UNEASY HOLD

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 132, 4 May 1940, Page 7

UNEASY HOLD

GERMANS IN NORWAY. REGRET AT WITHDRAWAL. (British Official Wireless.) Received May 4, 12.5 p.m. RUGBY, May 3. The German’s hold over their conquests will be an uneasy one, and one on which they will still have to exhaust energies that might be more useful elsewhere. It is not easy to see them consolidating the important air or submarine bases in Norway in the circumstances, and, except as an air and submarine base, Southern iNorway is more of.a liability than an asset. The statement which it is hoped Air Chamberlain will make in the House of Commons on Tuesday is awaited with great interest, as well as the debate which is to follow and which will last for two days. Members" of Parliament are anxious for fuller information on the Norwegian campaign. There is a general willingness to suspend judgment meantime, though both in the lobbies and among the general public there is general regret that the withdrawal of the Allied forces from south of Trondheim had become necessary. It is recognised that local supremacy in the air established by the Germans by means of the carefully-plan-ned and suddenly and . treacherously executed attack on April 9 rendered the landing of a modern army’s equipment hazardous and difficult. Unsupported by aircraft operating from neai by bases, the Allied forces could not usefully he maintained in the field against the motorised, and wellequipped German shock troops working in very close co-operation with the German air force. In these circumstances the public are ready to believe that the decision to transfer the Allied troops to where they could be more effectually employed was a wise one. " The Press contains many expressions of admiration for the resistance put up by the Norwegians. STORY NOT YET TOLD. The Allies are continuing to afford all the assistance in thenpower to the Norwegian Government, and the events of the last fortnight are only a chapter in a story which is likely to have a very different ending to the one wished for, and already being described as though it had been achieved, by the Nazi propagandists. The whole of Norway may have yet to wait some time for its deliverance, but it will come with the final Allied victory upon which, indeed, the freedom of all European States —those still spared as much as those already the victims of Nazi aggression—ultimately depend. IMMENSE OBSTACLES. Reports from neutral countries suggest there is a fairly general appreciation of the factors contributing to the decision announced by Mr Chamberlain yesterday. Although there appears to be an inclination in the United States 'to criticise the competence of the political and military aspects of the Allied efforts in Norway, there is no indication that the commentators have failed to appreciate the fundamental advantage established by the Allied naval action in the first few days. ‘ The New York Times says: The abandonment of Southern Norway is, by whatever standards, a blow to the Allied prestige. From the viewpoint of the Allies it must be said that, from the start, the British and French found themselves confronted with almost insuperable obstacles. The Allies were faced with the choice of rushing hastily-assembled parties of men into Central Norway to bolster the Norwegian resistance, or doing nothing except harass the invaders from the air. It is to their lasting credit that they had the courage to choose the first alternative. In ;trutli, the Germans carried their invasion to success in • the teeth of the British Navy.- The Norwegian campaign has proved once more that sea power alone cannot defend a victim of aggression‘.unless air power is available as well.