GENERAL PERSHING SEES DANGER... A Sunday night radio talk by World War hero General Pershing reminded Americans that "all the things we hold dear are gravely threatened" by the possibility of a German victory over Britain. Specifically, according to John H. Crider in Monday’s New York Times, the General endorsed the proposal that America release to the British government, directly or indirectly, "at least fifty of the over-age destroyers which are left from the days of the World War." These destroyers are doing nothing for American security but would do much right now to protect Britain, which has lost twenty-five of her destroyers to combat thus far. The British are building a large number of new destroyers, but these will not be ready for some time. Thus, says the General, during this "most critical time" of the next few weeks and months, these idle U.S. vessels would be of great help to Britain in convey and escort duty, and in submarine-hunting.
It’s a great idea, if we really are serious about giving "all aid short of war" to Britain. As to the usual isolationist objections that sending the destroyers would somehow lead to sending American troops to fight in Europe, the General spoke effectively and without hedging -- "It would be absolute folly even to consider sending another expeditionary force. No one is considering it and those who may say that any one is considering it are deceiving themselves and deceiving you."
...BUT THE TRIBUNE SEES A PLOT. In an incendiary editorial published Monday, the Chicago Tribune reacted with exceptional bitterness to the destroyer proposal, lauding Wendell Willkie’s silence so far on the matter --
"Wendell Willkie was far too clever and too patriotic to fall for the conspiracy to get us into war with Germany by agreeing to the act of war of selling warships to the country with which she is at war. They were false friends who urged the course upon him. Well they know that Roosevelt will get the war monger vote and the vast sums of war monger money. If Willkie had fallen into the trap set for him, the election would not have been necessary. The third term would have won. The republic would have fallen."
It’s hard to argue with this. Just as it’s hard to argue with a shrieking man in a strait-jacket.
Also, the Tribune’s front-page report on Monday of General Pershing’s speech concerns itself very little with what the General said, and a whole lot with the shadowy figures who supposedly engineered the address. Reporter Chesly Manly alleges that the broadcast was arranged by Senator Pepper of Florida, the "senate mouthpiece of the New Deal inner circle," and columnist Joseph W. Alsop, "a distant cousin of the President." It’s also noted darkly that the General "spoke over the national networks of the three major broadcasting systems, a privilege that has been accorded few persons other than the President." All this scheming is alleged to benefit a proposal which Mr. Manly reports would "not only violate international law but domestic law now on the statute books."
LINDBERGH -- "COOPERATE WITH GERMANY." A few hours before General Pershing’s speech, Colonel Lindbergh gave his third major address on the war, sponsored by the "Citizens Keep America Out of War Committee." In speaking to a crowd at Chicago’s Soldier Field and a nationwide radio audience, he made it clear just how heartless the isolationist position on Europe really is. From the Washington Post’s transcription --
"There is a proverb in China which says that ‘when the rich become too rich and the poor too poor, something happens.’ This applies to nations as well as men. When I saw the wealth of the British Empire I felt that the rich had become too rich. When I saw the poverty of central Europe I felt that the poor had become too poor. That something would happen was blazoned even on the skies of Europe by mounting thousands of fighting aircraft....From 1936 to 1939, as I traveled through European countries, I saw the phenomenal military strength of Germany growing like a giant at the side of an aged and complacent England....The underlying issue was clear. It was not the support of ‘democracy’...[or] the preservation of the small and helpless...The issue was one of the oldest and best known among men. It concerned the division of territory and wealth between nations. The longer I lived in Europe the more I felt that...they must work out their destiny, as we must work out ours....In the future we may have to deal with a Europe dominated by Germany. But whether England or Germany wins this war, western civilization will still depend upon two great centers, one in each hemisphere."
Lindbergh baldly says in this speech what he only implied before, that America should be friendly with a victorious Hitler regime and its satraps -- "We are often told that if Germany wins this war cooperation will be impossible, and treaties no more than a scrap of paper. I reply that cooperation is never impossible when there is sufficient gain on both sides, and that treaties are seldom torn apart when they do not cover a weak nation....Our accusations of aggression and barbarism on the part of Germany simply bring back echoes of hypocrisy and Versailles. Our hasty condemnation of a French government, struggling desperately to save a defeated nation from collapse, can do nothing but add to famine, hatred, and chaos....Let us offer Europe a plan for the progress and protection of the western civilization of which they and we each form a part."
