HAS THE BLITZKRIEG "SPENT ITS FORCE"? Larry Rue writes in Monday’s Chicago Tribune of a wave of optimism suddenly sweeping England in the wake of Germany’s failure so far to launch an invasion, the Luftwaffe’s high losses in England’s skies, and the R.A.F.’s proven ability to take the war to the Ruhr and even to Berlin --
"The notion here persists that Germany has shot her wad and while attacks will continue on a large scale R.A.F. planes and pilots have proved themselves unbeatable and capable of destroying any attacking air armada, no matter how large, which the Germans may launch. It is further believed here that the British bombers are actually taking the offensive and nightly wreaking the enemy by destroying vital munitions factories, airplane works, and oil depots in Germany. Altho Britain for a week has been fighting day and night to beat back enemy bombers and fighter planes, it is not what is happening in England which is the big news here but what the R.A.F. is doing to Germany."
The bravado in the press has led to comments like this one from the Sunday Express -- "We have shaken him; now to break him." But it’s way too soon for Britons to start talking that way. Surely the newspapermen haven't forgotten the wave of giddiness last April, when the commentators and Chamberlain’s own ministers were full of rosy predictions about chasing the Germans out of Norway by May 15. And then Chamberlain boasted Hitler had "missed the bus" and was no longer a threat in the West-- six days before Nazis launched their greatest offensive. Hitler's drive on the British Isles might have been stalled, at least for now, but the Reich still possesses tremendous resources. And it’s a pretty sure bet that the Fuehrer will turn the bulk of those resources against Britain in the fighting to come, for as long as it takes. Here’s to hoping Churchill will step in to dampen the latest round of enthusiasm.
THE WAR IS AT A CROSSROADS. Hanson Baldwin looks at the war’s one-year mark in Sunday’s New York Times and finds not surprisingly that "the future is obscure." But he finds a few clear points --
"(1) Another German lightning conquest, promised for last Summer, has been averted. (2) Britain must continue to dominate the Eastern Mediterranean if she is to have any eventual hope of winning this war. (3) Air superiority will continue to play a large role, if not a primary one, in the struggle, and Britain is slowly gaining vis-a-vis Germany. (4) Britain is fighting the continent of Europe."
Mr. Baldwin finds the British have opportunities yet still face great dangers -- "In past wars of this nature...Britain has won only with the aid of allies; allies who could give her added power and a base on the Continent of Europe. Britain alone may be able to stave off defeat, but without allies she probably cannot win. Today the United States is closer to actual military participation in the war on Britain’s side than ever before, and Russia and Turkey loom as potential, though possibly far distant, enemies of Germany. But those eventualities, if they come to pass at all, are still well off in the future, and it must be remembered that the full might of the Axis powers has not yet been thrown into the scales in this Campaign of Britain."
GALLUP SURVEY -- DON’T SEND FOOD TO EUROPE. The latest survey from Dr. Gallup, in Sunday’s Washington Post, shows strong opposition among Americans to the idea of sending U.S. food aid to prevent starvation in the countries of Western Europe this winter. The numbers are 38% in support, and 62% opposed. Gallup says there’s two reasons for the negative sentiment that outweigh any feelings of compassion -- "Despite strong neutral sympathies for the innocent victims of the European war, the American public’s first reactions are that feeding nations now under Adolph Hitler’s control would be only an indirect method of feeding Hitler’s Germany. Moreover, they believe that the dangers involved in sending American ships to Europe at the present time are too great to be risked."
Saturday, September 3, 2016
Thursday, September 1, 2016
Sunday, September 1, 1940
THE ANNIVERSARY. William S. Shirer’s Berlin broadcast on C.B.S. last night dealt with how ordinary Germans are faring one year after the start of the war. The answer, overall, seems to be -- pretty well. Mr. Shirer says the German people are "better fed than a year ago," thanks to butter, bacon, and eggs from Denmark, vegetables from Holland, and Germany’s own stocks. (Of course, the people actually living in Denmark, Holland, and elsewhere are facing a bitter winter of acute food shortages). The clothing ration is one-and-a-half times what it was at the start of the war. And the "fantastic victories" of the last year have filled Germans with confidence that the war will be over before winter. And even if it isn’t, Mr. Shirer says that Berliners know full well this is a finish fight -- either they or the British will win total victory, and the losing side "will face lean days, to put it mildly."
