A story by George Axelsson in the New York Times says that “all of northern Netherlands from the border to the North Sea” is now in German hands. Apparently Nazi motorized units, supported by warplanes, “smashed their way from the border to the sea, a distance of roughly 80 miles, in a little more than 48 hours.” William Shirer said on C.B.S. last night that neutral military observers in Berlin are “astounded” at how fast the Germans are knifing through Holland, a country full of rivers and canals.
AND THE GOOD NEWS IS... About 20,000 British troops have been fed into the Dutch fighting, and substantial forces of both British and French troops have taken up positions in south Belgium. There’s no clear sign yet that they’ve been able to even slow down the Nazi avalanche, and Allied communiques claiming the enemy has been “halted” seem to be out-of-date by the time they reach the newspapers. But there is one bit of good news -- German forces haven’t made any headway against the Maginot Line. According to an Associated Press dispatch, a “large force” of German troops are battering the French now along a forty-mile stretch of the Franco-German border, helped by artillery and air bombardment.
WHAT’S THE NAZI “SECRET WEAPON”? After since the Germans said last Saturday they seized the Belgian fortress of Eben Emael with “a new kind of attack,” reporters started buzzing about a Nazi “secret weapon.” The Associated Press says in a Monday dispatch that military experts in Switzerland believe the Nazis employed a non-fatal “nerve gas” at Eben Emael. The A.P. says that “some such gas is known to have been developed in Germany and studied elsewhere in recent months.” In Monday’s Washington Post, Robert Kleiman cites military men as speculating the new weapon could be “a secret gas, a mysterious high explosive, or an ‘old weapon’ -- propaganda -- designed to frighten the Allies.” The officers he quotes are skeptical of the “fantastic reports” of new German weapons.
I am, too. In fact, I was inclined to think at first that the press was reckless in rushing to equate the words “new kind of attack” with “new weapon.” But Sigrid Schultz writes in Monday’s Chicago Tribune that the Nazis are now claiming the “help of new weapons” in pushing back Belgian resistance.
Still, if the Germans actually have some sort of incredible weapon that could turn the tide of battle, why didn’t they use it in Norway?
THE INVASION HAS WRECKED THE BLOCKADE. Monday’s Chicago Tribune also takes up a subject I haven’t seen covered elsewhere yet -- just how much of a windfall the Germans are expecting to reap in food and oil from Belgium and Holland. According to the Tribune, the two countries have about five million dairy and beef cattle, about one-fourth of Germany’s total herd at the outbreak of the war. The Nazis have already seized five million head of cattle in Denmark and Norway. And in Denmark alone Germany confiscated enough oil “to keep her army supplied with fuel through the summer.” There’s no numbers in the story, but it’s said that the Low Countries possess “vast oil stores.”
All of this means that the much-vaunted British blockade, which was supposed to bring the Reich’s economy to the brink of collapse, isn't a factor in the war anymore, and won't be, unless the fighting goes on for a lot longer.
“BLOOD, TOIL, TEARS, AND SWEAT.” Britain’s new prime minister only spoke briefly to Parliament Monday, but Winston Churchill did get off a few memorable turns of phrase, promising the British people only “blood, toil, tears, and sweat” in the fight ahead, until the nation won “victory in spite of all terrors.” Hearing him speak on the radio, it’s no wonder why people call him a “bulldog” -- his voice is certainly gruff and jowly, but has a wonderful grandeur to it. His new government of national unity, comprised of nine Conservatives, four Laborites, and two Liberals, was approved by the House of Commons Monday in a 381-0 vote.
A highly laudatory article in Monday’s New York Herald Tribune says that with the new appointments, “Churchill has broken the grasp which the ‘tired old men’ of Neville Chamberlain’s day held for so long on Britain’s government.”
WHAT’S CHURCHILL LIKE? (II) The profiles of Prime Minister Churchill have started showing up in the papers, and Hedley Donovan gets off a good one in Sunday’s Washington Post. He notes prominently that the sixty-five-year-old Churchill has had a long public life, serving in ten cabinet posts and holding a seat in the House of Commons for thirty-eight of the last forty years. Moreover, Britons have been familiar with the adventurous turns of his colorful career for a long, long time --
“Britain has known many Winston Churchills and has regarded them with varying emotions -- amusement, admiration and annoyance, but never boredom. There was the Churchill of the heyday of Victorian imperialism, journalist, soldier, and precocious politician. There was the maturing statesman who served in the Asquith and Lloyd George cabinets as Home Minister, First Lord of the Admiralty, Munitions, Air, War, and Colonial Minister. There was Col. Winston Churchill, of the Sixth Royal Scots Fusiliers, who joined his regiment in France in the middle months of the World War when he was forced out of the Admiralty and given a sinecure cabinet portfolio. There was the disgruntled Tory of the early 1920's, out of office and short of temper on a wide variety of subjects from India to socialism...Freshest in the memory of his countrymen is Churchill’s Cassandra role, his speeches week in and week out, from 1934 to 1939, warning that Nazi Germany was rearming ‘while England sleeps.’”