MORE BIASED NEWSPAPER COVERAGE. The Chicago Tribune’s story by George Tagge on the Lindbergh speech didn’t even try to conceal the paper’s swooning admiration for their isolationist hero. Some of Mr. Tagge’s coverage got pretty embarrassing -- "Lindbergh’s voice was eager and crisp. He smiled frequently -- a youthful smile -- as applause interrupted his remarks. He wore a dark blue suit and looked almost as he did when he landed in Paris 13 years ago after his epochal flight across the Atlantic ocean." That’s not reporting, it’s love-making.
But a boo also to the pro-interventionist New York Herald Tribune, whose account of the speech was prominently concerned not with what Colonel Lindbergh said, but on who was listening to it -- "In the crowd, which booed mention of Great Britain, were members of the German-American National Alliance, local successor to the German-American Bund." Yes, there might have been a few of those on hand, but the insinuation -- that large numbers of isolationists are Nazis -- is nasty and unfair. The isolationist point-of-view could be criticized as amoral, but it's a big and vicious jump to smear, by implication, the loyalty of Americans who believe in this movement.
GIVE BRITAIN THE DESTROYERS. If you missed the New York Herald Tribune’s editorial Monday on releasing the World War destroyers to Britain, by all means go back and read it. It spells out in well-crafted language just how high the stakes are, and why we need to aid Britain in every possible way we can --
"There still seem to be Americans who, blinding themselves to every evidence from the history of the last few years, refuse to realize that the whole crisis of the great revolution which has been so brutally released upon the world now hangs upon the white coasts of Great Britain. With the example of France before them, they refuse to see that whatever elements of the old society remain, whatever security for the old ways we still enjoy, whatever time to prepare ourselves for the future, we may still dispose of, exist only because Great Britain has not fallen. They refuse to see that so long as Britain stands, the Hitler revolution has failed in its purpose, the Hitler triumphs are still only temporary, there is still hope of putting together a tolerable world; but that once Britain falls, nearly everything in the world we have known must fall with her and fall for good. And there are still Americans who blindly refuse to picture to themselves, in any terms of the harsh reality, what the earth is bound to be once Great Britain has gone down and this nation must face alone a world controlled by the diseased imagination of Adolf Hitler and his satellites. There are still Americans who can deceive themselves about the appalling facts before them; but it seems to us imperative that the United States as a whole should no longer do so."
The Herald Tribune acknowledges the isolationist argument that putting the destroyers in British hands could weaken America if Britain falls. But they argue persuasively it’s worth taking the chance -- "Should Britain fall in spite of our aid we would miss these destroyers; but whether the loss would seem great in face of the appalling other losses we would confront is another matter, and at all events some risks have to be taken in a world like this one."
Saturday, August 6, 2016
Thursday, August 4, 2016
Sunday, August 4, 1940
ROOSEVELT ENDORSES A MILITARY DRAFT. It looks like the conscription issue will get an airing in the presidential campaign after all -- sooner rather than later. President Roosevelt said at his Friday press conference that he considers a conscription bill "essential to an adequate national defense," unequivocally endorsing the idea for the first time. At the same time, according to Charles Hurd in Saturday’s New York Times, he said he won’t back any of the specific measures now before Congress or submit his own bill, "lest such action be interpreted as placing him in the role of Mr. Dictator." As if that would stop the isolationists from pinning this particular honorific on him.
Running right beside the Roosevelt endorsement in Saturday’s Times is a story by James C. Hagerty on Wendell Willkie’s cagey responses so far on the draft. On the one hand, he says he won’t get into a debate with "intermediaries," such as Senator Wheeler of Montana, who’ve called on Mr. Willkie to state his position. The candidate adds that "if the President wants to ask my views on any subject, I’ll be glad to answer him." On the other hand, he says he will "clearly and specifically" speak his mind on conscription when he formally accepts the Republican nomination in an Aug. 17 speech at his hometown of Elmwood, Indiana. I hope he does, and I hope he sides with the President. The immense job of making the U.S. defensible from invasion is too critical to put aside until the election is over.
And I hope Mr. Willkie disregards the temptation to capitalize on former Secretary of War Woodring’s denunciation of the draft. Wooding, who served Roosevelt for seven years in the job until he was shoved out on June 30, is described by the Washington Post as having "maintained that [a draft] is unnecessary at the present time." That’s putting his stand mildly. According to the Chicago Tribune’s story by Chesly Manly, Secretary Woodring said Friday he did not see any need for conscription unless "thru the influence of increasing tendency toward paternalism we have broken down the moral stamina and fiber of the American youth and made him a regimented automaton, rather than a free individual, and thereby broken down the voluntary instinct to serve in a patriotic way." It’s hard to imagine any politician endorsing the draft on the grounds that these particular criteria have been satisfied.
