LAST STAND AT DUNKERQUE. The Germans are throwing everything they’ve got at Dunkerque, yet the Allies hold on. Henry C. Cassidy of the Associated Press writes Monday that about fifteen Nazi divisions, comprising some 200,000 troops, are “wallowing waist-deep” in the protective floodwaters surrounding the burning port city, as they grimly assault a much smaller number of French and British troops who now appear to be trapped there. But “latest reports said the Nazis were mowed down and beaten back” by Allied shelling, machine-gun and rifle fire, and strafing from warplanes.
The Allied exodus from Dunkerque is over, but the city served a good use -- according to the New York Herald Tribune, British War Secretary Anthony Eden says that four-fifths of the British Expeditionary Force escaped the German trap in Flanders, along with “tens of thousands” of French soldiers. This morning’s radio news says that a total of 280,000 Allied troops got out. That might not be a major victory, but it certainly mitigates the effects of defeat.
Germany used forty divisions in the Flanders battle, but the radio also says today that twenty-five of them have now been moved to “new theatres of action.” Everyone seems to think the French will hear from these forces again very soon, say, in only twenty-four to forty-eight hours.
COULD THE U.S. BE INVADED? “YES, BUT...” Monday’s Chicago Tribune notes that America’s rearmament program is now at $4,500,000,000 and counting, and the paper investigates just how the nation might be invaded, by “a European power with a fully equipped force of 500,000 men.” (I guess it would be considered un-neutral of the Tribune to admit the obvious and acknowledge they’re talking about Germany). Here’s how they think it could happen --
“The only possible blitzkrieg on the United States, the experts agreed, would come by way of Newfoundland. It would require, first, the defeat of the American fleet so that it could not prevent the arrival of troop ships. Because of weather conditions, the invader would have to plan to land troops at Newfoundland no earlier than June 1. By December winter would again block the route. The enemy would have six months in which to conquer America – a true blitzkrieg. The invading army...would have to cross Cabot Strait to Nova Scotia and then, gaining and holding control of the St. Lawrence, fight thru Montreal and Quebec and down into the Lake Champlain region” – and risk fighting a new Battle of Saratoga.
But the Tribune assures us that their unnamed experts are “unanimous in saying that a blitzkrieg by the northern route could not possibly be accomplished in the face of a well armed and organized American-Canadian force, or a force of long range bombing planes.”
WHERE WILL HITLER STRIKE NEXT? Hanson W. Baldwin takes a crack at the question of the hour in Sunday’s New York Times --
“If Hitler turns toward England immediately in a vast do-or-die gamble, he may, indeed, launch his attempt before the British have completed their preparations to meet him, but the French Army will be on his flank, and, it seems certain that a large part of the German strength would have to be earmarked to meet an attack from France. Nor can such an attack be too much discounted; regardless of Hitler’s future intentions, the Allies may beat him to the punch. Consequently, France would seem to be the first target. This conclusion is supported by the sudden and virulent outbreak of German press attacks against that country....French and British resistance still seems strong. Hitler has won a great victory, but the decisive battles of the war may still remain to be fought.”
AMERICA MUST PLAY A BIG ROLE. Dorothy Thompson writes in her New York Herald Tribune column Monday that the shock of the German offensive requires the United States to take a “leading place” in the world, at the risk of her continued existence --
“I am not among those who think that we are threatened with an imminent invasion, either from Mars or from the Nazis. It is something quite different with which we are threatened -- the complete collapse of the world of which we are an integral part, and the redistribution and reorganization of that world, socially, economically, politically, financially, and spritually, in such a manner as will menace our institutions, our way of life and our possibility of independent survival...The question is not whether we should go to war. It is an idle question, because even if we should at this moment, we could not. In spite of the fact that the blitzkrieg against the whole existing order has been systematically and openly prepared for seven years, it has been the fashion to demur at those who have harped upon it as a prime fact to be considered in the world today, and to call them panicky, war mongers, and hysterical....What we need now is not panic, not denunciation, not unconsidered action, but awakening, analysis, and preparation...for the most likely eventualities.”
Miss Thompson adds that we’re nearing what amounts to a moment of truth -- “Very soon we shall have to take a leading place in the world or a back seat. If it is to be the former, we must begin by making over ourselves and living in reality and not illusion....The reality demands sacrificial devotion, intensely hard work by every one, spiritual and intellectual conviction, and out of it the greatest happiness there is -- that which comes from uncoerced dedication to a common and lofty cause.” Agreed, but it seems to me what she’s calling for will require some very “coerced” measures -- such as compulsory military service and perhaps even a stern law such as Britain’s putting all property and livelihood in the hands of government. Will this country support that, even if Hitler wins in Europe?