BRITAIN PREPARES FOR A NAZI LANDING. Churchill has more immediate problems to worry about these days. James Reston writes from London in Sunday’s New York Times that the British “now are guarding against the possibility that the Germans might try to land troops by parachute here as they did in Belgium and Holland, or try to slip them past the British Navy into lonely harbors as they did in Norway.” Mr. Reston emphasizes that it would be “madness” for the Germans to try to airlift enough troops into Britain to conquer the country, but even a small attack of this nature could do much to sabotage the British war effort, divert attention and supplies from the main battle, and cause “psychological shock” among civilians. British officials, he says, have no doubt now that when the Nazis try and knock Britain out of the war, they’ll do so by means of a “combined plane and submarine attack on everything that floats or flies.”
It’s not surprising, then, to read in Monday’s New York Herald Tribune that Home Secretary Anderson has issued a sweeping order for “the immediate internment of all male Germans and Austrians between the ages of sixteen and sixty, who live anywhere in the eastern counties of Scotland or England or in the southern tier of Kent westward to the Isle of Wight.” Reporter Frank R. Kelley writes that about 3,000 enemy aliens will be rounded up under the order, and another 11,000 non-German aliens, including some Americans, will be required to adhere to a new curfew of 8 p.m. to 6 a.m.
THE CHIGAGO TRIBUNE DEMANDS THE U.S. RE-ARM. After months of arguing that the outcome of the European war really doesn’t much matter to us, the Chicago Tribune’s editors had something of a Damascus Road experience on Monday. No, they still don’t want us to help the Allies, but the newspaper which has printed pacifist propaganda and fought every attempt in the past to fortify Guam, for example, now argues in a dramatic front-page editorial that America needs to arm massively, and fast. A lot of what the Tribune says is true, and pretty troubling. It’s worthy of consideration. But it makes for irritating reading, having to wade through the Tribune’s hysterical insistence on blaming our ill-preparedness entirely on you-know-who --
“We haven’t enough of the new rifles to keep even a division supplied with them. At last reports there were fewer than 8,000 of the guns available and the quantity is being increased by no more than a few hundred a month....Our lack of modern artillery is even more appalling. Practically speaking, we haven’t any...In antiaircraft weapons our deficiency is even more glaring. We have about 50 high grade guns of 3 inch caliber which were obsolete before they were issued....The army today has only 2,700 planes and of these all but 52 large bombers are regarded as obsolete....We are rich, and fat, and feeble. The confidence of congress in the ability of our armed services to provide us with an adequate apparatus of defense has been misplaced. The time has come for a radical shaking up and shaking out of the uniformed burocracy in Washington. The national danger can be averted only if an aroused country demands from the playboy in the White House the housecleaning which is long overdue.”
IS THE U.S. CLOSER TO WAR? In the Sunday New York Times, Arthur Krock isolates two competing schools of thought in Washington, D.C., this week. The isolationists, he says, believe that Hitler’s offensive will bring the war to a “speedy termination” and will force the Allies to negotiate a peace that will keep America out of the war and allow us enough time to prepare our own defenses against anything to come. The other side, however, believes that now that the battle is joined, it will go on for a long time, and thus could expand to the Western Hemisphere or to the Far East, “and because of that war is certain to come much nearer to the United States.” No matter which side of that debate prevails in Congress, Mr. Krock writes, the events of the last week might prompt a sea-change in the Roosevelt administration’s neutrality policy --
“The President...told his Friday press conference he had lost none of his confidence that military involvement can be avoided for this country; and it must therefore be assumed he shares the belief that the recent spread of the war in Europe will not mount the western barrier. Nevertheless, Mr. Roosevelt wholly endorsed a statement by the Queen of Holland. And the text of this indicates he may in some way seek to persuade the country that neutrality is a lost policy in this present world and, short of military action, should be abandoned. For the Queen noted that, despite the observance of strict neutrality and a solemn German promise that it would be respected, the invasion came. Mr. Roosevelt seemed to be saying, ‘We won’t confide in neutrality that long, and perhaps we won’t even pretend to confide in it any longer.’ If this is the effect of Hitler’s latest invasion it is a momentous one.”
Saturday, May 14, 2016
Thursday, May 12, 2016
Sunday, May 12, 1940
HITLER INVADES THE LOW COUNTRIES. On Friday morning, twenty-nine German divisions set out to conquer three neutral nations -- Holland, Belgium, and Luxembourg. (With stunning gall, Germany’s Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop says the purpose of the Nazi air, artillery, and land assault is to “protect the neutrality” of the three countries). Luxembourg has been overrun, but Belgium and the Netherlands are trying gamely to halt the Nazi tide along well-fortified defenses. And Robert Okin of the Associated Press reports that as of Saturday, British and French troops were “pouring into the most important areas of Belgium” to defend their new ally. G.H. Archambault writes in Saturday’s New York Times that British naval vessels are rushing troops and supplies to Holland’s coastline.
According to the United Press account on Friday, the Germans began the attack on Holland with parachute drops of troops to seize strategic points in the area of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, and other cities. There were also numerous air raids on Dutch airdromes and a land assault in the southeastern part of the country, at Roermond. Meanwhile, the initial German invasion of Belgium took place at four points, and was accompanied with widespread bombings of Antwerp and Brussels.
