The Southland Times THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 1942. After Three Years of War

Southland Times, Issue 24839, 3 September 1942, Page 4

The Southland Times THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 1942. After Three Years of War

TO LOOK back across three years of war is to feel again the wonder of deliverance from great dangers, the humiliations of failure and defeat, and the challenge of an uncertain future. In 1940 the world watched with surprise and dismay the revelation of German military strength. Men who were obsessed by the thought of secret weapons were not prepared for Hitler s real surprise—a revolution in tactics. The full implications of the new mobility were not grasped by military leaders even after they had been convincingly demonstrated in Poland. It was not until the defences of France crumbled beneath the co-ordinated attacks by tanks, dive-bombers and motorized infantry that the full meaning of German military efficiency broke upon the public understanding. Yet even now there are many who see the Allied problem mainly as a question of production. They admit that Germany had a flying start in armaments; and they believe therefore that the secret of victory is simply the attainment of a superiority in equipment. This attitude haS been fostered by an official propaganda which placed the emphasis on latent resources rather than on actual striking power. Germany’s advantage did not rest merely in masses of tanks, planes and weapons of all kinds, accumulated in readiness for a war of conquest? It was to be found also in the tactical use of these weapons, in the years of training and experiment which enabled the Germans to restore movement to warfare. While their enemies continued to think in terms of fixed positions, and of fire power anchored to a stationary front, the Germans were using the Spanish war to test weapons and methods designed for a lightning attack. They had discovered that motor transport could restore the element of surprise by enabling an offensive force to assemble 150 miles behind the front line. Once the plan was set in motion the columns could move swiftly towards the front, following many different routes, and converging only at the last moment upon the area selected for the break-through. The intricacy of a German assault plan is sufficient proof of the careful preparation which accompanied Hitler’s moves in power politics. British military leaders knew nothing of the new tactics until they had to study them in the field. The lessons of Spain had been ignored, or lightly dismissed, both in France and Britain. Even the three-weeks’ campaign in Poland failed to sound an alarm signal. Moreover, the British Army had not been organized and trained for a war .. of movement. Changes and reforms had to be introduced in the intervals between battles. The new methods had to be adopted at short notice, imperfectly, and sometimes (in the face of military conservatism) without a full understanding. It could not be surprising that the Germans, who had evolved the blitzkrieg and had practised its methods through years of realistic training, continued to win their battles with scientific precision. Time to Attack

Meanwhile, however, the war has spread across the world. The fact which dominated the third year of the struggle was the simultaneous entry of Japan and the United States. Japanese aggression completed the lesson that the democracies have been learning slowly, amid many surprises. It soon became evident that the Japanese had studied German tactics, and had been able to adapt them to what seemed to be a completely different type of warfare. “Infiltration” is a word that many persons heard for the first time while little men, lightly equipped, were cycling down the jungle paths of Malaya. Yet infiltration is the basic idea of the blitzkrieg. On the plains of France and Poland it was infiltrating tanks that cut the lines of communication and prepared the way for encirclement. In Malaya the infiltrating forces went on bicycles or on foot; but they adhered closely to the principles of mobile warfare. The lesson of these events, applied to the wider field of strategy, is that the only way to defeat the enemy is to go out and meet him, to secure bases from which his communications can be threatened—above all, to match his thoroughness with an efficiency supported by the total resources and efforts of the United Nations. In the Pacific the Americans have shown that they studied the earlier battles to some purpose. Their naval and air operations have been uniformly successful. In the land fighting in the Solomons and in New Guinea American and Australian troops have fought with skill, initiative and a robustly aggressive spirit. The fourth year opens upon a situation that calls for realistic thinking. In Russia the Germans continue to advance; but the Red Army has not slackened in its epic resistance. While these hard battles are raging the forces of the United Nations are assembling for an offensive that will challenge the Germans in the west. The battles in Russia and Egypt show the outline of Hitler’s pincer movement to the east. But beyond them is the promise of a still greater pincer: the arms of Russia and of Britain and America, closing upon a continental battlefield. This should be a year of great events. The Germans and the Japanese have to be checked. Those who speak of a 10year war can be right only if the Allies fail to seize the strategic opportunities which now await them. “Not for a moment dare we stomach the theory of a dragging conflict,” wrote J. L. Garvin recently in The Sunday Express. “From now on, war planning and war waging must have two definite objects: first, nothing less than an absolute victory, both in arms and peace; second, to shorten the war. If Russia holds for two months, the United Nations can triumph in two years.” There can be no illusions, no easy optimism, no holding back from the ultimate effort. The Allies have had bitter lessons. But if they have learned from them they will enter with new strength upon a year of fighting that may give them their first ti-ue glimpse of victory.