THE POLLS SHOW A SHIFT. A graph in the News of the Week section in Sunday’s New York Times shows just how dramatically public opinion in the U.S. has shifted this spring. Based on findings in the Gallup and Princeton polls, it shows, for example, a dramatic rise in the number of people who think America isn’t doing enough to aid the Allies -- under 20% in March, and 71% now. Last September, only 10% of those surveyed thought Germany would win the war, but since her spring offensive, that number is up to 32%. Three-fourths of Americans believed when the war broke out that the Allies would win; that number has plunged to 38%. About half of those polled thought in September that the U.S. would get into the war – that number dropped to 30% in the winter but is again up to 51% today.
Hadley Cantril, the Director of the Princeton Public Opinion Research Project, summarizes the findings in an accompanying Times story -- “People are not by any means as sure as they were that the Allies will win, and there is a growing feeling that this country will participate in the war and that we should do more than we are now doing to help the Allies. In short, the attitude of aloofness has nearly disappeared, even though the great bulk of the American people are still quite unwilling to go to war.”
Meanwhile, in Sunday’s Washington Post, Dr. Gallup offers more fresh evidence that Americans are concerned about military preparedness. His newest survey on the question of compulsory military service shows half in favor, and half against. This is a jump from 39% support for the idea in a poll last October. Specifically, the question asks if the U.S. should require every able-bodied twenty-year-old man to serve in the armed forces for one year. Not surprisingly, young men are the least likely to support compulsory service. Gallup’s poll also shows that a wide majority (85%) approve starting military training at the hundreds of Civilian Conservation Corps camps.
Saturday, June 4, 2016
Thursday, June 2, 2016
Sunday, June 2, 1940
ALLIED RESCUE AT DUNKERQUE. It looks like the New York Times was right last Wednesday -- massive numbers of Allied troops are escaping to Britain from what was thought to be a Nazi death-trap in northern France. Everybody’s reporting the story this week-end, and the Saturday Times says that three-fourths of the entire British Expeditionary Force has been successfully taken out of the Flanders pocket from Dunkerque, the Allies’ one remaining port. Times Reporter Harold Denny witnessed the arrival in London of “dazed but happy” Allied soldiers who made the cross-Channel trip in a motley array of landing craft -- “steamboats of all sizes, many of them had been pleasure boats in happier days, coastal tramp ships, dingy fishing boats and motor boats. A tug chugged in towing a string of five barges loaded with soldiers.”
“They were welcomed not sadly as a beaten army but primarily as the heroes in one of the bravest chapters in Great Britain’s military annals,” writes Mr. Denny. Good news indeed, in light of the expectations of a week ago that half a million Allied troops in the pocket would be seized or killed by the Germans.
So exactly how many have gotten out? Military authorities are keeping the actual number a secret, and press estimates are all over the place. The United Press seconds the Times’ estimate that three-quarters of the B.E.F. has been saved, and notes the original strength of the B.E.F. was estimated at 300,000 to 350,000 men. The Associated Press reports Saturday that 130,000 British troops had been taken from Dunkerque as of Friday night. Another A.P. story reported a British estimate that 90,000 troops were removed on Friday itself. Yet another A.P. dispatch puts the British force originally sent to Flanders at 175,000, and says two-thirds of the troops reaching England are British.
HOW DUNKERQUE HAPPENED. It was a combination of brilliance and luck. A week ago German tanks along the coast were only twelve miles from Dunkerque, but their advance came to a sudden and surprising halt. In recent days French engineers opened the gates on surrounding canals, turning the surrounding land into a marshy area flooded a foot-and-a-half deep. (A map in Saturday’s New York Herald Tribune shows the nine canals in the area of the port city.) Meanwhile, British Navy destroyers used their heavy guns as a covering artillery to lessen the Germans’ ability to fire on Allied troops retreating toward Dunkerque. Allied ships maneuvered expertly in shallow water and in darkness, while subjected to Nazi air bombardment. The “luck” came in the form of two days of bad weather, which hampered the Germans in making wide-scale air attacks.
NAZIS SAY FLANDERS CLEAN-UP ALMOST OVER. The rescue is still going on, although radio reports this morning say the flow of troops from Dunkerque has slowed to a “trickle” and British officials say the evacuation is now “nearly complete.” The port itself, or what remains of it, is still in Allied hands, defended by a British division and two French divisions against an advancing German infantry force backed by dive bombers and heavy artillery. Sigrid Schultz writes in Saturday’s Chicago Tribune that German officials now consider the Flanders battle to be “completed except for mopping up work,” and they expect their army “to strike next at the French southern armies alone the Somme and Aisne rivers.” Miss Schultz also reports the Nazis are rushing regiments of naval artillery into position to shell England’s channel coast.
