First Month

A detachment of neutral news correspondents, including five Americans, toured Germany last week from Aachen to Kaiserslautern, guided by German officers who happily, confidently showed them the wonders of the Westwall. The correspondents wrote marveling descriptions of the Wall's depth, complexity and strength; its clever tricks of camouflage; murderous traps for tanks and infantry; ponderous guns for long-range punishment of the Allies. "The Westwall will never be finished, just as a forest never ceases to grow," they quoted one general as saying. They gave the net impression that the Wall was, if not precisely impregnable, so immensely flexible that it could bend indefinitely under assault and ultimately exhaust its attackers.

In their dispatches, which of course were not sent without scrutiny by German censors, the neutral correspondents also gave the impression that "this is a strange war." They heard little firing, saw few effects of it. They saw only one airplane encounter. They visited evacuated Saarbruecken, reported freight trains still hauling away coal, steel and manufacturing equipment (to the Ruhr) in full view of the French. On the Rhine they stood with German officers in full view of poilus on the other side fishing, sawing wood, washing clothes. They heard stories and saw signs of badinage between the lines. Net effect of what they wrote was to underscore Senator Borah's amazing crack about World War II being "phoney."

Fact is there was nothing strange about the correspondents' impressions, and probably a minimum of censor coloration. The potency of the German positions is unquestioned, and official French communiques for the days the newsmen were on tour confirmed the quietness which they reported. Fact also is that this war is no -"phoney," but simply a war far different from any ever fought. At the end of its first 30 days, perspective brought the answers to a lot of questions asked by laymen about World War II.

Questions and Answers. England and France declared war on Germany, superficially because Poland was attacked, fundamentally because "Hitlerism must go." Helping Poland was an immediate consideration, but avenging Poland, eventually executing her murderer for the good of all, is the ultimate consideration.

Why didn't the Allies at once send planes to Poland? Because Poland had '"her eyes gouged out" so quickly, her Air .Force smashed before it left the ground, her airfields so pocked with bombs that .Allied planes could not have landed when they got there. To this add the facts that it takes eight service men on the ground ito keep one plane in the air, and that there was none too much airplane gasoline in Poland. Finally, the Nazi Air Force was enormously stronger, from its myriad small home bases, than an expeditionary air force could have been.

Why didn't the Allies at once bomb the Ruhr and the Rhineland? Wouldn't that have brought a sizable part of the German Air Force racing back out of Poland? Perhaps, but it would also have brought reprisal bombing of Allied industries. The German anti-aircraft defense had not been tested, and neither had the Allied. The possible price in their own civilians' lives gave the Allies pause. So did their fear that not yet were they Germany's match in the sky.

Moreover, the British (presumably the French, too) wanted to lay a sound propaganda base for the War, however short or long it might be. The German people knew nothing about the War's true causes (on the Western Front some German soldiers were indignant when taken prisoner because they didn't even know war had been declared). The British wanted to let them know from the first that Britain was fighting A. Hitler & Co., not the German people. Bombing with leaflets was an effort to sow revolution which might flower soon or late; to plant misgivings which might choke off the will-to-war without which even Hitler could not drive his people into battle, particularly if battle were delayed.

The speed of Poland's collapse, the awkward neutrality of Mussolini, the perils of a 3,000-mi. supply line, knocked out the idea of sending help to Poland through the Dardanelles, the Black Sea and Rumania. The Baltic Gate was impassable, the routes across neutral Belgium, The Netherlands and Switzerland unthinkable.

There being no other approach to the enemy, the Allies were thrown back on the desperate alternative of attempting to smash through the Westwall while 70 German divisions were still in Poland. If only 30 divisions of Germans were guarding it, this would require at least 150 allied divisions, using a conservative offensive-defensive ratio of 5-to-1 for super-fortifications. Not half that many Allied divisions were ready and had they been ready, the price in lives--perhaps 1,000,000--was unthinkable for the dubious advantage to be gained. Poland's doom was seen early. Hitler's doom must be carefully planned.