ATTACKS ON FRANCE, TOO. And it’s not just the Low Countries -- a Saturday A.P. dispatch by Roy P. Porter indicates “widespread raids” by German planes against a dozen French cities. Radio bulletins this morning tell of an unsuccessful attack by a Nazi division of 14,000 men against the Maginot Line, in the Sierck region of the Moselle River Valley.
CHAMBERLAIN OUT, CHURCHILL IN. In the midst of all this, a critically important story almost got lost in Saturday’s papers -- Prime Minister Chamberlain resigned, and within ten minutes Winston Churchill had replaced him. According to Joseph Cerutti in Saturday’s Chicago Tribune, the change “came with dramatic suddenness,” after two weeks of twists and turns. Chamberlain, under intense pressure for days to form a new government of national unity, received a bombshell when the opposition Labor Party announced it would only participate in such a government “under a new premier who would command the confidence of the nation.” Thus, he was effectively left with no choice but to quit.
Actually, news reports Friday had indicated errantly that Chamberlain would probably retain his premiership after all, because of Hitler’s attack on the Low Countries. Raymond Daniell speculated in a New York Times story that it looked like Chamberlain would “be saved just as it looked like he was sure to fall,” as opposition parties seemed to closed ranks with the Conservatives in the face of a grim, all-out military struggle. Mr. Cerutti reported that any cabinet changes were at first thought “likely to be postponed because of the international situation.”
WHAT’S CHURCHILL LIKE? I haven’t seen any Sunday papers yet, though no doubt they’ll contain some good profiles of the new prime minister. Jack Culmer of the Associated Press jumps the gun a bit with a Saturday article, which ran on the Washington Post’s editorial page. He describes Churchill has a tough, likeable old bird -- “People like the forthright way he says what he thinks and feels, the frequent surprises he springs, and his ‘bulldog determination’ to defeat Nazi Germany....His wartime speeches have been hailed as ‘the best oratory of the war.’ They have been criticized, but Churchill weathers criticism with dogged imperturbability.”
Sounds like a heartening contrast to Chamberlain in a few key respects, at least.
GERMANS SEIZE KEY BELGIAN FORTRESS. Most worrisome development of the Nazi offensive so far is a successful attack on Fort Eben Emael, said to the strongest fortress in Belgium’s Leige defenses. William Shirer made this sound quite important in his C.B.S. broadcast last night, saying the fort was of “great strategic importance” as the gateway to the junction of the Meuse River and the Albert Canal.
Mr. Shirer also mentioned an intriguing German claim that the Eben Emael was put out of action and its defenders made helpless by a “new method of attack.” There’s some speculation that this might be a “magnetic mine” or some other kind of secret weapon, but no one in the press seems to know, and the Germans obviously aren’t telling.
ARE THE ALLIES HOLDING THE LINE? Of course, not too much else is known at the moment about how the overall battle is actually going. But there are a few hints of optimism for the Allied cause in Saturday’s papers. Beach Conger writes in the New York Herald Tribune that Dutch troops “have been holding their own in pitched battles” at Rotterdam, where they have been fighting German parachute units disguised in Dutch uniforms. Nazi parachute troops are said to be held at bay in other Dutch cities, too. Mr. Conger also reports claims by Dutch military authorities that the Nazis have yet to seize a strategic military objective in the border region.
The Associated Press quotes Belgium’s King Leopold Saturday as saying defiantly that his nation’s army is “fighting foot by foot” to protect its soil. Belgian authorities claim their army “had halted the German invaders all along the border area.”
All this sounds good, but so did the initial reports following the Allied landings in Norway a month ago. We’ll see what this looks like in a few days.
THE EDITORS SPEAK OUT. The editorials printed so far on the latest German attack indicate just how grave a development this is –
New York Times – “The first feeling of the people of this heartsick country must be sheer inability to believe that the thing long feared has actually happened....Hitler has unleashed his total war. He has struck on the main front. He has staked everything on a gigantic gamble which, if he wins, will mean the end of freedom and democracy and culture throughout all Europe in our time...This is the fateful hour. We in America who live behind the defenses of the Western European nations which are the outposts of our own kind of civilization must watch with deep anxiety to see whether the line will hold.”
Washington Post – “The seizure of the Low Countries would greatly augment the threat of submarines and airplanes to Britain’s sea-borne commerce. If the Germans can capture the Dutch and Belgian ports, as they have already taken over those of Denmark and Norway, half the British coastline, from Dover to the Shetland Islands, will be encircled. Even if the docks of London were left unscathed no ship would be able to leave or enter that great port except at serious risk of air or undersea attack. If Great Britain should be beaten to her knees, and Hitler is staking everything on that prospect, France would of course be at the mercy of the Berlin-Rome axis. But there is no reason to suppose that the Allies have any illusions about the magnitude of their joint peril.”
New York Herald Tribune – “This time the blitzkrieg has been tried again, but there is one vast difference in the attempt. This time, and for the first time, it has been launched upon prepared positions, and against peoples, armies, and staffs who for eight months have had little else to do save to make ready for exactly this eventuality. While the Germans have been practicing and perfecting their technique on other victims, the Dutch, the Belgians, the British and the French have been free to study that technique in all its aspects and to perfect their own replies....It is much too early yet to say how well they have learned their lesson. But the first reports suggest they have not neglected it.”