MORE FRENCH ATTACKS ALONG THE SOMME. General Weygand’s efforts to reach the Flanders pocket from the south may have come to naught, but the French are still attacking on the Somme front. A Saturday Associated Press story says French tanks supporting a second British Expeditionary Force have driven the Germans out of a crucial bridgehead across the Somme at Abbeville, taking hundreds of prisoners and seizing large amounts of Nazi war material. There may be bigger things to come -- “The action along the Somme was mentioned by the French command’s night communique only as ‘a certain activity,’ indicating the secrecy that customarily surrounds the start of major movements.” (Update -- the French claimed last night to have repulsed “two strong German surprise attacks” east of Amiens, along the upper Somme).
THE FRENCH REMAIN CONFIDENT. The French Army has done a good job of halting the Nazi southward push along the line of the Somme and Aisne rivers -- though who knows what will happen if the German troops in Flanders are thrown into the southern battle. The French don’t seem worried, though. There’s an interesting story by P.J. Phillips in Saturday’s New York Times describing the “amazing, one might almost say sublime, confidence with which the still intact hulk of the French Army regards the future.” According to Mr. Phillips, this is the case even though the Nazi offensive has “cut off France from her northern coal supplies and the immense industrial area of Lille” and has “driven millions of people from their occupations and farms to shelter.”
But French officers continue to “speak confidently of victory,” and their words are backed by a still-large army with plenty of material -- though there’s a question of whether they have enough heavy tanks and warplanes to handle another German lightning attack. But this time, the French feel they can take it and hold on until an opportunity for victory appears. Let’s hope so.
THE NAZIS CAN’T INVADE BRITAIN... At least one expert believes that Hitler will go after France now, and not Britain, because “a German invasion of England could not be accomplished in the next few months.” A United Press story quotes Major Alexander P. de Seversky, American plane builder and speed flyer, as pooh-poohing the current “panic” that a Nazi invasion of England is in the offing --
“Students of aerial warfare realize that if any one has command of the air over land or sea nothing can be done in defense against such a power until the air is cleared....There can be no immediate invasion of England because while Germany had complete mastery of the air over Scandinavia she does not have it over England by a long shot. Defensively, Britain is greatly superior. Her Spitfire, which I flew last summer, is a superior plane to any which the Germans have in great numbers. Therefore, no invasion of England is possible until that superiority of the air over England is achieved....The near future may tell a different story of the war in Europe.”
...OR MAYBE THEY CAN. Major Seversky might offer comforting tidings, but Edward R. Murrow’s broadcast on C.B.S. Friday night indicated that the British are getting ready for a Nazi invasion in a hurry. Mr. Murrow reported, after driving for a hundred and fifty miles through southern and southeastern England, that the road signs and town and village signs have all been taken down. “Old trucks, tractors, and farm carts” sit in the bushes, ready to be pushed on the road, and gun emplacements are hastily being installed are strategic crossroads. “Coming to London tonight,” Mr. Murrow said, “I wished for a compass.”
LIPPMANN – U.S. HAS SUFFERED “DEFEAT.” There was another must-read column by Walter Lippmann in Thursday’s New York Herald Tribune, making clear once again that the fate of the Allies is tied to our own --
“Time is not our ally. We lost that ally of ours, namely the time which democracies need in order to muddle through, when we refused to lift a finger to prevent the war and when later we allowed ourselves to be bound hand and foot in a stiff and stupid neutrality. Whether all the people of the United States have as yet realized it or not, American has already suffered a tremendous defeat. It is a defeat which can be redressed. But it can be redressed only by enormous courage, unflinching sacrifice, and the utmost lucidity and wisdom in our leaders.”
Mr. Lippmann prescribes that we immediately adopt “the principle of universal service [and] the principle of the total dedication of our resources.” And we should do so not for ourselves -- “We should appropriate a very large sum of money to feed the ravaged people of western Europe...We should do it first of all because we ought not go to the Day of Judgment with it on our consciences that we sat around with a surplus of food while the most highly civilized peoples in the world were allowed to perish.” And, above all, “We should...[make] available to the Allies any weapons we possess which are not immediately indispensable to preserve law and order within the inner zone of our strategic defenses.”
