The Evening Star MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 1939. FIGHT AGAINST NAZISM.

Evening Star, Issue 23368, 11 September 1939, Page 6

The Evening Star MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 1939. FIGHT AGAINST NAZISM.

One thing to bo avoided is to assume that tho present conflict in Europe will follow in detail the campaigns in the Great War. The opening stages of the French offensive might give that suggestion, but tho conditions to-day are vastly different from those of 1914. Another point of similarity that may be misleading is the statement that tho British Cabinet is basing its policy on the assumption that the war will last for three years or longer. Lord Kitchener made a prediction to that effect at the beginning of the last struggle, and as we know his prophecy came true. In the present case the matter can bo looked at from a slightly different angle. The British Government’s announcement has two direct objects. First, it is an emphatic intimation to the Nazis that if Poland is conquered by the sheer weight of the forces arrayed against that country Britain will not be content to let matters rest there or to consider that its obligations to the Polish nation have ended. In other words, the war will go on till the defeat of Hitlerism is achieved. The second point is that tho British people are told not to expect a quick and easy victory. Their hands have been put to the plough; there will be no turning back. One great advantage to Britain and Franco is that the sympathies of most of the civilised world are with them in their struggle. Turkey and Egypt are our allies. Jew and Arab in Palestine, the Emir of Transjordan, the Government of Iraq, and rulers and sheiks of the Near East, the tribes in France’s possessions in North Africa, and eighty-nine Indian princes have sent messages of encouragement and sympathy with the Allied cause.

Theso things show how deep is the resentment at the Nazi designs to conquer the world by brute force, overriding the rights of the smaller countries, and crushing their national independence by tho power of the mailed fist. The Nazis talk of their “ just claims,” forgetting that their grievances arose from the folly of the German militarists in embarking on war in 1914. In any case, what are those claims to-day!' They got evacuation, the Lausanne cancellation of reparations, rearmament, the Sa.ar, the Rhineland, the absorption of Austria, and the subjugation of Czecho-Slovakia. They hold Danzig for the moment. If they had been allowed to go on unchecked they would have clamoured for colonies, for the repayment of sums received in reparation, and for an equivalent of the ships surrendered at Scapa Flow. Britain and France bore with Nazi arrogance to the limit. Then their patience snapped, and, as Mr Chamberlain has said: “The situation has become intolerable,- and wo have resolved to finish it.” Field-Marshal Goering, who is believed to have been against resorting to the extremity of war, has been addressing the German munition workers. Ho is now making the best of a bad job. First, he declares that Germany is impregnable, which remains to he proved, and then he says that Germany wants peace above all things. If that is the case such a desire can easily be attained by withdrawing her forces from a ruthlessly invaded country and making reparation for the wrong she has done to it.

It is reported that Goering has said that Germany is ready for an “ honourable ” peace, to which the only answer from Britain can bo that she is not ready to negotiate until German troops are entirely withdrawn from Poland. Goering evidently is under no illusion about the troubles that the Nazis have brought upon Germany. “We certainly must be prepared for a hard time,” he said, ” but we are unbeatable if we remain united.” The answer is that arrayed against Nazi arrogance and the desire for world conquest is the inflexible will of the British Empire and the people of France. There will bo now no compromise with Nazism. It is a fight to preserve the liberties of the world, and it will be continued till that object is achieved.