THE TRIBUNE’S CURIOUS WORDING. One more editorial comment on the offensive, this time from Saturday’s Chicago Tribune --
“Holland, Belgium, and Luxembourg have been drawn into the war which now covers most of central and western Europe....The new blows of the war in its growing intensity, afflicting peoples whose one great purpose in the crisis was to keep their peace, naturally affect American sentiment profoundly. Our judgement continues to tell us that the best service the American government can do...is to preserve a great area of the world in which civilization keeps its sanity, its strength, and its peace.”
“Have been drawn into the war.” Isn’t it strange that the Tribune editors choose such bloodless, passive, let’s-not-blame-anybody language to describe yet another brutal, unprovoked Nazi attack? Do they really define “neutrality” as the denial of physical reality? Then again, if President Roosevelt invaded a country, one suspects the “World’s Greatest Newspaper” might manage to work up some real outrage about it.
THE DANGER TO AMERICA. Walter Lippmann’s column in Saturday’s New York Herald Tribune might be his most important writing ever. In it, he sounds the alarm over just how much the outcome of Hitler’s new offensive means for America’s future --
“For the United States this is the beginning of the most critical period in 70 years. Our security is gravely jeopardized. The Nation is unprepared in all essential respects -- in the material for defense, in training, in discipline, in its industrial organization, in its politicians, and in its mind and heart -- to protect adequately and swiftly its vital interests. Our cities will not be bombed; our young men will not be conscripted and sent to fight in Belgium. But if the offensive which Hitler has launched succeeds, we shall know no peace in our lifetime. If it succeeds, and as it succeeds, we shall be confronted...with choices of the greatest magnitude. We shall be compelled to choose again and again – in the Pacific, in the Atlantic, in the Caribbean, in South America, in Africa between retreat and resistance....For if the Allied power falls, there will fall with it all the outer defenses of the Western Hemisphere, and we shall be left isolated in a world dominated on both sides of our oceans by the most formidable alliance of victorious conquerors that was ever formed in the whole history of man.”
Mr. Lippmann describes the “alliance” that would form around Hitler if he appeared to be winning -- “Mussolini will join him and almost certainly Russia will follow. If the blow is deadly enough, Spain in Europe and Japan in the Far East will find some way to intervene so that they may participate in the totalitarian victory and qualify as partners.”
JAPANESE DETAINED NEAR PEARL HARBOR BASE. An odd, brief note in Saturday’s papers from the Associated Press -- “Rear Admiral Claude C. Bloch, commander of the 14th naval district, said five Japanese crew men on the liner Asama Maru were apprehended yesterday in the vicinity of Pearl Harbor, mid-Pacific American naval base. They were released after questioning and sailed on their Japanese boat.” One wonders what the heck that could be all about.
“THE WORLD OF TOMORROW.” As the New York World’s Fair opens for its second year (with many of the foreign pavilions understandably shut down), the Washington Post ran a chilling editorial cartoon Saturday that seems to sum up the sadness of total war. The cartoon consists solely of a blackened box. It was captioned, “The World of Tomorrow.”
According to the United Press account on Friday, the Germans began the attack on Holland with parachute drops of troops to seize strategic points in the area of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, and other cities. There were also numerous air raids on Dutch airdromes and a land assault in the southeastern part of the country, at Roermond. Meanwhile, the initial German invasion of Belgium took place at four points, and was accompanied with widespread bombings of Antwerp and Brussels.
ATTACKS ON FRANCE, TOO. And it’s not just the Low Countries -- a Saturday A.P. dispatch by Roy P. Porter indicates “widespread raids” by German planes against a dozen French cities. Radio bulletins this morning tell of an unsuccessful attack by a Nazi division of 14,000 men against the Maginot Line, in the Sierck region of the Moselle River Valley.
CHAMBERLAIN OUT, CHURCHILL IN. In the midst of all this, a critically important story almost got lost in Saturday’s papers -- Prime Minister Chamberlain resigned, and within ten minutes Winston Churchill had replaced him. According to Joseph Cerutti in Saturday’s Chicago Tribune, the change “came with dramatic suddenness,” after two weeks of twists and turns. Chamberlain, under intense pressure for days to form a new government of national unity, received a bombshell when the opposition Labor Party announced it would only participate in such a government “under a new premier who would command the confidence of the nation.” Thus, he was effectively left with no choice but to quit.
Actually, news reports Friday had indicated errantly that Chamberlain would probably retain his premiership after all, because of Hitler’s attack on the Low Countries. Raymond Daniell speculated in a New York Times story that it looked like Chamberlain would “be saved just as it looked like he was sure to fall,” as opposition parties seemed to closed ranks with the Conservatives in the face of a grim, all-out military struggle. Mr. Cerutti reported that any cabinet changes were at first thought “likely to be postponed because of the international situation.”