MUSSOLINI’S VAIN DREAMS. Newspapermen seem pretty much unanimous that Mussolini will very soon bring Italy into the war on Hitler’s side, but Barnet Nover writes in his Washington Post column Friday that the Duce’s own dreams of conquest are illusory --
“What can Italy gain? On paper a great deal. Mussolini’s dream of a revived Roman Empire remains a dream as long as the British and French empires exist, as long as British sea power is unbroken. Should Great Britain and France be smashed, Italy might fall heir to the French colonies in North Africa. The Mediterranean, so goes the dream, would then become an Italian lake. But that is only a dream. For while the Roman Empire was supreme and unchallenged throughout the vast area it dominated, it was also unchallenged from outside. It was not until Rome was in its decline that the barbarians from the north became a real problem. Now, however, an Italian victory would be primarily a German victory. Mussolini cannot be victorious without Hitler....To be sure the Fuehrer might reward the Duce for Italy’s intervention by permitting Italy to expand in Africa and the Mediterranean. But what he might give he could also take back.”
“They were welcomed not sadly as a beaten army but primarily as the heroes in one of the bravest chapters in Great Britain’s military annals,” writes Mr. Denny. Good news indeed, in light of the expectations of a week ago that half a million Allied troops in the pocket would be seized or killed by the Germans.
So exactly how many have gotten out? Military authorities are keeping the actual number a secret, and press estimates are all over the place. The United Press seconds the Times’ estimate that three-quarters of the B.E.F. has been saved, and notes the original strength of the B.E.F. was estimated at 300,000 to 350,000 men. The Associated Press reports Saturday that 130,000 British troops had been taken from Dunkerque as of Friday night. Another A.P. story reported a British estimate that 90,000 troops were removed on Friday itself. Yet another A.P. dispatch puts the British force originally sent to Flanders at 175,000, and says two-thirds of the troops reaching England are British.
HOW DUNKERQUE HAPPENED. It was a combination of brilliance and luck. A week ago German tanks along the coast were only twelve miles from Dunkerque, but their advance came to a sudden and surprising halt. In recent days French engineers opened the gates on surrounding canals, turning the surrounding land into a marshy area flooded a foot-and-a-half deep. (A map in Saturday’s New York Herald Tribune shows the nine canals in the area of the port city.) Meanwhile, British Navy destroyers used their heavy guns as a covering artillery to lessen the Germans’ ability to fire on Allied troops retreating toward Dunkerque. Allied ships maneuvered expertly in shallow water and in darkness, while subjected to Nazi air bombardment. The “luck” came in the form of two days of bad weather, which hampered the Germans in making wide-scale air attacks.
NAZIS SAY FLANDERS CLEAN-UP ALMOST OVER. The rescue is still going on, although radio reports this morning say the flow of troops from Dunkerque has slowed to a “trickle” and British officials say the evacuation is now “nearly complete.” The port itself, or what remains of it, is still in Allied hands, defended by a British division and two French divisions against an advancing German infantry force backed by dive bombers and heavy artillery. Sigrid Schultz writes in Saturday’s Chicago Tribune that German officials now consider the Flanders battle to be “completed except for mopping up work,” and they expect their army “to strike next at the French southern armies alone the Somme and Aisne rivers.” Miss Schultz also reports the Nazis are rushing regiments of naval artillery into position to shell England’s channel coast.
MORE FRENCH ATTACKS ALONG THE SOMME. General Weygand’s efforts to reach the Flanders pocket from the south may have come to naught, but the French are still attacking on the Somme front. A Saturday Associated Press story says French tanks supporting a second British Expeditionary Force have driven the Germans out of a crucial bridgehead across the Somme at Abbeville, taking hundreds of prisoners and seizing large amounts of Nazi war material. There may be bigger things to come -- “The action along the Somme was mentioned by the French command’s night communique only as ‘a certain activity,’ indicating the secrecy that customarily surrounds the start of major movements.” (Update -- the French claimed last night to have repulsed “two strong German surprise attacks” east of Amiens, along the upper Somme).
THE FRENCH REMAIN CONFIDENT. The French Army has done a good job of halting the Nazi southward push along the line of the Somme and Aisne rivers -- though who knows what will happen if the German troops in Flanders are thrown into the southern battle. The French don’t seem worried, though. There’s an interesting story by P.J. Phillips in Saturday’s New York Times describing the “amazing, one might almost say sublime, confidence with which the still intact hulk of the French Army regards the future.” According to Mr. Phillips, this is the case even though the Nazi offensive has “cut off France from her northern coal supplies and the immense industrial area of Lille” and has “driven millions of people from their occupations and farms to shelter.”
But French officers continue to “speak confidently of victory,” and their words are backed by a still-large army with plenty of material -- though there’s a question of whether they have enough heavy tanks and warplanes to handle another German lightning attack. But this time, the French feel they can take it and hold on until an opportunity for victory appears. Let’s hope so.
