THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17, 1939 NOT A "FUNNY" WAR

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23479, 17 October 1939, Page 6

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17, 1939 NOT A "FUNNY" WAR

Many in New Zealand as well as in Britain and Erance must plead gyilty to using the catch phrase: "This is a funny war." Commentators in London and Paris have thought it worth while to combat the superficial judgment which the phrase expresses. Their demurrers should cause those who have repeated the paiTot-cry to pause and think again. If they survey the whole field honestly, they will be forced to the conclusion that the war, far from being funny, is deadly serious. The thought may prompt self-condemnation for having unconsciously regarded the war as a somewhat disappointing spectacle and should renew earlier resolutions to be up and doing. To begin with, the war at sea has proved anything but funny. For the Royal Navy it has been a grim and unrelenting campaign, sweeping the enemy from the seas and cutting his economic life-lines. Nor, in achieving rapid and complete success, has the Navy escaped sore losses. Frantic rather than funny has been the mood of the Nazi leaders as the blockade has clamped down on Germany, as is shown by the blind and almost impotent reaction of the unrestricted submarine sinkings. Those sailors and civilians who have been the victims of this inhuman warfare have not found it funny. Neither have the German housewives been able to raise a laugh at the early appearance of ration cards and food, queues. They are silent, depressed, fearful. A dozen small neutral countries in Europe are already finding that war is no joke. The Swiss are on rations, the Belgians and Dutch are taking stock, the Danes face economic ruin, three Baltic States have forfeited their independence to Russia and the whole region goes in dread of Bolsheviks or Nazis, or both.

Instances might be multiplied to show that this war, like every major war, is universally damaging and infinitely tragic. Few will be fortunate enough to escape realisation of the fact for much longer. But what people find funny—and by funny they probably mean puzzling —is the lack of major operations on the western front. They recall the vast movements at the opening of the Great War—the spirited French thrusts into Alsace, Lorraine and the Ardennes; the ominous sweep of the Germans through Belgium and North France to the Marne; the lumbering of the Russian steamroller across Poland and into East Prussia; and the ebbing of every one of these military tides. Nothing comparable has occurred between the major protagonists on this occasion. The fact is, of course, that both French and Germans have ( fenced their common frontiers by elaborate fortified systems. No scope i is left for a war of movement. The static trench warfare that slowly imposed itself in the West toward the end'of 1914 became obligatory so soon as the French crossed the German frontier and faced the prepared positions forward of the Siegfried Line. Real progress is being made, but to be sure it must be slow, if gains are not to be made too dearly to be sustained. The French have not forgotten the bitter lessons of 1914, when their initial frontier offensives cost the flower of their armies—2s per cent of all effectives and weakened their resistance to the onrush of the Gei-mans. French losses in these fruitless thrusts totalled 330,000, including a high proportion of their best regimental officers, leaving them terribly handicapped when placed on the defensive. By the time the German invasion was definitely arrested, the French had lost in killed, prisoners and wounded a total of 854,000 men, and the small British Army no less than 85,000, against German losses of 677,000. Neither French nor British want to open the new account with so heavy a debit, especially as it would contain their most highly trained effectives.

If further reminders are needed, more particularly of the cost of frontal assaults on prepared positions, it is only necessary to quote the terrible object - lessons of Verdun (700,000 casualties), the Somme (over 1,000,000) and Passchendaele (about 500,000), battles which effected little that was decisive except the progressive weakening of both sides. Neither France nor Britain wish to prejudice their cause by incurring the frightful losses that would be entailed by a head-on impact against the Siegfried Line. Time is on their side. They can afford to wait while the blockade takes effect. They would prefer that the Germans should assume the offensive and batter themselves to death and defeat on the steel and cement of the Maginot Line. The Germans would also wish to decline this suicidal business. Field-Marshal Goering, speaking on September 9 of the western front declaimed: "We shall defend our frontiers like iron, but we shall not attack." And he repeated this decision to give double emphasis. Why 1 Because he knew Germany was like a, city besieged and, if the besiegers would not spend • themselves in trying to break in, then dire necessity would force Germany to try to break out. Time is not on the Nazi side. So ihe relative inactivity on the western front is not funny or puzzling but tho deliberate practice of high strategy. The democracies hold the winning card in this waiting game—the blockade. It. operates ceaselessly, day and night, month after month and, if necessary, year after year. If a guess may be hazarded about the anxious comings and goings and conferrings at' the Chancellery in Berlin, the nagging question is probably how long Germany can afford to wait or how soon she must decide to stake all in a deadly assault to force the issue in the West. Hitler no longer thinks "this is a funnjr war.'-