WHAT’S CHURCHILL LIKE? I haven’t seen any Sunday papers yet, though no doubt they’ll contain some good profiles of the new prime minister. Jack Culmer of the Associated Press jumps the gun a bit with a Saturday article, which ran on the Washington Post’s editorial page. He describes Churchill has a tough, likeable old bird -- “People like the forthright way he says what he thinks and feels, the frequent surprises he springs, and his ‘bulldog determination’ to defeat Nazi Germany....His wartime speeches have been hailed as ‘the best oratory of the war.’ They have been criticized, but Churchill weathers criticism with dogged imperturbability.”
Sounds like a heartening contrast to Chamberlain in a few key respects, at least.
GERMANS SEIZE KEY BELGIAN FORTRESS. Most worrisome development of the Nazi offensive so far is a successful attack on Fort Eben Emael, said to the strongest fortress in Belgium’s Leige defenses. William Shirer made this sound quite important in his C.B.S. broadcast last night, saying the fort was of “great strategic importance” as the gateway to the junction of the Meuse River and the Albert Canal.
Mr. Shirer also mentioned an intriguing German claim that the Eben Emael was put out of action and its defenders made helpless by a “new method of attack.” There’s some speculation that this might be a “magnetic mine” or some other kind of secret weapon, but no one in the press seems to know, and the Germans obviously aren’t telling.
ARE THE ALLIES HOLDING THE LINE? Of course, not too much else is known at the moment about how the overall battle is actually going. But there are a few hints of optimism for the Allied cause in Saturday’s papers. Beach Conger writes in the New York Herald Tribune that Dutch troops “have been holding their own in pitched battles” at Rotterdam, where they have been fighting German parachute units disguised in Dutch uniforms. Nazi parachute troops are said to be held at bay in other Dutch cities, too. Mr. Conger also reports claims by Dutch military authorities that the Nazis have yet to seize a strategic military objective in the border region.
The Associated Press quotes Belgium’s King Leopold Saturday as saying defiantly that his nation’s army is “fighting foot by foot” to protect its soil. Belgian authorities claim their army “had halted the German invaders all along the border area.”
All this sounds good, but so did the initial reports following the Allied landings in Norway a month ago. We’ll see what this looks like in a few days.
THE EDITORS SPEAK OUT. The editorials printed so far on the latest German attack indicate just how grave a development this is –
New York Times – “The first feeling of the people of this heartsick country must be sheer inability to believe that the thing long feared has actually happened....Hitler has unleashed his total war. He has struck on the main front. He has staked everything on a gigantic gamble which, if he wins, will mean the end of freedom and democracy and culture throughout all Europe in our time...This is the fateful hour. We in America who live behind the defenses of the Western European nations which are the outposts of our own kind of civilization must watch with deep anxiety to see whether the line will hold.”
Washington Post – “The seizure of the Low Countries would greatly augment the threat of submarines and airplanes to Britain’s sea-borne commerce. If the Germans can capture the Dutch and Belgian ports, as they have already taken over those of Denmark and Norway, half the British coastline, from Dover to the Shetland Islands, will be encircled. Even if the docks of London were left unscathed no ship would be able to leave or enter that great port except at serious risk of air or undersea attack. If Great Britain should be beaten to her knees, and Hitler is staking everything on that prospect, France would of course be at the mercy of the Berlin-Rome axis. But there is no reason to suppose that the Allies have any illusions about the magnitude of their joint peril.”
New York Herald Tribune – “This time the blitzkrieg has been tried again, but there is one vast difference in the attempt. This time, and for the first time, it has been launched upon prepared positions, and against peoples, armies, and staffs who for eight months have had little else to do save to make ready for exactly this eventuality. While the Germans have been practicing and perfecting their technique on other victims, the Dutch, the Belgians, the British and the French have been free to study that technique in all its aspects and to perfect their own replies....It is much too early yet to say how well they have learned their lesson. But the first reports suggest they have not neglected it.”
THE TRIBUNE’S CURIOUS WORDING. One more editorial comment on the offensive, this time from Saturday’s Chicago Tribune --
“Holland, Belgium, and Luxembourg have been drawn into the war which now covers most of central and western Europe....The new blows of the war in its growing intensity, afflicting peoples whose one great purpose in the crisis was to keep their peace, naturally affect American sentiment profoundly. Our judgement continues to tell us that the best service the American government can do...is to preserve a great area of the world in which civilization keeps its sanity, its strength, and its peace.”
“Have been drawn into the war.” Isn’t it strange that the Tribune editors choose such bloodless, passive, let’s-not-blame-anybody language to describe yet another brutal, unprovoked Nazi attack? Do they really define “neutrality” as the denial of physical reality? Then again, if President Roosevelt invaded a country, one suspects the “World’s Greatest Newspaper” might manage to work up some real outrage about it.