THE NAZIS CAN’T INVADE BRITAIN... At least one expert believes that Hitler will go after France now, and not Britain, because “a German invasion of England could not be accomplished in the next few months.” A United Press story quotes Major Alexander P. de Seversky, American plane builder and speed flyer, as pooh-poohing the current “panic” that a Nazi invasion of England is in the offing --
“Students of aerial warfare realize that if any one has command of the air over land or sea nothing can be done in defense against such a power until the air is cleared....There can be no immediate invasion of England because while Germany had complete mastery of the air over Scandinavia she does not have it over England by a long shot. Defensively, Britain is greatly superior. Her Spitfire, which I flew last summer, is a superior plane to any which the Germans have in great numbers. Therefore, no invasion of England is possible until that superiority of the air over England is achieved....The near future may tell a different story of the war in Europe.”
...OR MAYBE THEY CAN. Major Seversky might offer comforting tidings, but Edward R. Murrow’s broadcast on C.B.S. Friday night indicated that the British are getting ready for a Nazi invasion in a hurry. Mr. Murrow reported, after driving for a hundred and fifty miles through southern and southeastern England, that the road signs and town and village signs have all been taken down. “Old trucks, tractors, and farm carts” sit in the bushes, ready to be pushed on the road, and gun emplacements are hastily being installed are strategic crossroads. “Coming to London tonight,” Mr. Murrow said, “I wished for a compass.”
LIPPMANN – U.S. HAS SUFFERED “DEFEAT.” There was another must-read column by Walter Lippmann in Thursday’s New York Herald Tribune, making clear once again that the fate of the Allies is tied to our own --
“Time is not our ally. We lost that ally of ours, namely the time which democracies need in order to muddle through, when we refused to lift a finger to prevent the war and when later we allowed ourselves to be bound hand and foot in a stiff and stupid neutrality. Whether all the people of the United States have as yet realized it or not, American has already suffered a tremendous defeat. It is a defeat which can be redressed. But it can be redressed only by enormous courage, unflinching sacrifice, and the utmost lucidity and wisdom in our leaders.”
Mr. Lippmann prescribes that we immediately adopt “the principle of universal service [and] the principle of the total dedication of our resources.” And we should do so not for ourselves -- “We should appropriate a very large sum of money to feed the ravaged people of western Europe...We should do it first of all because we ought not go to the Day of Judgment with it on our consciences that we sat around with a surplus of food while the most highly civilized peoples in the world were allowed to perish.” And, above all, “We should...[make] available to the Allies any weapons we possess which are not immediately indispensable to preserve law and order within the inner zone of our strategic defenses.”
MUSSOLINI’S VAIN DREAMS. Newspapermen seem pretty much unanimous that Mussolini will very soon bring Italy into the war on Hitler’s side, but Barnet Nover writes in his Washington Post column Friday that the Duce’s own dreams of conquest are illusory --
“What can Italy gain? On paper a great deal. Mussolini’s dream of a revived Roman Empire remains a dream as long as the British and French empires exist, as long as British sea power is unbroken. Should Great Britain and France be smashed, Italy might fall heir to the French colonies in North Africa. The Mediterranean, so goes the dream, would then become an Italian lake. But that is only a dream. For while the Roman Empire was supreme and unchallenged throughout the vast area it dominated, it was also unchallenged from outside. It was not until Rome was in its decline that the barbarians from the north became a real problem. Now, however, an Italian victory would be primarily a German victory. Mussolini cannot be victorious without Hitler....To be sure the Fuehrer might reward the Duce for Italy’s intervention by permitting Italy to expand in Africa and the Mediterranean. But what he might give he could also take back.”
Monday, May 30, 2016
Thursday, May 30, 1940
FLANDERS BATTLE ALL BUT OVER. This morning, two days after the Belgian surrender, it looks like the Allied pocket in Flanders is starting to fall apart. The morning’s news broadcasts say that British troops are desperately trying to escape via the Allies’ one remaining port of Dunkerque, amid near-constant bombing and shelling. One report says that scattered groups of soldiers are also “sliding off a stretch of coast thirty miles long,” in rowboats and small fishing craft. The goal is to float back to England, one way or another.
William Shirer described in last night’s talk from Berlin on the C.B.S. how the Germans have split the pocket into two pieces, by seizing the French city of Lille Wednesday. One piece south of Lille is a square about twelve miles wide, containing the remains of three French armies, while the other is about twice that size and contains the trapped British troops falling back towards the coastline. Mr. Shirer also lists the Nazi successes reported in just the last twenty-four hours -- the capture of Lille, the taking of one remaining Channel port, Ostend, the storming of Bruges and Ypres and the bombardment of Dunkerque. The headlines are “as amazing to the Germans here at home as they are to you and me,” he says.
