Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 1943. PRESSING THE OFFENSIVE.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 February 1943, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 1943. PRESSING THE OFFENSIVE.

those laymen who are least inclined to dogmatise on the subject of Allied grand strategy may find much that is convincing in Lord Beaverbrook’s ardent and almost strident advocacy of early and powerful Allied offensive action against Nazi-occupied Europe from bases in Britain as well as in and from North Africa. No one can doubt that offensive action on a great scale in other parts of Europe is the most promising means of either preventing a German spring or summer offensive in Russia or reducing it to minimum proportions. There is point also, which will be appreciated particularly on this side of the world, in Lord Beaverbrook’s contention that another reason for speedy action in Europe is the necessity of setting the narrowest limits that are practicable to the time conceded to the Japanese in which to make industrial or other preparations for carrying on the war in the Pacific. It has, of course, been declared by both Mr Churchill and President Roosevelt that the Allies are committed to a policy of full-powered attack in the near future. In President Roosevelt’s words, the blows to be struck by the Allies may fall “in Norway, or through the Low Countries, or in L rance, oi throng r Sardinia or Italy, or through the Balkans, or through I oland, or at several points simultaneously.” Much must depend, however, on the timing of offensive action, and on whether the Allies are able to strike speedily and heavily enough to deny the enemy an opportunity of reorganising after the« shattering de-, feats he has suffered and.may yet suffer in Russia. Responsible spokesmen for the Allied nations rightly set emphasis on the difficulties they have yet to overcome in hard fighting in Africa and elsewhere—not least in the unending campaign against the U-boats. This, however, is only, one side of the picture. What is known of the conditions in which Nazi Germany is now drawing on all available reserves in order to reinforce its stricken armies makes fully understandable the despondency which is reported to be increasing in the Reich. Problems arising out of the simultaneous and conflicting demands of the German Army for reinforcements and of Geinrnn Avar industries for an adequate labour force are becoming rapidly more acute. It has been stated, for instance, that German) survived the winter of 1941-42 only by reducing her front line effectives in Russia and temporarily recalling large numbers of men to her war factories. To keep her machine functioning, one commentator observed recently, she had to shuttle men between the armed forces and the armament works. Even so, gross production declined in a marked degree, estimated in some quarters as up to 30 per cent, and much trouble ensued when the Army General Staff began to insist that the gravity of the Russian counter-attacks necessitated immediate transfers back to the Army, even if production should suffer still further. For Germany these problems are now intensified enormously, not only by her disastrous losses of men, material and vital territory in Russia during the last three months, but by the Allied action in North Africa, which seems unlikely to be hindered to any great extent by the latest enemy effort in central Tunisia, and by the prospect of Allied invasions of Europe. At the most immediate view, the Germans, with their satellite allies, have sagged tremendously to leeward in the vast Russian campaign on which so much depends. M. Stalin has said that the Germans hoped last year not only to gain the Caucasian oilfields, but to outflank and capture Moscow and to end the war in Russia. To this he added (in a speech delivered to the Moscow Soviet in November last) Let us suppose that there had been a second front in Europe such as existed during the first world war, and that the second front had diverted, let us say, 60 German divisions and 20 divisions of Germany’s allies. What would have been the situation of the German armies in that case? It is obvious that it would have been lamentable. It would have been the beginning of the end of the German armies. . . . The conditions of concerted attack on the Germans on two or more European fronts which could not be established last year are in a fair way to be established this year. Against the delay that has occurred there are to be set the great and weakening losses the enemy has suffered in face of intensified and expanding war demands.