THE LONDON BOMBINGS GO ON. The Associated Press is still calling the bombings of London "nuisance attacks," but if you read between the lines of the censored dispatches it sounds much worse. The radio says this morning there were seven air raid alarms yesterday in the British capital, as V-formations of Nazi bombers hit the city in daylight and night attacks. Raymond Daniell writes in Saturday’s New York Times that 700 warplanes raided the London area Friday, in four separate raids, comprising "the heaviest pounding the London area and Great Britain generally have received in the war to date." Edward Angly says in Saturday’s New York Herald Tribune the air war "is now being fought all around the clock and all over this island map." Another alarming report on the radio says that "thousands" of incendiary bombs were dropped on a northwestern British city Saturday. All around the papers, there are vague references to "losses of property and life," without any detail to speak of. Maybe we’re better off not knowing.
Meanwhile, C. Brooks Peters writes in Friday’s Times that Thursday’s R.A.F. raid on Berlin might not have hit any military targets, but it did damage in eight districts and "certainly brought home to residents of Berlin some comprehension of modern warfare with its sudden explosive death from the skies." More importantly, the bombings have "shattered the myth which has circulated through all strata of the population that Berlin is so well protected by antiaircraft batteries that it would not be possible for an enemy bomber to get within bomb-dropping distance of the city." Since their first attack on the Nazi capital one week ago, the British have been back almost every night. Dealing a blow to the morale of Berliners isn’t going to defeat Hitler in itself, but it’s surely some grim comfort right now to bomb-weary Britons to know the Nazis are being at least partially repaid for their "nuisances."
RUMANIA IS PARTITIONED -- AGAIN. It looks like just a matter of time before poor Rumania is driven off the map. The latest partition of her territory involves giving a large slice of Transylvania to Hungary, dictated to the Rumanians at a conference in Vienna on Friday. The whole thing smacks of another Munich. Actually, the Associated Press has a post-Munich analogy in mind, namely a meeting in the autumn of 1938 when Hitler resolved a Hungarian territorial "dispute" with Czecho-Slovakia in favor of the Hungarians. This latest land-grab gives Hungary back territory she lost in the World War.
Sigrid Schultz of the Chicago Tribune was at the Vienna Conference, and sums up in Saturday’s paper Rumania’s losses to three neighbors this year -- "This newest amputation of its national territory, combined with the loss of Bessarabia and northern Bukovina to Russia and the already agreed to cession of southern Dobruja to Bulgaria, will have reduced Rumania from a nation of close to 20,000,000 people to one of about 15,000,000 within less than three months. All of this, too, without going thru a war. The agreement today cost Rumania about 2,000,000 of her population."
Alas, another Tribune story indicates it isn’t over yet -- "It now even is reported that the Jugo-Slavs have designs on Banet region in the southwest." And so yet another country seems fated to soon disappear from the map of Hitler’s "New Europe."
FRANCE’S COLONIES ARE DESERTING HER. The French surrender government at Vichy is losing territory, too, but for a different reason. And Washington Post columnist Barnet Nover writes Friday that if Britain keeps on putting up a stiff fight, the French Empire might find itself rapidly shrinking --
"Since the Franco-German armistice two months have elapsed. The British have not given up the struggle. On the contrary, the final Nazi triumph which loomed so close last June is out of sight today. And as long as the British fight on it must be apparent to all Frenchmen that only a British triumph can result in the reestablishment of an independent France....The Vichy government’s utter lack of prestige may explain why during the last few days a number of French colonies in Africa and the Pacific have broken away from Vichy and openly proclaimed their support of Great Britain in the war with Germany. These colonies include the Chad and Congo territories and the Cameroons in Equatorial Africa. Their strategic importance is said to be great. But great or not, the fact that these colonies have joined forces with Gen. de Gaulle and his committee constitutes something in the nature of a French vote of confidence in Great Britain, and a vote of no confidence in the men of Vichy. And there is a strong possibility that if the British continue to resist, the other parts of the French empire will follow their example."
