The Auckland Star WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun. FRIDAY, APRIL 12, 1940. GAMBLE THAT FAILED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 87, 12 April 1940, Page 6

The Auckland Star WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun.

FRIDAY, APRIL 12, 1940. GAMBLE THAT FAILED.

For the cause that tacks assistance. For the icrong that reeds resistance, Far the future in the distance, And the good that tee can do.

Because British leader?' engaged in directing war operations of great magnitude? and .scope cannot be expected to spare time every few hours to report the progress of those operation?, it is not possible yet to gain a clear picture of the situation in Scandinavia. But it is possible to compare the situation a.s far as we know it with what Hitler intended it to be. He must have hoped to present the Allies with another accomplished fact. He succeeded in Denmark—because the Allies in any circumstances could not hope to checkmate him there—but he has failed in Norway. He has failed even though his armed forces have not been dislodged. The Norwegians, it was intended, were to awake last Monday morning to find their country under German control. It was intended that they should accept the position, because they could do nothing to alter it. If they were recalcitrant they were to be shot, and reinforcements arriving steadily from Germany would soon convince them of the futility of resistance. Then they would "settle down" under Nazi rule, and declare (over a Nazicontrolled radio) that they were happy, and wished no interference from the Allies. To do Hitler justice, the plan seems to have come near to success. But ''near" was not enough. The advance parties got through, but the Royal Navy caught the main body of the invaders, as it were,' in midstream. One day the full tale will be told of how the Navy did it. Meanwhile, we can note the consequences to date, and compare them with Hitler's hopes.

First, the Norwegians did not consent to give up their country to Nazi "protection." Though taken by surprise, they began resistance, and that resistance is apparently growing: stiffer. Their navy, though small, and their coastal defence batteries, took a heavy toll of the Nazi naval forces. Even the Germans admit the loss of the Blucher and Karlsruhe. Secondly, the German troops that were landed appear to have been virtually cut off. The British naval force forced its way into the Skager-Rak, to Oslo fiord and the Kattegat—and it is there still. The enemy losses are the subject of the usual conflicting reports, but that they were heavy no one ean doubt. Mr. Churchill gave the Commons the estimate, probably conservative, of four German cruisers lost, a destroyer fleet "deeply mutilated," and many transports sunk. The German Navy, which, because of its inferiority in size, could not hope to engage the British in the North Sea, was still valuable in the Baltic; but Hitler has flung it into an enterprise which only a madman could imagine it would be allowed to complete unmolested. The consequences of its losses will be felt far and near, but most immediately in the fate of the Norwegian expedition. Lie as it may, the German High Command cannot hope to maintain its forces in Norway while the British Navy is athwart its communications. Hitler's chance of dominating , Scandinavia has gone. He is immeasurably worse off than when he began.