THE DANGER TO AMERICA. Walter Lippmann’s column in Saturday’s New York Herald Tribune might be his most important writing ever. In it, he sounds the alarm over just how much the outcome of Hitler’s new offensive means for America’s future --
“For the United States this is the beginning of the most critical period in 70 years. Our security is gravely jeopardized. The Nation is unprepared in all essential respects -- in the material for defense, in training, in discipline, in its industrial organization, in its politicians, and in its mind and heart -- to protect adequately and swiftly its vital interests. Our cities will not be bombed; our young men will not be conscripted and sent to fight in Belgium. But if the offensive which Hitler has launched succeeds, we shall know no peace in our lifetime. If it succeeds, and as it succeeds, we shall be confronted...with choices of the greatest magnitude. We shall be compelled to choose again and again – in the Pacific, in the Atlantic, in the Caribbean, in South America, in Africa between retreat and resistance....For if the Allied power falls, there will fall with it all the outer defenses of the Western Hemisphere, and we shall be left isolated in a world dominated on both sides of our oceans by the most formidable alliance of victorious conquerors that was ever formed in the whole history of man.”
Mr. Lippmann describes the “alliance” that would form around Hitler if he appeared to be winning -- “Mussolini will join him and almost certainly Russia will follow. If the blow is deadly enough, Spain in Europe and Japan in the Far East will find some way to intervene so that they may participate in the totalitarian victory and qualify as partners.”
JAPANESE DETAINED NEAR PEARL HARBOR BASE. An odd, brief note in Saturday’s papers from the Associated Press -- “Rear Admiral Claude C. Bloch, commander of the 14th naval district, said five Japanese crew men on the liner Asama Maru were apprehended yesterday in the vicinity of Pearl Harbor, mid-Pacific American naval base. They were released after questioning and sailed on their Japanese boat.” One wonders what the heck that could be all about.
“THE WORLD OF TOMORROW.” As the New York World’s Fair opens for its second year (with many of the foreign pavilions understandably shut down), the Washington Post ran a chilling editorial cartoon Saturday that seems to sum up the sadness of total war. The cartoon consists solely of a blackened box. It was captioned, “The World of Tomorrow.”
Monday, May 9, 2016
Thursday, May 9, 1940
HOLLAND MOBILIZES -- AN ATTACK NEAR? The Dutch have sounded the alarm several times in the last few months about the possibility of a German attack. In the past this appeared to be unfounded. But Ben A. Thirkield writes in Wednesday’s Washington Post that there were strong indications Tuesday night “that the Netherlands will be the next neutral victim of aggression -- and that the time was almost at hand.” The Associated Press reports that two German columns are heading from Bremen and Dusseldorf toward the Dutch border. The New York Times says that all military leaves have been cancelled, with no exceptions, and that international telephone calls were suspended at 10 p.m. local time Tuesday night. N.B.C. quotes the Dutch radio as withholding a weather report Tuesday “due to conditions that are known to you.”
An update -- radio reports this morning say the Dutch press is trying to quiet reaction to these measures, saying the elaborate steps are “just a test” of the nation’s defenses. One Dutch newspaper said the international sensation over the defense measures was “not justified.”
I’ve been worried for over a month about Holland being next on Hitler’s list. My own predictions -- expect a German lightning attack against the Netherlands soon, perhaps any day. The Nazis will then build air bases in Holland and Norway for an eventual all-out bomber assault on Britain. France, Belgium, and Sweden will remain untouched, at least for now. And German propaganda about war in the Balkans and the Mediterranean is nothing more than a bluff.
BIG TENSIONS AMONG GERMANS, TOO. Sigrid Schultz of the Chicago Tribune reports from Berlin in Wednesday’s editions that there's a strong sense something’s about to happen --
“Tension in Berlin today has been even more striking than it was on the eve of the German invasion of Denmark and Norway. For some unaccountable reason, citizens told foreign correspondents and one another that ‘things are bound to happen soon.’ Officials avoided such statements but pointed to ‘the reports of increased British and French activities in the Mediterranean and in southeastern Europe.’”
Miss Schultz adds that “wherever one turned one heard of men between the ages of 30 and 50 who have been called to the colors on 24 hours’ notice....The public knows Germany has at least 5,000,000 soldiers on duty and that many of the men recently called are skilled workers needed in business and factories.”
CAN CHAMBERLAIN SURVIVE? Radio news reports this morning also make Prime Minister Chamberlain’s situation sound increasingly precarious -- and increasingly similar to what happened to former French Premier Daladier in March. As in Daladier’s case, Chamberlain has won a vote of confidence in Parliament, reportedly by a 281-200 vote. But just as happened with Daladier, the government’s victory is marred by a high number of abstentions -- 130 in today’s vote, including forty members of Chamberlain’s own party. And there are suggestions now that Chamberlain could follow Daladier’s example and resign. Opposition members of the House of Commons are said to be claiming a victory, yelling “Go! Resign” at Chamberlain as he left the House.
So far, Chamberlain has agreed to one concrete move -- making Winston Churchill a supreme coordinator, giving guidance and direction to the chiefs of staffs as the head of a “military coordination committee.” But it’s the only concession the Prime Minister has made to his critics, and almost surely there will be more changes before this blows over.
A WAR HERO LEADS THE CRITICISM. According to Edward Angly’s story in Wednesday’s New York Herald Tribune, one factor souring Chamberlain’s political fortunes was a stunning address to Parliament by a fellow Conservative and World War hero, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Roger Keyes. The Admiral scored the “shocking...ineptitude” of Britain’s Norway operations, and the failure of the British Admiralty to quickly seize Trondheim Fjord with a naval attack and to support British troops driving toward the city. He had offered to lead warships up the Fjord himself, he said, but was told the army had the situation in hand.