Economic warfare beat Germany last time. Quick to renew that stratagem where they left off in 1918 were the Allies, not only by seizing cargoes bound for Germany but by "rationing" neutral countries lest supplies going to them filter through to the enemy, and by blacklisting persons and companies the world over known to be Germany's friends. The pressure of this unseen warfare can be terrific on the same element that received the British leaflets: the German people.

The appearance of Russia as a new source of supply for blockaded Germany may be deceptive. Economist J. Anton de Haas of the Harvard Business School, fresh back from Europe, made some succinct observations about this last week. Said he:

"The relative internal strength of Germany is less than any other major country. She is much less prepared for war now than in 1914. . . . With Russian troops in Poland her [Russia's] transportation system cannot bear the additional strain of sending appreciable amounts of war supplies to Germany. And there is little reason to believe that Russia will demobilize for some time to come. . . .

"Are there enough tank cars for it [Rumanian oil] to be shipped overland? . . . "We know there have been food shortages in Germany. Is this the result of natural causes or because she has been storing: up great quantities for war use? Oh, there are so many unknown factors. So many, we cannot be sure about anything, but the evidence we have points to Germany's economic weakness."

The economic strain of war, even with abundant supplies available, was brought home to Britons last week by their war budget: income taxes up to 37 1/2% (see p. 27). That kind of strain makes civilians impatient with the military. The impotent, halting performance of Britain's Ministry of Information nourished a growing suspicion that there was just hardly any good news to report. That, too, made the people impatient. They want to see action, to "get on with it." In this war's first 30 days, the only action Allied civilians saw was a creeping infantry advance by the French Army onto German soil, three raids (one moderately successful, two unsuccessful) by the Royal Air Force on German naval bases. Against them they saw three damaging weeks of submarine warfare and two air raids (possibly unsuccessful) on their Fleet. Only by last week had a British Expeditionary Force of perhaps six divisions established itself in France. Already the impatient "let's get On with it" idea began to be heard, at least in England.

After You, Adolf. The economy, the technology, the psychology of A. Hitler & Co.'s war position are all geared for an early, quick, dramatic offensive. Foreign Minister Ribbentrop was reported last week to be urging Hitler to strike at once with a giant pincer attack through Belgium and Switzerland. Air Minister Goring was reported against this, at least until the U. S. should make up its mind about embargoing munitions to the Allies. If the embargo is lifted and U. S. opinion of Germany discounted, then Goering would strike ruthlessly through the air. Meantime, the Berlin correspondent of Italy's big Stefani news agency reported last week: "The Germans will leave to the French and British the honor and risk of beginning."

Generalissimo Gamelin's instinct for caution ("Science and prudence" might be his motto) is certainly greater than Hitler's. And he had something fairly substantial to show for his first 30 days' work. He consolidated enough gains to put his heavy artillery in range of the main West-wall defenses in at least two spots of his own choosing: the Blies Valley (Zweibruecken) and the Lauter Valley sector. He claimed to have surrounded 60 German villages. He had Saarbrikken under control (it was too heavily mined to take frontally), had covered with his artillery most of the coal mines and heavy industries in the Saar Valley (immensely important to the German economy and not offset by Silesia), putting them out of operation. He threatened paralysis of the Saar basin with his drive toward Mettlach, its big electric power centre. An enormous sustained French artillery pounding, presaged last week by increased aerial reconnaissance and exploratory fire, would be quite in keeping with the Liddell Hart "super-guerrilla" plan (see col. 2). Unless his British friends should insist on action more precipitate, Generalissimo Gamelin appeared content to reply to the Stefani report: "After you, Adolf."

That the British Cabinet was content, too, and the Liddell Hart plan or something like it firmly adopted, seemed proved last week when the Cabinet's most restless and rabidly anti-Hitler member, Winston Churchill, in reviewing the War's first month (see p. 55), called on his countrymen not only to rise above fear but also "above inconvenience and, perhaps most difficult of all, boredom."

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