JAPAN WANTS TO RULE EAST ASIA. The talk from the Japanese Empire becomes steadily more ominous. Here’s Foreign Minister Matsuoka, quoted in Friday’s New York Herald Tribune -- "Some countries can be made friends, while others cannot. But henceforth the government will not make vain efforts to grasp the hands of countries who cannot be made friends. The government is through with toadying." There’s no doubt that Britain and the U.S. are at the top of the list of countries Mr. Matsuoka has in mind. And his government isn’t being bashful about its overall goals. According to the Herald Tribune, the Cabinet of Premier Prince Konoye has flatly announced "its decision to establish a totalitarian state for the construction of ‘a Greater East Asia.’" While the statement significantly omitted any mention of closer ties with the Berlin-Rome Axis, it pointedly mentioned French Indo-China and the Dutch East Indies as being part of the future Japanese bloc, along with the occupied areas of China and the vassal state of Manchukuo.
The Associated Press says this statement "followed by some hours an assertion by an admiralty spokesman that President Roosevelt’s ban on export of aviation gasoline was directed against Japan, Germany, and Italy." The A.P. also quotes Japan’s official news agency as reporting the Japanese ambassador to Britain will "certainly" protest Britain’s extension of her blockade to all of continental Europe, which is expected to "hurt Japan’s trade with Spain, Portugal, and other neutrals." Another A.P. story speculates that if Japanese-British tensions persist, Japan "might try first to oust the British from north China and then from Hongkong." Unless Britain has been largely subjugated by Hitler at that point, it’s hard to see how that could mean anything other than a general war.
And that would be a war the U.S. would have a hard time staying out of. I wish the press would ask former Secretary Woodring, or the isolationists in general, what America should do about being faced, on the Atlantic and the Pacific, by expansionist Fascist dictatorships that hate the United States and everything it stands for. Should we wait and see if the "volunteer spirit" brings enough men to the colors to save us from destruction? Or have a sufficiently large, trained army ready in advance to meet any threat?
NO INVASION TODAY. Both the New York Times and Time magazine have recently mentioned August 4 as a possible date for the German invasion of Britain. The thinking behind this is that today is the anniversary of the British declaration of war against Germany in the World War, and Hitler is said to be fond of "commemorating" anniversaries in such fashion. But judging from the radio news this morning, nothing much out of the ordinary has happened. There are impressive new British claims that R.A.F. bombers have left Hamburg’s port "practically in ruins" and done major damage to Bremen, Dusseldorf, and other cities in western Germany. And the Luftwaffe claims to have done "serious damage" along the Thames leading to London, and at the ports of Southampton, Hull, and Newcastle. But no invasion.
And contrary to the invasion-is-imminent reports that filled the papers in July, more stories are starting to appear indicating it might not be imminent at all. The Associated Press, for one, reports Friday that "German military observers insist that the ‘major attack’ on Britain is under way, indicating that increased pressure by sea and air is the present strategy -- rather than immediate land invasion."
Running right beside the Roosevelt endorsement in Saturday’s Times is a story by James C. Hagerty on Wendell Willkie’s cagey responses so far on the draft. On the one hand, he says he won’t get into a debate with "intermediaries," such as Senator Wheeler of Montana, who’ve called on Mr. Willkie to state his position. The candidate adds that "if the President wants to ask my views on any subject, I’ll be glad to answer him." On the other hand, he says he will "clearly and specifically" speak his mind on conscription when he formally accepts the Republican nomination in an Aug. 17 speech at his hometown of Elmwood, Indiana. I hope he does, and I hope he sides with the President. The immense job of making the U.S. defensible from invasion is too critical to put aside until the election is over.
And I hope Mr. Willkie disregards the temptation to capitalize on former Secretary of War Woodring’s denunciation of the draft. Wooding, who served Roosevelt for seven years in the job until he was shoved out on June 30, is described by the Washington Post as having "maintained that [a draft] is unnecessary at the present time." That’s putting his stand mildly. According to the Chicago Tribune’s story by Chesly Manly, Secretary Woodring said Friday he did not see any need for conscription unless "thru the influence of increasing tendency toward paternalism we have broken down the moral stamina and fiber of the American youth and made him a regimented automaton, rather than a free individual, and thereby broken down the voluntary instinct to serve in a patriotic way." It’s hard to imagine any politician endorsing the draft on the grounds that these particular criteria have been satisfied.