THE LONDON BOMBINGS GO ON. The Associated Press is still calling the bombings of London "nuisance attacks," but if you read between the lines of the censored dispatches it sounds much worse. The radio says this morning there were seven air raid alarms yesterday in the British capital, as V-formations of Nazi bombers hit the city in daylight and night attacks. Raymond Daniell writes in Saturday’s New York Times that 700 warplanes raided the London area Friday, in four separate raids, comprising "the heaviest pounding the London area and Great Britain generally have received in the war to date." Edward Angly says in Saturday’s New York Herald Tribune the air war "is now being fought all around the clock and all over this island map." Another alarming report on the radio says that "thousands" of incendiary bombs were dropped on a northwestern British city Saturday. All around the papers, there are vague references to "losses of property and life," without any detail to speak of. Maybe we’re better off not knowing.
Meanwhile, C. Brooks Peters writes in Friday’s Times that Thursday’s R.A.F. raid on Berlin might not have hit any military targets, but it did damage in eight districts and "certainly brought home to residents of Berlin some comprehension of modern warfare with its sudden explosive death from the skies." More importantly, the bombings have "shattered the myth which has circulated through all strata of the population that Berlin is so well protected by antiaircraft batteries that it would not be possible for an enemy bomber to get within bomb-dropping distance of the city." Since their first attack on the Nazi capital one week ago, the British have been back almost every night. Dealing a blow to the morale of Berliners isn’t going to defeat Hitler in itself, but it’s surely some grim comfort right now to bomb-weary Britons to know the Nazis are being at least partially repaid for their "nuisances."
RUMANIA IS PARTITIONED -- AGAIN. It looks like just a matter of time before poor Rumania is driven off the map. The latest partition of her territory involves giving a large slice of Transylvania to Hungary, dictated to the Rumanians at a conference in Vienna on Friday. The whole thing smacks of another Munich. Actually, the Associated Press has a post-Munich analogy in mind, namely a meeting in the autumn of 1938 when Hitler resolved a Hungarian territorial "dispute" with Czecho-Slovakia in favor of the Hungarians. This latest land-grab gives Hungary back territory she lost in the World War.
Sigrid Schultz of the Chicago Tribune was at the Vienna Conference, and sums up in Saturday’s paper Rumania’s losses to three neighbors this year -- "This newest amputation of its national territory, combined with the loss of Bessarabia and northern Bukovina to Russia and the already agreed to cession of southern Dobruja to Bulgaria, will have reduced Rumania from a nation of close to 20,000,000 people to one of about 15,000,000 within less than three months. All of this, too, without going thru a war. The agreement today cost Rumania about 2,000,000 of her population."
Alas, another Tribune story indicates it isn’t over yet -- "It now even is reported that the Jugo-Slavs have designs on Banet region in the southwest." And so yet another country seems fated to soon disappear from the map of Hitler’s "New Europe."
FRANCE’S COLONIES ARE DESERTING HER. The French surrender government at Vichy is losing territory, too, but for a different reason. And Washington Post columnist Barnet Nover writes Friday that if Britain keeps on putting up a stiff fight, the French Empire might find itself rapidly shrinking --
"Since the Franco-German armistice two months have elapsed. The British have not given up the struggle. On the contrary, the final Nazi triumph which loomed so close last June is out of sight today. And as long as the British fight on it must be apparent to all Frenchmen that only a British triumph can result in the reestablishment of an independent France....The Vichy government’s utter lack of prestige may explain why during the last few days a number of French colonies in Africa and the Pacific have broken away from Vichy and openly proclaimed their support of Great Britain in the war with Germany. These colonies include the Chad and Congo territories and the Cameroons in Equatorial Africa. Their strategic importance is said to be great. But great or not, the fact that these colonies have joined forces with Gen. de Gaulle and his committee constitutes something in the nature of a French vote of confidence in Great Britain, and a vote of no confidence in the men of Vichy. And there is a strong possibility that if the British continue to resist, the other parts of the French empire will follow their example."
