CLIMAX IN EUROPE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 November 1943, Page 3

CLIMAX IN EUROPE

ANTICIPATED BY MR CHURCHILL NEXT YEAR Unless Allies Make Grave Mistake in Strategy BUT SEVERE AND COSTLY CAMPAIGNS IN PROSPECT GLORIOUS ADVANCE OF RUSSIAN ARMIES LONDON, November 9. Unless the Allies made some grave mistake in strategy, Mr Churchill said at the Guildhall today, next year probably would see the climax of the European war. Germany, he went on to state, was still strong and the campaigns of 1944 were likely to be most severe and most costly in lives to the United Nations. Hitler, the British Prime Minister said, still had some 400 divisions under his command and it would therefore be foolish to allow our plans to be based on the prospect of an early collapse of Germany. The present year, Mr Churchill continued, had been one of v almost unbroken victory in which Britain had played her full part in the Mediterranean, in breaking the back of the U-boat campaign and in the Allied air offensive which was shattering German production and morale. In the Pacific, where the main forces of the United States were deployed, the attacks of American, Australian and New Zealand forces had steadily worn down the strength of Japan. The outstanding’ event of the year had been the glorious advance of the Russian armies, subjecting Germany to defeats which might well prove mortal. On the subject of post-war policy and planning, Mr Churchill said it was the duty of the British Government to ensure that there should be food and work and homes for all in the years after the war. No party doctrines or vested interests would be allowed to stand in the way of providing these things as soon as we had won the war. The happiness and welfare of future generations, Mr Churchill declared in concluding, were dependent on the maintenance of fraternal Anglo-American relations.