The Associated Press reports Wednesday that somewhere on a distant planet, the French high command claims that a new offensive launched from the Somme River to rescue their trapped comrades in the Flanders pocket is “going well.” But every newspaper map I’ve seen shows the pocket shrinking, and the gap between the main French lines and the pocket growing dramatically wider.
ALLIED TROOPS ESCAPING THE TRAP? A story by George Axelsson in Wednesday’s New York Times indicates that in one critical respect, the Allied plight in Flanders might not be as bad as originally feared. A couple of days ago it was widely predicted that all of the trapped British and French forces faced either surrender or annihilation, but Mr. Axelsson reports an amazing number may have already slipped away -- “The Germans think the Allies have succeeded in shipping out over 500,000 men from the pocket during the last few days.” If true, it’s by far the cheeriest news of this grim week. Yet it still leaves, the Times reports, some 30 divisions, comprising 300,000 to 360,000 men, who are making a “desperate last stand” against the attacking Nazis.
Can these men get out as well? The Times story doesn’t discuss their chances, but a much gloomier article by Edward Angly in Wednesday’s New York Herald Tribune all but writes them off -- “In this epic tragedy the port of Dunkerque was the only hope of escape, and Dunkerque was under such brutal bombing by the numerically superior airmen of Germany that the prospect of removing the French-British force in the north was considered in London to be remote.” An Associated Press story from Wednesday says the peril to Britain’s expeditionary force is “not even exceeded by that of the British in the disaster at Gallipoli in the world war.” That peril is much greater now that the Belgians, who were holding the left wing of the front, have quit fighting at King Leopold’s order.
“KING QUISLING” MAY GET A NEW THRONE. Not every Belgian is following King Leopold’s surrender orders, however. His cabinet, now in Paris, has declared his capitulation “illegal” and plans to raise a new army in exile, according to Walter Kerr in Wednesday’s New York Herald Tribune. Neither is the King well regarded now in Britain or France. An Associated Press story recounts a violent argument between Leopold and General Weygand shortly before the surrender was announced, and Britain’s Evening Standard lampooned the monarch the other day with the title of “King Quisling.”
Not surprisingly, though, his capitulation won high praise from Berlin and Rome. And E.R. Noderer writes in Wednesday’s Chicago Tribune that the Nazis may be prepared to give the King more than kind words. They’ve assigned him to a “well known” Belgian castle, there to remain until they decide what to do with him. Mr. Noderer adds that “Leopold has always been considered by the Germans as sympathetic to the Nazi cause. Now, after his surrender, many believe Hitler not only will treat him with the greatest courtesy, but that he will grant Leopold a certain amount of political influence” -- perhaps as the puppet sovereign of a new, Nazi-supervised Flemish-Dutch kingdom.
AMERICAN WAR JITTERS. The current issue of Time magazine jots a number of examples of U.S. war worries from all over the nation --
“In Jeanette, Pa., a gun club got ready to pot any Nazi parachutists descending from the skies; the Pennsylvania legislature studied ways to protect industrial plants from air raids; in Brooklyn a war-crazed British sailor danced despairingly on a high window ledge; in Manhattan and Seattle, two men killed themselves because of news; in Kirkland, Wash., a lady letter-writer noted approvingly that a coffee shop had changed ‘hamburger’ on the menu to ‘liberty steak.’”
On the other hand, says Time, “City College students paraded in Manhattan, protesting war and the R.O.T.C.; 1,000 Dartmouth students wired the President to keep the U.S. out of war; Temple University’s student chiefs telegraphed a plea to calm ‘war hysteria.’”
NEXT TARGET – LONDON OR PARIS? Now that, barring a major miracle, the Germans have decisively won the Battle of Flanders, there’s all sorts of speculation in Wednesday’s papers about just where the Nazi war machine will head next. Sigrid Schultz reports in the Chicago Tribune that many Germans are convinced “Fuehrer Hitler’s next move will be against Paris -- ‘to increase the panic in France,’ it was said. This conviction was based on the belief here that the morale of the population in France is nearer the breaking point than in England.” By contrast, according to Ralph Barnes in the New York Herald Tribune, “The implication of all the Nazi commentaries is that Fuehrer Adolph Hitler now has given the order for the invasion of Great Britain, his arch-enemy.” Jubilant Nazis now say “the gates to England are open” following the Belgian surrender.