Monday, August 29, 2016
Thursday, August 29, 1940
A VERY CLOSE LANDSLIDE VOTE. The Senate voted yesterday by a wide margin, 58-to-31, to approve the first peacetime conscription in U.S. history. But the isolationists who bitterly fought the Burke-Wadsworth bill for the last three weeks almost won a half-victory, according to radio reports last night. A compromise bill postponing draft registration until January 1, to give volunteer enlistments a chance to fill Army manpower quotas, narrowly failed 43-to-41. President Roosevelt had denounced the compromise, saying it would delay progress toward rearmament by an entire year. If the House votes for the current plan, which it is expected to do in the next two weeks, the Army will draft 400,000 men this fall and 400,000 next spring for one year of training. Additional increments up to 1945 will give America an available force of 4,000,000 men, including the reserves who will have completed their year’s training. In the short term, the law would require 12,000,000 men between 21 and 30 years of age to register for the draft.
In addition to the amendment to postpone conscription, the isolationists tried a number of ploys in the last day of debate. According to John G. Norris in Wednesday’s Washington Post, Senator Taft of Ohio introduced a proposal limiting the regular Army to 500,000 men -- roughly the size of the Dutch armies fielded against the Nazis last spring -- and 1,000,000 volunteer reserves. Frank L. Klockhorn’s story in the New York Times tells of a substitute bill offered by Senator Walsh of Massachusetts which allowed registering men for a draft, but forbade any actual conscription unless Congress declared a state of war or the U.S. was in immediate danger of invasion -- a foolhardy notion in the age of modern war. Both amendments went down by two-to-one margins.
IS WENDELL WILLKIE A LIBERAL? When the Republican presidential nominee referred to himself in his acceptance speech as a "liberal Democrat" who found democracy in the Republican Party, Democrats scoffed that Mr. Willkie had cynically tagged himself with the "liberal" label for political advantage. Solicitor General Biddle thundered at a Democratic rally last week-end that although the Elwood speech was "largely devoted to saying that he, Willkie, is a liberal," Mr. Willkie should instead "frankly say he is a businessman who doesn’t like Government regulation and therefore hates the New Deal."
An editorial in this week’s New Republic takes a similar line, noting that Mr. Willkie’s foreign policy "differs from Mr. Roosevelt’s in very few important respects," and that "in the domestic field, Mr. Willkie sounds even more like a New Dealer than in foreign affairs." But somehow, behind the nominee’s endorsement of conscription, support for the Roosevelt-Wallace farm program, opposition to monopoly, and praise for collective bargaining, the New Republic professes to see "a business man’s philosophy" from a man who espouses "precisely the doctrines of Coolidge and Hoover." (Even more incoherently, the Democratic National Committee is quoted in Wednesday’s Chicago Tribune as accusing Willkie of being an "adroit lawyer" masquerading as a businessman.)
Go figure. The fact is that Mr. Willkie’s words this summer are consistent with his career. He doesn’t merely endorse bargaining with labor, he’s done so. As president of the Commonwealth and Southern utility holding company, he presided over operating subsidiaries who are two-thirds unionized. In an article from February’s Current History, written well before his candidacy for the Republican nomination, he is quoted as calling himself a "La Follette liberal" who was proud to "shock my Tory friends" by demanding Federal regulation of utilities. But his well-publicized multi-year fight with the T.V.A. also showed his desire to prevent the inefficiencies of public ownership from crippling the utility industry, a position he’s held steadily over the years. And he’s not as worried about labels as his detractors seem to be. "The greatest joy in life," he says, "is to keep one’s thoughts uncontrolled by formulas." And that seems to be driving New Dealers a little nuts.
WILLKIE’S REAL PROBLEM. New York Herald Tribune columnist Walter Lippman doesn’t believe that Mr. Willkie’s made much good use of the last two months -- in fact, he says the Willkie campaign’s time so far has been "worse than wasted." Mr. Lippman says the problem lies in the fact that Mr. Willkie "was nominated as the result of a popular rebellion against the Republican Party machine," and is still too much of an outsider to effectively discipline the pro-isolationist, rock-ribbed G.O.P. men at the top of his own campaign --
"There are no signs as yet that Mr. McNary, the leader of the Republicans in the Senate and also Mr. Willkie’s running mate, or that Mr. Martin, the leader of the Republicans in the House and also Mr. Willkie’s campaign manager, are prepared to carry out the pledges of Mr. Willkie’s acceptance speech. Both Mr. McNary and Mr. Martin have, as regards foreign policy and national defense, consistently opposed the spirit and the letter of the Elwood speech, and on the record votes they have aligned most of the Republican Party in the opposition. It is from this Republican opposition that a small minority of Democratic objectors derive their effectiveness in delaying and obstructing the measures which both Mr. Willkie and Mr. Roosevelt have asked for....There is as yet no indication that the Republican Party leaders in Congress have paid the slightest attention to Mr. Willkie’s views on any great issue. The Republicans who are supporting conscription and help to Britain were supporting these measures before Mr. Willkie was nominated; the rest, and they include the official Republican leaders in Congress, either remain in opposition or are passively, like Messrs. McNary and Martin, not giving their support....As long as Mr. Willkie is conducting a merely personal campaign, without loyal and wholehearted support from this party, he has no way of convincing the country that he can accomplish any of the things he says he means to do."
