HITLER’S BLUNDERS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 61, Issue 251, 5 August 1941, Page 6

HITLER’S BLUNDERS.

BRITAIN’S MISTAKES SMALL. FIELD MARSHAL SMUTS’ VIEWS. PRETORIA, August 3. The: Prime Minister of South Africa (Field Marshal Smuts) in an interview, said: “We have made our mistakes, hut they are small. All the big blunders have been made by Hitler. ' “His first blunder was in continuing to go for Paris instead of for Britain after Dunkirk. His plan had always been Paris and the German is never good at changing his plans. His second blunder—a great military blunder is his attack on Russia. He undoubtedly expected to gain a quick decision, capture most of Russia’s resources and then turn west again. Already his wastage of men and material is vast.”

Field Marshal Smuts believes that Germany’s attempt to involve Japan in further war is likely to prove Herr Hitler’s third major blunder. He said that the end of the last war came because Germany collapsed internally and morale broke. In that connection the Hess affair was light in the darkness and possibly an internal collapse in Germany would make it unnecessary to invade the Reich with a large army.

Field Marshal Smuts disapproves df the suggestion that Dominion statesmen should join the War Cabinet in London. “The British Commonwealth is the first world State in which dispersal and decentralisation are fundamentals,” he said. “Suppose a crisis developed in the Middle East. Am I not better in Africa? Mr Churchill can consult me almost as easily as if I were in a London hotel.”

On the other hand, Field Marshal Smuts thinks that sending Captain. Oliver Lyttelton to the Middle East and Mr A. Duff Cooper to the Far East is quite good.

Field Marshal Smuts’ post-war recipe is for an association of free peoples embracing the British Commonwealth, North, America, and possibly South America, and certainly the democracies of Europe. The main reason for the failure of the League of Nations, he said, was America’s withdrawal. America had now learned her lesson. “When the war began,” he added, “South Africa was divided in her soul as regards fighting. That has passed. Hitler has proved my case for me. We to-day have a strong political opposition and a small subversive element underground. I can handle both.”