Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, JULY 10, 1940. A BATTLE AND BEYOND.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 July 1940, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, JULY 10, 1940. A BATTLE AND BEYOND.

TVHATEVER may be the probable duration of the war, the battle for which Britain has been preparing with might and main for a good many weeks past promises to have a decisive ultimate bearing on the outcome of the conflict with Nazism. It may be held with reasonable confidence that if the German dictatorship fails to overwhelm Britain before the end of the present northern summer, it will, be faced not only by tremendous and many-sided difficulties in Europe, but by the prospect of attack by air and in other ways on a scale the world has never .vet seen.

Everything depends meantime on the ability of the Mother Country to withstand whatever attacks the Nazis may launch in the immediate future. There is no reason to suppose that these attacks will be long delayed. In spite of his spread of invasion, the enemy is still effectively blockaded so far as the most essential items of supply other than iron and steel are concerned. He has gained no new sources of oil supply, for example, and even if he has acquired considerable additional stocks of this commodity in occupied territories, he is still in the position of working on total stocks that must diminish unless he can gain access to continuing sources of supply.

With other important factors, the oil supply position seems likely to impel Hitler into ordering an early blitzkrieg against Britain. It may be taken, for granted that into this adventure the Nazis will popr all the force at their disposal. It is, of course, useless to speculate about the probable turn and trend of a conflict that has not yet taken shape, the more so as the enemy cannot as yet- be taken fully to have shown his hand. Amongst other things, it has yet to appear how far French resources are likely to be drawn upon in furtherance of the Nazi war effort. With the country of our late allies prostrate under Nazi control, and a miserably servile Government exercising only nominal authority and doing and saying only what it is told by its Nazi masters, there are no obvious limits to the use that may be made of French resources against Britain.

Although the actual character and magnitude of the Nazi attack have yet to be disclosed, it is not in doubt that the enemy onslaught, whatever its weight and momentum, will be met by the British nation with a strength and resolution not only based on intensive military and material preparation, but animated by a spirit of which the Nazis, in their debased worship of brute force, have no conception—the spirit of a free people rallying spontaneously in defence of life, liberty and ideals and prepared to die rather than admit defeat.

As has been said, the outcome of the war, if not the fate of world civilisation, is dependent upon the ability of Britain to withstand and repel the attack the Nazis may be expected to launch at almost any time now. With that ordeal endured and passed, as it must be if our life and freedom are to continue, new horizons will ere long open in the war. In spite .of disasters, of which the collapse of France is the last and greatest, there is much that is encouraging even in developments to date. It is a commanding fact that in every fair fighting test, and even in many instances when the odds were inclined heavily in his favour, the enemy has given but a poor account of himself. In Norway, which the Nazis invaded and captured by treachery and not by straightforward fighting’, the Allies were faced by an impossible task, but even so inflicted, on balance, much heavier losses than they suffered. With everything in their favour, the Nazis failed ignominiously to overwhelm the armies which were withdrawn successfully from Dunkirk and the decisive defeat at that time of the numerically superior enemy air forces has become matter of history. The superior fighting power of British airmen has long been evident and is now being demonstrated impressively from day to day. In the defence of Britain and of its seas of approach, our knights of the air have established a magnificent record of success —the defence of a Channel convoy reported yesterday is an outstanding but far from isolated example—and of losses inflicted on the enemy. At the same time, not without loss, but with unflagging and dauntless resolution, our airmen by day and night are attacking the enemy’s most powerful naval and other defences, bases, communications and centres of war industry. Ever deeper wounds are thus being inflicted on Germany which must progressively become deadly. With the war extended into the northern winter, the enemy will be confronted with widespread horrors of famine, dearth and disorganisation in the territories he has ruthlessly invaded. A winter of cold and of hunger, as an economic commentator has said, awaits Nazi-dominated Europe. There is perhaps a greater ultimate danger of the wholesale Bolshevisation of European populations maddened by hunger and privation than of the Nazi dictatorship being able to maintain and expand its fighting power. For Britain and her Empire, in any ease, no other course can be considered for the time being than that of building up witli ever-increasing energy the tremendous military power that has been and is being developed. One of our best guarantees of continued security in a ravaged and tortured world is the enterprising extension of the Empire air scheme. Aided not a little by the supply of American planes supplementing those manufactured in Empire factories, this scheme in itself appears to offer a decisive means of making an end of gangster aggression and opening the way to the re-establishment of world peace.

NAZISM IN RUMANIA.

RECENT denial by the Moscow radio that Soviet defences are directed against a possible threat from Germany may be put to an early and practical test by the latest development of Rumanian politics—a bid by the Iron Guard for complete control over the national destinies. The Iron Guard, an agency of German Nazism, has undergone in recent times dramatic changes of fortune. In the autumn of 1938, a renewal of Iron Guard activities led to the arrest of its leader, M. Codreanu, and he and a number of others were shot “while attempting to escape.” In March, 1939, the then Premier of Rumania, M. Caline.scu, was shot by Iron Guard followers. While King Carol’s aim has been to rule as a dictator, he included members of the Iron Guard in his Cabinet a few months ago. Now, following on the Russian annexation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, and in spite of lhe faet that the present Premier, M. Gigurtu, has staled that Rumania will align her policy with that ol the Axis, four members of the Iron Guard have resigned, the organisation explaining that it wants a Cabinet composed exclusively of its members. It is suggested that General Antonescu, successor to the late M. Codreanu as leader of the Iron Guard, should be invited to form a Government. ( This can be regarded as nothing else than a move by Nazi Germany to establish complete' domination over what is left of Rumania. II may be taken for granted that nothing but fear ol Germany, or the growth of German power, prevents King Carol from suppressing the Iron Guard, as he did in 1938. ft has been said that recent changes in Rumania—changes clearlv in evidence! before the Soviet, had taken over Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina and bringing to the fore “men who have always been pro-German, strongly anli-Slav in general and antiSoviet in particular,” in no way reflect public opinion as a whole, which is more or less friendly to Russia. One of a number of possibilities the situation holds is that the Sovietmay find in popular appeals for relief from Nazi domination an occasion for extending its occupation of Rumania, and perhaps of other Balkan countries as well. How far the Soviet, is prepared, and feels it; necessary, to trade upon opport unit ios of this kind is a question upon which interesting light should be thrown in the immediate future.