"Fifth Column" -Or Mainly Negligence?

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 167, 17 July 1941, Page 6

"Fifth Column" -Or Mainly Negligence?

TN the breathless days of the blitz- *■ krieg last year stories began to come out concerning strange happenings, not explained then, and never satisfactorily explained since. There was the failure of the Belgians to destroy bridges over the Albert Canal. There was the capture by the Germans of Eben-Emael, the strongest fortress system in the Liege district, in a few hours. There was the failure of the French to hold the Meuse.

"Fifth column" activity was for a time accepted as the explanation of some or all of these happenings, and it is certain that the Germans made extensive skilful use of agents. But this did not explain all. A well-known American correspondent who was in Brussels when the blitzkrieg began, and afterwards motored through to Paris, "one jump ahead" of the Germans, has given an interesting account" of his experience and observations, an account which suggests that the collapse of the defences before the German onslaught was due principally to lack of vigilance and to military slackness. Particularly was this the case with the French Ninth Army on the Meuse.

Commander 24 Hours Late The German attack had been expected, says Mr. Fodor, ever since May 6, and yet General Corap, commander of the Ninth Army, was absent when the attack came, and did not turn up for another 24 hours. On May 12 only a fraction of the army had arrived in position along the Meuse. And six bridges were not blown up.

Granted that there was a surprise element in the German attack, still there is no excuse for six bridges being left intact; for the artillery remaining unused; for troops being one hundred hours behind schedule; for the air force failing to appear in time and in sufficient numbers. Is it to be wondered that the word 'treason* was now whispered amongst the poilus. in the cafes of Sedan, in the restaurants of Lille? And it was treason. Even if the entire staff of Oeneral Corap can whitewash themselves from the charge of actual treason, their action, for all practical purposes, was treason to their country. They failed to carry through a minutely drafted defence plan of the French General Staff. They failed to organise their units properly: they failed to observe that vigilance which is the first commandment of all army officers.

Mr. Fodor also recalls the repeated German feints on the Dutch and Belgian borders before the blitzkrieg, feints designed to ascertain the possible counter-moves by the defenders, and also what the British and French would do. In a final chapter he expresses his belief that the Germans have been using the same methods against Britain. Democracies* Weakness The author devotes much of this book to arguing the thesis that this war is "part of a revolution on an enormous scale which has been sweeping over us for some time, only we did not notice it." But the most convincing chapters are those in which he records his observations on the spot of German tactics and the weaknesses of the nations which were conquered. The introduction to his book has been written by Dorothy Thompson, who remarks that the weakness of the democracies is that "we wish only to defend what we have, not to re-create ourselves and the world. We are therefore neither revolutionary nor counterrevolutiipnary; we are merely static. And it is true that a moving body opposed to a static body of the same weight will overtopple it. The Nazis are not revolutionary but they are dynamic, and dynamic gangsterism is more powerful than static law enforcement." * " The Revolution la On." by M. W. Foder (Allen and Unwln).