That speech, made by no less than a close friend of Churchill, contracted starkly with Chamberlain’s own rambling defense of the Norway campaign yesterday, which reportedly angered his adversaries and embarrassed his friends in the House of Commons. Raymond Daniell writes in Wednesday’s New York Times that the Prime Minister “appeared tired, nervous, and discouraged, and his apolgia did not go down with the members of his own or the Opposition side of the House.”
THE PRIME MINISTER’S “DEFENSE.” It’s easy to see why. Chamberlain’s penchant for understatement never served him worse than it did in his Wednesday speech. Unbelievably, he refused to admit that what happened in Norway was a defeat. He asked the Commons to avoid reaching a “hasty” judgement on the success of the campaign, since after all British troops are still fighting above the Arctic Circle. “It is quite obvious that the Germans have made certain gains,” he said weakly. “It is equally clear they have paid a heavy price for them. It is too early to say on which side the balance is finally inclined because the campaign is not yet finished.” Just incredible.
BRITISH PAPERS BLAST CHAMBERLAIN. The Prime Minister’s speech went down horribly in Britain’s press, writes Frank R. Kelly in Wednesday’s New York Herald Tribune. Mr. Kelly’s article offers some examples of editorial reaction, as does the New York Times. They aren’t pretty --
The Times -- “Assuredly we shall not win this war with less than the whole capacity of leadership possessed by all parties together.”
Daily Mail (Conservative) -- “The country will not find optimism an adequate substitute for solid results. One of Mr. Chamberlain’s weaknesses is that he tends to mistake wishes for realities....It is useless to sum up the Norwegian campaign on a profit and loss account of men in the field. Hitler’s losses have been heavy, but it was the price he was prepared to pay for Norway.”
Daily Herald (Labourite) -- “The Prime Minister has spoken, and the nation stands amazed. No syllable of apology graces his position. Not a dent appears in the bright armor of his self-conceit...His indecision imperils our cause. His complacency is a dangerous drug. He possesses the qualities which, measured against the ruthless dynamism of our opponents, might well snatch defeat even from the jaws of victory....Chamberlain’s stock – low enough when the debate began – has fallen right through the floor.”
News Chronicle (Liberal) -- “The government must go, and the sooner it goes the better for the safety of the realm. We cannot afford to keep it a day longer.”
Daily Mirror -- “How much longer will the House of Commons are able to endure such statements as that made by the Prime Minister? What is the good of closing ranks behind leaders who are always too late?”
ROOSEVELT AND THE WAR. With new war tensions engulfing Europe, the question of whether President Roosevelt is willing to risk involving America in the war becomes more relevant by the hour. A new book published in magazine form, American White Paper by Stewart Alsop and Peter Kintner, attempts to describe just what the administration’s real position is on this most sensitive of issues. Mr. Alsop and Mr. Kintner find that the President strongly supports the Allied cause, and although wishing to keep the U.S. at peace, might be willing to commit naval craft and warplanes (though not a land army) to fight for Britain and France.
A pessimistic editorial in this week’s New Republic, however, says that even though all of this might be true, it’s increasingly irrelevant to what’s actually happening --
“Large as is the influence of Mr. Roosevelt, and great as are the powers of the President, no man could precipitate this country into war if it did not want to go. The really important speculation is whether public opinion will be influenced in the same direction and to the same extent as the President. The second comment is more grim: the question is academic. The Allies are obtaining from us about all of the help they can use for the present, and in spite of it Hitler is taking every trick. Later, if the war continues, they might want American credits, American pilots and American warships (especially if Mussolini comes in) -- but the war may not continue beyond next autumn unless they make a better showing. Perhaps the real question we have to face today is what to do if Hitler wins.”
An update -- radio reports this morning say the Dutch press is trying to quiet reaction to these measures, saying the elaborate steps are “just a test” of the nation’s defenses. One Dutch newspaper said the international sensation over the defense measures was “not justified.”
I’ve been worried for over a month about Holland being next on Hitler’s list. My own predictions -- expect a German lightning attack against the Netherlands soon, perhaps any day. The Nazis will then build air bases in Holland and Norway for an eventual all-out bomber assault on Britain. France, Belgium, and Sweden will remain untouched, at least for now. And German propaganda about war in the Balkans and the Mediterranean is nothing more than a bluff.
BIG TENSIONS AMONG GERMANS, TOO. Sigrid Schultz of the Chicago Tribune reports from Berlin in Wednesday’s editions that there's a strong sense something’s about to happen --
“Tension in Berlin today has been even more striking than it was on the eve of the German invasion of Denmark and Norway. For some unaccountable reason, citizens told foreign correspondents and one another that ‘things are bound to happen soon.’ Officials avoided such statements but pointed to ‘the reports of increased British and French activities in the Mediterranean and in southeastern Europe.’”
Miss Schultz adds that “wherever one turned one heard of men between the ages of 30 and 50 who have been called to the colors on 24 hours’ notice....The public knows Germany has at least 5,000,000 soldiers on duty and that many of the men recently called are skilled workers needed in business and factories.”
