Report And Facts

New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 290, 12 January 1945, Page 5

Report And Facts

had to endure in the Rundstedt offensive has been the sacrifice of thousands of men. After that has come the loss of ground and material, with the boost to enemy morale and the blow to our own. These things were our Christmas box and the sooner we adjust ourselves to them the better. If the weather, the country, the long nights and the co-operation of the civil population all conspired to help Rundstedt, it is for soldiers and not for civilians to decide whether the precautions taken against him were reasonable. They were certainly not adequate. But civilians may ask why the possibility of a counter-offensive on such a bold scale was a mental shock to them. If we had all given up hope of victory in a week or two, most of us still believed that the enemy was on his final run, that he might delay us for a little at the Rhine, "[ hardest thing we have ;

but that our margin of power was overwhelming everywhere. Then in a few days he drove us back farther and faster than we had been able to drive him in as many weeks, and we are still not sure that he is stopped. We are entitled to ask why such a shock to our minds was possible, and one of the reasons is our encouragement of the purveyors of pap. We have not had the truth from our correspondents, and we have frequently not wanted it. We have listened to every reporter who has announced crushing victories without analysing the facts on which his rhetorical victories have been based. The more accurate his facts have been the more dangerous he has often become the moment he has moved on to interpretation. He has then had no guide but his exuberant imagination, no check but the elusiveness of his victories, no digcouragement but an occasional cold douche from an army commander. The people who should have combined to help him, ourselves his readers, have usually lapped up his nonsense and asked for more. We don’t pause to analyse absurdities. We want victories, and we thank the correspondents who provide them.