EUROPE OVERRUN

Evening Star, Issue 23686, 20 September 1940, Page 8

EUROPE OVERRUN

HOW IT HAPPENED SUCCESS OF FIFTH COLUMN “ Accepting the new concept that the offence is infinitely stronger than practically any form of defence—a concept which, I may add, had always been the soldier’s dream—the question is; What is the secret of that offence P (writes General Sherman Miles, U.S. Army Assistant Chief of Staff). As the picture unfolds, it is becoming very plain that the secret of German success does not lie in any weapons unknown to us; that they probably even have not used tnat uncertain weapon—chemical warfare. Aside from their superiority in numbers of all types of weapons and of troops, the real secret of their success lies in the co-ordination of arms. In accurate timing of the air attack, with bombs, gliders, and parachutes; in accurate timing of their mechanised forces, light, heavy, and medium; in

timing the arrival of their motorised forces which rapidly bring up the supports of infantry and artillery from the rear; and even in the accuate timing of the long marches of their heavy foot columns, the Germans have proved themselves masters. “ Nor were they content to integrate solely their military forces. The ‘ fifth column,’ tried out on the Spanish proving ground, has apparently been remarkably successful. One thing impressed upon me in Belgium was the thoroughness with which the defenders had arranged their demolitions to destroy all bridges and culverts on the German line of advance. It was impressed upon me that, contrary to the usual procedure, the bridge and culvert guards charged with firing the explosives had positive orders to throw their switches at the first sight of a German soldier, without reference to any higher authority, even a sergeant. “ We know now that few, if any, of these bridges and culverts were blown . . . The poor devils probably never saw r a German soldier, at least not a uniformed one. My guess is that they were shot by gentlemen who looked like simple peasants with pipes in their mouths.’-