RUMANIA FIGHTING RUSSIA, HUNGARY. Just a few days after the abrupt crisis between Italy and Greece died down, there’s more trouble between Rumania and her not-so-friendly neighbors. The United Press reports Wednesday there are between seventy and 100 dead and many wounded in the wake of a week of skirmishing between Russian and Rumanian troops. Apparently the Soviets, not long after seizing Bessarabia and parts of northern Bukowina, are trespassing on what they previously agreed to be Rumanian soil on the country’s new northern border. Russian warplanes have crossed the border and shot down several Rumanian aircraft, the U.P. says. And in the midst of this, Rumanian officials claim there've been numerous incidents along the Hungarian-Rumanian border, as the two countries negotiate over Hungary’s own demands for a slice of Rumanian Transylvania.
The irony of all this is that all three countries involved in the Balkan cauldron are on friendly terms with Hitler. And the Germans have uncharacteristically demanded the powers peaceably settle their differences, backing the call by bolstering the Nazi armies in the East to almost 100 divisions, or 1,500,000 men. Barnet Nover points out in his Washington Post column on Wednesday that the final settlement of the Hungarian dispute won’t matter much if Germany wins the war, since Hungarians and Rumanians alike will be enslaved. But if the British prevail, then Rumania "will regain her freedom of action" and her borders will matter very much indeed. This is something the Rumanians doubtless are mindful of, and why they’re stalling about further territorial concessions. Mr. Nover says it all shows how precarious Hitler’s "past triumphs, military and diplomatic, may prove to be unless he can win over England. Without that victory, all others will be dust and ashes."
In addition to the amendment to postpone conscription, the isolationists tried a number of ploys in the last day of debate. According to John G. Norris in Wednesday’s Washington Post, Senator Taft of Ohio introduced a proposal limiting the regular Army to 500,000 men -- roughly the size of the Dutch armies fielded against the Nazis last spring -- and 1,000,000 volunteer reserves. Frank L. Klockhorn’s story in the New York Times tells of a substitute bill offered by Senator Walsh of Massachusetts which allowed registering men for a draft, but forbade any actual conscription unless Congress declared a state of war or the U.S. was in immediate danger of invasion -- a foolhardy notion in the age of modern war. Both amendments went down by two-to-one margins.
IS WENDELL WILLKIE A LIBERAL? When the Republican presidential nominee referred to himself in his acceptance speech as a "liberal Democrat" who found democracy in the Republican Party, Democrats scoffed that Mr. Willkie had cynically tagged himself with the "liberal" label for political advantage. Solicitor General Biddle thundered at a Democratic rally last week-end that although the Elwood speech was "largely devoted to saying that he, Willkie, is a liberal," Mr. Willkie should instead "frankly say he is a businessman who doesn’t like Government regulation and therefore hates the New Deal."
An editorial in this week’s New Republic takes a similar line, noting that Mr. Willkie’s foreign policy "differs from Mr. Roosevelt’s in very few important respects," and that "in the domestic field, Mr. Willkie sounds even more like a New Dealer than in foreign affairs." But somehow, behind the nominee’s endorsement of conscription, support for the Roosevelt-Wallace farm program, opposition to monopoly, and praise for collective bargaining, the New Republic professes to see "a business man’s philosophy" from a man who espouses "precisely the doctrines of Coolidge and Hoover." (Even more incoherently, the Democratic National Committee is quoted in Wednesday’s Chicago Tribune as accusing Willkie of being an "adroit lawyer" masquerading as a businessman.)
