TWO PRIORITIES

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 21, 20 October 1943, Page 6

TWO PRIORITIES

Strategy Of Allies

(By Telegraph.— Press Assu. —Copyright) ('Received October 20, 1.15 a.m.) LONDON, October 19.

Field Marshal Smuts in his address at the Guildhall, stated that while the grand assault from the west on the European fortress next year was the first priority for the Allies, the pressure against the Japanese was being intensified and preparations were being made for the second priority, the assault on Japan. . Every ally would go all-out to bring about the final climax in Europe, but the United States was the latest, freshest and most potent newcomer into the field. The decisive role which she might have to play then would also be the best justification for the all-important part America was likely to play in the peace and building up of a new world thereafter. . “For no nation in history has so "rent and honourable a destiny been marked out by the course of events, and none has ever had Sl> -high a mission of good and goodwill; on none have such high hopes been built, ’ he said. General Smuts,, looking back at the hopes and forecasts which those best able to judge bad entertained tor 1J43, disclosed: “We have already gone farther and achieved more than we had planned to do by next winter. Stalingrad and El Alainein were the real turning points of the war, and while the great American forces will play a decisive part, nothing can rob the boviet Union and the Britis-h Commonwealth of the glory aud honour of having turned the tide when the enemy was in sight of a colossal achievement. “The Russian contribution to the war has been immense, and our griititu.de and admiration are unbounded, but m justice it should, be said that there had been no greater event iu the war than the success of the Allied strategy m the Mediterranean. I say with all emphasis that nothing comparable or of greater importance has been achieved in this war, and it is proper and necessary for a fair share of the perspective about the war as a whole that these things should be said and borne in mind.”