“STRANGE WAR”

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 November 1939, Page 5

“STRANGE WAR”

BRITISH MINISTER'S SURVEY GERMANY'S HUMILIATION IN THE EAST. COMPLETE AND APPALLING ISOLATION. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. LONDON, November 25. The Minister of Health, Mr Walter Elliot, speaking in Glasgow, reviewed the course “of this strange war.” “In the east,” he said, “the armies of Germany, marching over huge plains, met the armies of Russia. Then the armies of Germany withdrew, to mass, it was said, for a new and tremendous assault on the democracies of France and Britain. “But on their heels, as a strange sequel to what they claimed as an overpowering victory, came the German civilians leaving as refugees the Baltic countries where they had ruled and led for 700 years, and the Russian power was found marching into the small States of the Baltic and acquiring naval bases, aerodromes and fortifications which, by the very nature of things, could only be directed against Germany. “The war in the West had followed a still stranger course,” Mr Eliott continued. “The enormous air fleet of Germany, which, we were told, was to lay this country in ruins from the outbreak of the war, remains inactive —sending out reconnaissance machines it is true, and even embarking on attacks such as we have met and repelled in Scotland, but never attempting the tremendous grapple which, we were assured, would mark the very entry of Germany into the war.

“The armies of Germany mark time along the Western Frontier but nowhere advance. Only at sea does Germany take the offensive, and there a long trail of sunken merchantmen and slaughtered civilians, victims of a common fury directed against neutrals and adversaries alike, show all too clearly that they are still running true to form.

“As a result **of all these feats the Nazis find themselves today in complete and appalling isolation. There is no doubt whatever in any nation that an overthrow of the Nazi power will be greeted by the whole world with a great sigh of relief. But Nazi Germany is a reality. It has a giant’s strength, and it intends to use it like a giant. Against it the Western Powers are standing in line. Time itself, if we use it aright, is on our side.”