On With The Battle

New Zealand Listener, Volume 3, Issue 53, 28 June 1940, Page 12

On With The Battle

last week about the terms the dictators would give France; most of it a waste of time. It mattered greatly to France whether hér liberty would remain or be destroyed, but the moment she appealed to Germany ,what mattered to us was the strength of our own right arm. That is what mattets *still. It is of course important to know why France failed-why the besttrained army in Europe was crushed in thirteen days; but it is a problem for the General Staff and not for the man in the street. 7 ae was a great deal of discussion The duty for the rest of us is to brace ourselves for the trials that are now upon us. Mistakes have been made and will have to be paid for, but the costliest of all mistakes is to forget the value of time. Germany over-ran Poland in sixteen days; brought Belgium and Holland to their knees in a week; broke France in less than a fortnight. To forget facts like those while we hold inquests into situations the facts of which may be established in ten or fifteen years is to do precisely what Hitler hopes we will do. We must get on with the battle, rallying our resources, rallying our own souls, and never forgetting for a moment that we ‘are in liberty’s last ditch. But let us not forget at the same time that "sudden the worst turns the best to the brave." Although a poet said it, a thousand pages in history prove it. Need we turn farther back than Dunkirk? But faith without works is dead. Our confidence needs facts to feed on-and the facts are there if we will look at them: the world’s strongest navy; not the biggest, but the boldest and hardest-hitting air force; the only limitless source of raw materials; the only direct access to the mass-production factories of the United States. We had far less than that to brace us before Waterloo,