The Red Army

New Zealand Listener, Volume 6, Issue 141, 6 March 1942, Page 4

The Red Army

HE army of Russia had a little less notice than it deserved in some quarters last week and a little more in others. It is of course a magnificent army, better trained and equipped than the best informed experts believed it could be, and a hundred times better led. If the supreme test of a military machine is its capacity to take blows without cracking it must indeed be one of the best machines the world has ever seen; and it certainly is the biggest. But we must not forget that its successes so far have been counter-attacks, its failures crushing defeats that have brought it near to irretrievable disaster. It is encouraging beyond anything that has so far happened to us in this war to see the Germans now diiven from village to village and leaving guns and lorries as they go. But they are Russian villages and not German. Germany was ready when the first shct was fired, Russia only nearly ready. Germany certainly seized the initiative by treachery, as her ally Japan did later, but Russia was only half surprised, and yet caught with many of her troops out of position. It is necessary to remember, these early facts if we wish to get the present phase of the struggle into proper focus, and to be as grateful as we ought to be for the things that have been brought to light since-the magnificent courage of the men, the daring but never reckless leadership of the generals and their staffs. Let us in fact admit quite frankly that if Russia were not at present on our side it would be difficult to imagine how the war could be won. But let us also get the moral straight. The Russian army is as strong as it is because it has had the moral support through all its twenty-four years of the Russian rulers and the Russian people. Our armies are as unready as they are-that is, as weak-because no British soldier for fifty years has had the simultaneous support of the British Government and of the British people. Except in the most desperate crises we despise soldiers and laugh at them, make officers out of the idle rich, and then call on them to win victories over armies led by the best brains our enemies can find and train. By the grace of God they sometimes do win, but we dare not go on tempting Providence for ever.