JAPAN WANTS TO RULE EAST ASIA. The talk from the Japanese Empire becomes steadily more ominous. Here’s Foreign Minister Matsuoka, quoted in Friday’s New York Herald Tribune -- "Some countries can be made friends, while others cannot. But henceforth the government will not make vain efforts to grasp the hands of countries who cannot be made friends. The government is through with toadying." There’s no doubt that Britain and the U.S. are at the top of the list of countries Mr. Matsuoka has in mind. And his government isn’t being bashful about its overall goals. According to the Herald Tribune, the Cabinet of Premier Prince Konoye has flatly announced "its decision to establish a totalitarian state for the construction of ‘a Greater East Asia.’" While the statement significantly omitted any mention of closer ties with the Berlin-Rome Axis, it pointedly mentioned French Indo-China and the Dutch East Indies as being part of the future Japanese bloc, along with the occupied areas of China and the vassal state of Manchukuo.
The Associated Press says this statement "followed by some hours an assertion by an admiralty spokesman that President Roosevelt’s ban on export of aviation gasoline was directed against Japan, Germany, and Italy." The A.P. also quotes Japan’s official news agency as reporting the Japanese ambassador to Britain will "certainly" protest Britain’s extension of her blockade to all of continental Europe, which is expected to "hurt Japan’s trade with Spain, Portugal, and other neutrals." Another A.P. story speculates that if Japanese-British tensions persist, Japan "might try first to oust the British from north China and then from Hongkong." Unless Britain has been largely subjugated by Hitler at that point, it’s hard to see how that could mean anything other than a general war.
And that would be a war the U.S. would have a hard time staying out of. I wish the press would ask former Secretary Woodring, or the isolationists in general, what America should do about being faced, on the Atlantic and the Pacific, by expansionist Fascist dictatorships that hate the United States and everything it stands for. Should we wait and see if the "volunteer spirit" brings enough men to the colors to save us from destruction? Or have a sufficiently large, trained army ready in advance to meet any threat?
NO INVASION TODAY. Both the New York Times and Time magazine have recently mentioned August 4 as a possible date for the German invasion of Britain. The thinking behind this is that today is the anniversary of the British declaration of war against Germany in the World War, and Hitler is said to be fond of "commemorating" anniversaries in such fashion. But judging from the radio news this morning, nothing much out of the ordinary has happened. There are impressive new British claims that R.A.F. bombers have left Hamburg’s port "practically in ruins" and done major damage to Bremen, Dusseldorf, and other cities in western Germany. And the Luftwaffe claims to have done "serious damage" along the Thames leading to London, and at the ports of Southampton, Hull, and Newcastle. But no invasion.
And contrary to the invasion-is-imminent reports that filled the papers in July, more stories are starting to appear indicating it might not be imminent at all. The Associated Press, for one, reports Friday that "German military observers insist that the ‘major attack’ on Britain is under way, indicating that increased pressure by sea and air is the present strategy -- rather than immediate land invasion."
Monday, August 1, 2016
Thursday, August 1, 1940
BRITISH TIGHTEN BLOCKADE OF EUROPE. Edward Angly reports in Wednesday’s New York Herald Tribune on Britain’s decision to "tighten the screws immediately on imports and exports of all Europe." A decision announced in the House of Commons Tuesday extends the Empire’s tough contraband controls to unoccupied France, Spain, and Portugal, allowing them to import only supplies "adequate for domestic consumption, but not for reexport." The rules apply to American importers, exporters, and ship owners as well as Europeans – they will have to play by Britain’s rules or risk having their ships seized. "British officials concede that this may not be cricket, but it is war" Mr. Angly writes.
The move might cause Fascist Spain, which the other day was distributing propaganda posters demanding the return of territory in the continental U.S., to formally enter the war on the side of the Axis. The Associated Press quotes a "high neutral diplomatic source" as predicting that Franco will declare war on Britain "within a week or so" if the British are serious about placing a strict blockade on shipping of goods to Spanish ports. And if Spain joins the fight, the strategic British fortress of Gibraltar is probably doomed, which would be a big boost to Hitler and Mussolini. Still, it’s hard to see Britain having any other choice than to do what she's doing now.
SO FAR, THE BATTLE IS A DRAW. In a Wednesday New York Times news analysis, Hanson W. Baldwin finds that the air war in western Europe has intensified, but neither the British nor the Germans have seized any clear advantage as of yet --
"The first phase of the Campaign of Britain, it is now clear, has definitely ended; it gradually merged into the more intensive second phase early in July. The period of regular but relatively small raids by German air power against the insular security and the insular vulnerability of Britain has been succeeded by a period of continuous and unremitting large-scale assaults. Plane for plane, the British are very probably doing the more damage – but the Germans have more planes and Britain is geographically more vulnerable to air attack than is Germany. At an estimated cost in planes lost or shot down since June 18 of 150 to 200 planes for Germany and 100 to 150 for Britain, both sides have created havoc."