Meanwhile, in the Washington Post Felix Morley acknowledges German claims that an invasion of Britain is in the offing, and says “it is readily understandable that the Germans should want to create this impression.” For one thing, it might talk the British out of sending new reinforcements to Paris. But Mr. Morley also smartly looks at what Hitler wrote years ago in Mein Kampf, given that the Fuehrer’s book has been a fairly reliable guide to his subsequent schemes. And Mr. Morley notes that Hitler’s book condemns France, not Britain, as the eternal enemy of the German people. Hence, “it is at France rather than Britain that he may be expected to strike a deadly blow if opportunity serves.”
THE WAR WILL BE DECIDED IN FRANCE. Barnet Nover also discounts the idea of an immediate Nazi invasion of Britain, in his Washington Post column on Wednesday –
“It has been predicted...that once in possession of the Channel ports Hitler will let France alone and concentrate the force of the German attack solely on England. But even under existing circumstances an attack on England would probably prove no easy venture and would certainly involve a vast German expenditure of men and material. Indeed, an attack on England, whether in the form of actual invasion or continuous bombardment from the air, would have no purpose if it did not lead to the weakening of the French army by cutting off essential supplies and reinforcements from Britain to France. In that connection it is obviously in the German interest to have the British thoroughly alarmed over the possibility of an invasion and thus allocate to home defense men and supplies needed by the Allied forces on the continent. But whatever happens in England the war will probably be won – and lost -- in France.”
IT’S EITHER THE “WAR OF 1940" OR THE “WAR OF 1945.” Hamilton Fish Armstrong, the editor of Foreign Affairs magazine, makes the case for massive U.S. aid to the Allies in an opinion piece in Tuesday’s New York Times –
“If the Allies fail then the Germans are no longer at Saint Quentin and the Channel but at our own gates flushed with victory, using as their partner every predatory force existing in every part of the world. Speaking very realistically it is cheaper in blood and money to help others to fight the war of 1940 than to fight the war of 1945 ourselves, alone. Though I am not a military critic I have confidence the French and British can hold the gates. But for them to continue to hold them, for them to mass the power for final victory, they need our money, our planes, our supplies, our encouragement, our admiration, our love.”
William Shirer described in last night’s talk from Berlin on the C.B.S. how the Germans have split the pocket into two pieces, by seizing the French city of Lille Wednesday. One piece south of Lille is a square about twelve miles wide, containing the remains of three French armies, while the other is about twice that size and contains the trapped British troops falling back towards the coastline. Mr. Shirer also lists the Nazi successes reported in just the last twenty-four hours -- the capture of Lille, the taking of one remaining Channel port, Ostend, the storming of Bruges and Ypres and the bombardment of Dunkerque. The headlines are “as amazing to the Germans here at home as they are to you and me,” he says.
The Associated Press reports Wednesday that somewhere on a distant planet, the French high command claims that a new offensive launched from the Somme River to rescue their trapped comrades in the Flanders pocket is “going well.” But every newspaper map I’ve seen shows the pocket shrinking, and the gap between the main French lines and the pocket growing dramatically wider.
ALLIED TROOPS ESCAPING THE TRAP? A story by George Axelsson in Wednesday’s New York Times indicates that in one critical respect, the Allied plight in Flanders might not be as bad as originally feared. A couple of days ago it was widely predicted that all of the trapped British and French forces faced either surrender or annihilation, but Mr. Axelsson reports an amazing number may have already slipped away -- “The Germans think the Allies have succeeded in shipping out over 500,000 men from the pocket during the last few days.” If true, it’s by far the cheeriest news of this grim week. Yet it still leaves, the Times reports, some 30 divisions, comprising 300,000 to 360,000 men, who are making a “desperate last stand” against the attacking Nazis.
Can these men get out as well? The Times story doesn’t discuss their chances, but a much gloomier article by Edward Angly in Wednesday’s New York Herald Tribune all but writes them off -- “In this epic tragedy the port of Dunkerque was the only hope of escape, and Dunkerque was under such brutal bombing by the numerically superior airmen of Germany that the prospect of removing the French-British force in the north was considered in London to be remote.” An Associated Press story from Wednesday says the peril to Britain’s expeditionary force is “not even exceeded by that of the British in the disaster at Gallipoli in the world war.” That peril is much greater now that the Belgians, who were holding the left wing of the front, have quit fighting at King Leopold’s order.
“KING QUISLING” MAY GET A NEW THRONE. Not every Belgian is following King Leopold’s surrender orders, however. His cabinet, now in Paris, has declared his capitulation “illegal” and plans to raise a new army in exile, according to Walter Kerr in Wednesday’s New York Herald Tribune. Neither is the King well regarded now in Britain or France. An Associated Press story recounts a violent argument between Leopold and General Weygand shortly before the surrender was announced, and Britain’s Evening Standard lampooned the monarch the other day with the title of “King Quisling.”