CAN CHAMBERLAIN SURVIVE? Radio news reports this morning also make Prime Minister Chamberlain’s situation sound increasingly precarious -- and increasingly similar to what happened to former French Premier Daladier in March. As in Daladier’s case, Chamberlain has won a vote of confidence in Parliament, reportedly by a 281-200 vote. But just as happened with Daladier, the government’s victory is marred by a high number of abstentions -- 130 in today’s vote, including forty members of Chamberlain’s own party. And there are suggestions now that Chamberlain could follow Daladier’s example and resign. Opposition members of the House of Commons are said to be claiming a victory, yelling “Go! Resign” at Chamberlain as he left the House.
So far, Chamberlain has agreed to one concrete move -- making Winston Churchill a supreme coordinator, giving guidance and direction to the chiefs of staffs as the head of a “military coordination committee.” But it’s the only concession the Prime Minister has made to his critics, and almost surely there will be more changes before this blows over.
A WAR HERO LEADS THE CRITICISM. According to Edward Angly’s story in Wednesday’s New York Herald Tribune, one factor souring Chamberlain’s political fortunes was a stunning address to Parliament by a fellow Conservative and World War hero, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Roger Keyes. The Admiral scored the “shocking...ineptitude” of Britain’s Norway operations, and the failure of the British Admiralty to quickly seize Trondheim Fjord with a naval attack and to support British troops driving toward the city. He had offered to lead warships up the Fjord himself, he said, but was told the army had the situation in hand.
That speech, made by no less than a close friend of Churchill, contracted starkly with Chamberlain’s own rambling defense of the Norway campaign yesterday, which reportedly angered his adversaries and embarrassed his friends in the House of Commons. Raymond Daniell writes in Wednesday’s New York Times that the Prime Minister “appeared tired, nervous, and discouraged, and his apolgia did not go down with the members of his own or the Opposition side of the House.”
THE PRIME MINISTER’S “DEFENSE.” It’s easy to see why. Chamberlain’s penchant for understatement never served him worse than it did in his Wednesday speech. Unbelievably, he refused to admit that what happened in Norway was a defeat. He asked the Commons to avoid reaching a “hasty” judgement on the success of the campaign, since after all British troops are still fighting above the Arctic Circle. “It is quite obvious that the Germans have made certain gains,” he said weakly. “It is equally clear they have paid a heavy price for them. It is too early to say on which side the balance is finally inclined because the campaign is not yet finished.” Just incredible.
BRITISH PAPERS BLAST CHAMBERLAIN. The Prime Minister’s speech went down horribly in Britain’s press, writes Frank R. Kelly in Wednesday’s New York Herald Tribune. Mr. Kelly’s article offers some examples of editorial reaction, as does the New York Times. They aren’t pretty --
The Times -- “Assuredly we shall not win this war with less than the whole capacity of leadership possessed by all parties together.”
Daily Mail (Conservative) -- “The country will not find optimism an adequate substitute for solid results. One of Mr. Chamberlain’s weaknesses is that he tends to mistake wishes for realities....It is useless to sum up the Norwegian campaign on a profit and loss account of men in the field. Hitler’s losses have been heavy, but it was the price he was prepared to pay for Norway.”
Daily Herald (Labourite) -- “The Prime Minister has spoken, and the nation stands amazed. No syllable of apology graces his position. Not a dent appears in the bright armor of his self-conceit...His indecision imperils our cause. His complacency is a dangerous drug. He possesses the qualities which, measured against the ruthless dynamism of our opponents, might well snatch defeat even from the jaws of victory....Chamberlain’s stock – low enough when the debate began – has fallen right through the floor.”
News Chronicle (Liberal) -- “The government must go, and the sooner it goes the better for the safety of the realm. We cannot afford to keep it a day longer.”
Daily Mirror -- “How much longer will the House of Commons are able to endure such statements as that made by the Prime Minister? What is the good of closing ranks behind leaders who are always too late?”
ROOSEVELT AND THE WAR. With new war tensions engulfing Europe, the question of whether President Roosevelt is willing to risk involving America in the war becomes more relevant by the hour. A new book published in magazine form, American White Paper by Stewart Alsop and Peter Kintner, attempts to describe just what the administration’s real position is on this most sensitive of issues. Mr. Alsop and Mr. Kintner find that the President strongly supports the Allied cause, and although wishing to keep the U.S. at peace, might be willing to commit naval craft and warplanes (though not a land army) to fight for Britain and France.
A pessimistic editorial in this week’s New Republic, however, says that even though all of this might be true, it’s increasingly irrelevant to what’s actually happening --
“Large as is the influence of Mr. Roosevelt, and great as are the powers of the President, no man could precipitate this country into war if it did not want to go. The really important speculation is whether public opinion will be influenced in the same direction and to the same extent as the President. The second comment is more grim: the question is academic. The Allies are obtaining from us about all of the help they can use for the present, and in spite of it Hitler is taking every trick. Later, if the war continues, they might want American credits, American pilots and American warships (especially if Mussolini comes in) -- but the war may not continue beyond next autumn unless they make a better showing. Perhaps the real question we have to face today is what to do if Hitler wins.”
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