Mr. Baldwin also reports that due to regular British bombings, "productivity of German factories in the Ruhr has unquestionably been reduced" and civilian morale lowered. But the unrelenting Nazi attacks by Nazi bombers, submarines, and torpedo boats are presenting serious problems for Britain as well -- a shortage of destroyers and small, fast boats; a "potentially serious" loss of merchant shipping tonnage; and drop in the output and quality of aircraft production, due to air-raid disruptions. The overall result is "still indecisive" and might not approach a crisis for months, says Mr. Baldwin. If Germany seeks a quick decision by invasion or a mammoth air assault, she would have to do so soon, while the British weather still favors such action.
WHY THE MAGINOT LINE FELL. E.D. Norderer of the Chicago Tribune has gotten permission from the Germans to examine some of the Maginot Line forts, and he writes an article in Wednesday’s editions explaining how the vaunted fortresses fell to Nazi attack. The main problem, it appears, is that the French made no allowance for the Line to be flanked --
"The Maginot line forts were not equipped to cope with attacks from the rear. The forts were only 4 feet thick in the rear and at this point were armed with light machine guns. On many forts I saw that turret guns had been swung as far to the rear as possible, but even this left a wide arc that could not be defended. This inflexibility of the Maginot line, which impaired its usefulness in a war of movement such as the Germans waged, was largely responsible for its downfall. Knowing they could not defend themselves from the rear, many French garrisons withdrew from their forts without battle."
The move might cause Fascist Spain, which the other day was distributing propaganda posters demanding the return of territory in the continental U.S., to formally enter the war on the side of the Axis. The Associated Press quotes a "high neutral diplomatic source" as predicting that Franco will declare war on Britain "within a week or so" if the British are serious about placing a strict blockade on shipping of goods to Spanish ports. And if Spain joins the fight, the strategic British fortress of Gibraltar is probably doomed, which would be a big boost to Hitler and Mussolini. Still, it’s hard to see Britain having any other choice than to do what she's doing now.
SO FAR, THE BATTLE IS A DRAW. In a Wednesday New York Times news analysis, Hanson W. Baldwin finds that the air war in western Europe has intensified, but neither the British nor the Germans have seized any clear advantage as of yet --
"The first phase of the Campaign of Britain, it is now clear, has definitely ended; it gradually merged into the more intensive second phase early in July. The period of regular but relatively small raids by German air power against the insular security and the insular vulnerability of Britain has been succeeded by a period of continuous and unremitting large-scale assaults. Plane for plane, the British are very probably doing the more damage – but the Germans have more planes and Britain is geographically more vulnerable to air attack than is Germany. At an estimated cost in planes lost or shot down since June 18 of 150 to 200 planes for Germany and 100 to 150 for Britain, both sides have created havoc."
Mr. Baldwin also reports that due to regular British bombings, "productivity of German factories in the Ruhr has unquestionably been reduced" and civilian morale lowered. But the unrelenting Nazi attacks by Nazi bombers, submarines, and torpedo boats are presenting serious problems for Britain as well -- a shortage of destroyers and small, fast boats; a "potentially serious" loss of merchant shipping tonnage; and drop in the output and quality of aircraft production, due to air-raid disruptions. The overall result is "still indecisive" and might not approach a crisis for months, says Mr. Baldwin. If Germany seeks a quick decision by invasion or a mammoth air assault, she would have to do so soon, while the British weather still favors such action.
WHY THE MAGINOT LINE FELL. E.D. Norderer of the Chicago Tribune has gotten permission from the Germans to examine some of the Maginot Line forts, and he writes an article in Wednesday’s editions explaining how the vaunted fortresses fell to Nazi attack. The main problem, it appears, is that the French made no allowance for the Line to be flanked --
"The Maginot line forts were not equipped to cope with attacks from the rear. The forts were only 4 feet thick in the rear and at this point were armed with light machine guns. On many forts I saw that turret guns had been swung as far to the rear as possible, but even this left a wide arc that could not be defended. This inflexibility of the Maginot line, which impaired its usefulness in a war of movement such as the Germans waged, was largely responsible for its downfall. Knowing they could not defend themselves from the rear, many French garrisons withdrew from their forts without battle."
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