Not surprisingly, though, his capitulation won high praise from Berlin and Rome. And E.R. Noderer writes in Wednesday’s Chicago Tribune that the Nazis may be prepared to give the King more than kind words. They’ve assigned him to a “well known” Belgian castle, there to remain until they decide what to do with him. Mr. Noderer adds that “Leopold has always been considered by the Germans as sympathetic to the Nazi cause. Now, after his surrender, many believe Hitler not only will treat him with the greatest courtesy, but that he will grant Leopold a certain amount of political influence” -- perhaps as the puppet sovereign of a new, Nazi-supervised Flemish-Dutch kingdom.
AMERICAN WAR JITTERS. The current issue of Time magazine jots a number of examples of U.S. war worries from all over the nation --
“In Jeanette, Pa., a gun club got ready to pot any Nazi parachutists descending from the skies; the Pennsylvania legislature studied ways to protect industrial plants from air raids; in Brooklyn a war-crazed British sailor danced despairingly on a high window ledge; in Manhattan and Seattle, two men killed themselves because of news; in Kirkland, Wash., a lady letter-writer noted approvingly that a coffee shop had changed ‘hamburger’ on the menu to ‘liberty steak.’”
On the other hand, says Time, “City College students paraded in Manhattan, protesting war and the R.O.T.C.; 1,000 Dartmouth students wired the President to keep the U.S. out of war; Temple University’s student chiefs telegraphed a plea to calm ‘war hysteria.’”
NEXT TARGET – LONDON OR PARIS? Now that, barring a major miracle, the Germans have decisively won the Battle of Flanders, there’s all sorts of speculation in Wednesday’s papers about just where the Nazi war machine will head next. Sigrid Schultz reports in the Chicago Tribune that many Germans are convinced “Fuehrer Hitler’s next move will be against Paris -- ‘to increase the panic in France,’ it was said. This conviction was based on the belief here that the morale of the population in France is nearer the breaking point than in England.” By contrast, according to Ralph Barnes in the New York Herald Tribune, “The implication of all the Nazi commentaries is that Fuehrer Adolph Hitler now has given the order for the invasion of Great Britain, his arch-enemy.” Jubilant Nazis now say “the gates to England are open” following the Belgian surrender.
Meanwhile, in the Washington Post Felix Morley acknowledges German claims that an invasion of Britain is in the offing, and says “it is readily understandable that the Germans should want to create this impression.” For one thing, it might talk the British out of sending new reinforcements to Paris. But Mr. Morley also smartly looks at what Hitler wrote years ago in Mein Kampf, given that the Fuehrer’s book has been a fairly reliable guide to his subsequent schemes. And Mr. Morley notes that Hitler’s book condemns France, not Britain, as the eternal enemy of the German people. Hence, “it is at France rather than Britain that he may be expected to strike a deadly blow if opportunity serves.”
THE WAR WILL BE DECIDED IN FRANCE. Barnet Nover also discounts the idea of an immediate Nazi invasion of Britain, in his Washington Post column on Wednesday –
“It has been predicted...that once in possession of the Channel ports Hitler will let France alone and concentrate the force of the German attack solely on England. But even under existing circumstances an attack on England would probably prove no easy venture and would certainly involve a vast German expenditure of men and material. Indeed, an attack on England, whether in the form of actual invasion or continuous bombardment from the air, would have no purpose if it did not lead to the weakening of the French army by cutting off essential supplies and reinforcements from Britain to France. In that connection it is obviously in the German interest to have the British thoroughly alarmed over the possibility of an invasion and thus allocate to home defense men and supplies needed by the Allied forces on the continent. But whatever happens in England the war will probably be won – and lost -- in France.”
IT’S EITHER THE “WAR OF 1940" OR THE “WAR OF 1945.” Hamilton Fish Armstrong, the editor of Foreign Affairs magazine, makes the case for massive U.S. aid to the Allies in an opinion piece in Tuesday’s New York Times –
“If the Allies fail then the Germans are no longer at Saint Quentin and the Channel but at our own gates flushed with victory, using as their partner every predatory force existing in every part of the world. Speaking very realistically it is cheaper in blood and money to help others to fight the war of 1940 than to fight the war of 1945 ourselves, alone. Though I am not a military critic I have confidence the French and British can hold the gates. But for them to continue to hold them, for them to mass the power for final victory, they need our money, our planes, our supplies, our encouragement, our admiration, our love.”
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