Go figure. The fact is that Mr. Willkie’s words this summer are consistent with his career. He doesn’t merely endorse bargaining with labor, he’s done so. As president of the Commonwealth and Southern utility holding company, he presided over operating subsidiaries who are two-thirds unionized. In an article from February’s Current History, written well before his candidacy for the Republican nomination, he is quoted as calling himself a "La Follette liberal" who was proud to "shock my Tory friends" by demanding Federal regulation of utilities. But his well-publicized multi-year fight with the T.V.A. also showed his desire to prevent the inefficiencies of public ownership from crippling the utility industry, a position he’s held steadily over the years. And he’s not as worried about labels as his detractors seem to be. "The greatest joy in life," he says, "is to keep one’s thoughts uncontrolled by formulas." And that seems to be driving New Dealers a little nuts.
WILLKIE’S REAL PROBLEM. New York Herald Tribune columnist Walter Lippman doesn’t believe that Mr. Willkie’s made much good use of the last two months -- in fact, he says the Willkie campaign’s time so far has been "worse than wasted." Mr. Lippman says the problem lies in the fact that Mr. Willkie "was nominated as the result of a popular rebellion against the Republican Party machine," and is still too much of an outsider to effectively discipline the pro-isolationist, rock-ribbed G.O.P. men at the top of his own campaign --
"There are no signs as yet that Mr. McNary, the leader of the Republicans in the Senate and also Mr. Willkie’s running mate, or that Mr. Martin, the leader of the Republicans in the House and also Mr. Willkie’s campaign manager, are prepared to carry out the pledges of Mr. Willkie’s acceptance speech. Both Mr. McNary and Mr. Martin have, as regards foreign policy and national defense, consistently opposed the spirit and the letter of the Elwood speech, and on the record votes they have aligned most of the Republican Party in the opposition. It is from this Republican opposition that a small minority of Democratic objectors derive their effectiveness in delaying and obstructing the measures which both Mr. Willkie and Mr. Roosevelt have asked for....There is as yet no indication that the Republican Party leaders in Congress have paid the slightest attention to Mr. Willkie’s views on any great issue. The Republicans who are supporting conscription and help to Britain were supporting these measures before Mr. Willkie was nominated; the rest, and they include the official Republican leaders in Congress, either remain in opposition or are passively, like Messrs. McNary and Martin, not giving their support....As long as Mr. Willkie is conducting a merely personal campaign, without loyal and wholehearted support from this party, he has no way of convincing the country that he can accomplish any of the things he says he means to do."
RUMANIA FIGHTING RUSSIA, HUNGARY. Just a few days after the abrupt crisis between Italy and Greece died down, there’s more trouble between Rumania and her not-so-friendly neighbors. The United Press reports Wednesday there are between seventy and 100 dead and many wounded in the wake of a week of skirmishing between Russian and Rumanian troops. Apparently the Soviets, not long after seizing Bessarabia and parts of northern Bukowina, are trespassing on what they previously agreed to be Rumanian soil on the country’s new northern border. Russian warplanes have crossed the border and shot down several Rumanian aircraft, the U.P. says. And in the midst of this, Rumanian officials claim there've been numerous incidents along the Hungarian-Rumanian border, as the two countries negotiate over Hungary’s own demands for a slice of Rumanian Transylvania.
The irony of all this is that all three countries involved in the Balkan cauldron are on friendly terms with Hitler. And the Germans have uncharacteristically demanded the powers peaceably settle their differences, backing the call by bolstering the Nazi armies in the East to almost 100 divisions, or 1,500,000 men. Barnet Nover points out in his Washington Post column on Wednesday that the final settlement of the Hungarian dispute won’t matter much if Germany wins the war, since Hungarians and Rumanians alike will be enslaved. But if the British prevail, then Rumania "will regain her freedom of action" and her borders will matter very much indeed. This is something the Rumanians doubtless are mindful of, and why they’re stalling about further territorial concessions. Mr. Nover says it all shows how precarious Hitler’s "past triumphs, military and diplomatic, may prove to be unless he can win over England. Without that victory, all others will be dust and ashes."
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