THE COMING CRUSADE IN EUROPE

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 188, 8 May 1944, Page 4

THE COMING CRUSADE IN EUROPE

It has become increasingly plain in recent weeks that the Allied war of nerves against Germany, conducted as a preliminary to the invasion of Europe, is producing valuable results. Not only is the enemy mentally unsettled, but rumours and alarms are causing him to expend tremendous energy spread over so wide a field that much of it will probably be wasted. In a speech delivered on March Z/, Mr. Churchill said that before the real attack took place there would be many false alarms not only “to deceive and baffle the enemy, but also to exercise the Allied forces. This disclosure was worse than useless to the Germans, because for all they knew it may have been made to lure them into a sense of temporary security. Since that time the sense of uncertainty has been very greatly increased by the manner in which the Allied air offensive has developed. No doubt the enemy has reasoned that he would receive some warning of the imminence of invasion when air attacks became heavily concentrated in coastal areas; but actually the preliminary .air assaults have been stepped up with such remarkable power and 'apparently unlimited capacity, that it appears to be impossible to judge when the real climax will be reached, or what particular form it will take. In the month of April the tonnage of bombs dropped on Europe exceeded 71,000, which represents an average of nearly 100 tons an hour, day and night. At this time last year no one outside the Allied air command could have believed that such an achievement were P Not only are the Germans obliged to cope with damage and transport disruption, which is being wrought with unprecedented speed and on a gigantic scale, but they are also faced with the possibility that even this is not the most that can and will beidone before ’ nVdS “>" is launched. Their reactions as reported m tHe last few dayi a e similar to those of the people of Germany’s victim States in the early stages of the war, when Hitler poised his forces of aggression fiist on one border, then on another. For a time after invasion preparations were begun in Britain, the people of the Reich were fed upon tales of secret weapons that lay waiting to devastate the attac s. This was short-lived comfort, especially so when it was revealed that of three new weapons actually produced, one the rocket projectile had also been perfected by the Allies, while the other two—the radiodirected aerial bomb and the remote-control tank—had been employed in Italy with at most temporary success. . The problem of landing an Allied army m western Europe though perhaps the most knotty, is not the biggest problem The ultimate, speedy success of the crusade for the liberation of Europe and the crushing of German power will depend upon the development of t le campaign after the bridgeheads have been won—the direction of the offensive, the scope and sustained weight of it, and above all the quality of the enemy’s opposition, long after the element of surprise has played its short-lived part. The final struggle will be one of army against army and nation against nation. The way to victory will be by continuing effort, all along the production line, which will link the mines, farms and factories of the Allied nations with the crucial fighting front they are about to create.