The Press TUESDAY, APRIL 2D, 1941. "Not by Eastern Windows Only..."

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23315, 29 April 1941, Page 8

The Press TUESDAY, APRIL 2D, 1941. "Not by Eastern Windows 0n1y..."

Mr Winston Churchill’s broadcast address, heard by New Zealand listeners yesterday morning, probably had a larger audience than any address he has given since the outbreak of war. For some weeks now—ever since the beginning of the Germ m attack on Greece—the public’s ration of news has been meagre. Communiques about the fighting in Greece have been reduced to dry formulas, padded out by the British Ministry of Information with a great deal of very deplorable nonsense. The inevitable result of a shortage of news and a glut of cliches has been the spread of rumours and, latterly, an outburst of sharp and at times petulant criticism of British military policy in British and American newspapers. No one who has followed events in the Middle East intelligently can be surprised or shocked because the Greek venture has been, from the military viewpoint, a failure; what is surprising is that the venture has also been a propaganda failure. For three weeks British, Australian, and New Zealand troops have been fighting one of the bravest rearguard actions in military history—and fighting it over ground made sacred by the deeds and thoughts of men whose memory has lasted for 25 centuries. There might have been some flash of inspiration, some lifting of the spirit, in the voices and in the prose of those who recorded the deeds of Australians and New Zealanders on the slopes of Olympus, on the plains of Thessaly, and in the hills around Thermopylae. There was none. The impression given by British official and semi-official statements has been-one of doubt and fumbling, unhappily reminiscent of the Norwegian disaster. Mr Churchill’s speech came, 'therefore, at a moment as critical for the morale of the British Commonwealth as for its military fortunes. It met the occasion, and was besides one of the greatest political orations of our time. Yet Mr Churchill told the British peoples little they did not know, little they could not have thought out for themselves. His speech restored the calm and renewed the resolution of the British Peoples because it put events back into their perspective, because it showed that there can be a redeeming glory in military failures, and abqve all because it revealed a leader as incapable of minimising defeats as of being discouraged by them. To those who have been fretful over recent events he held up the example of the men and women of the areas bearing the brunt of the Nazi bombing attacks on Great Britain. “ It is a grand, heroic "period in our history, and the light of its “glory falls on us all.” To those who have argued that a sober calculation of military risks would have dictated leaving the Greeks to their fate, he gave the answer that sober calculation is not always the highest wisdom. “In the long run, the actions of the United “ States will not be dictated by methodical cal- “ culations of profit and 'loss, but by sentiment “and that glimmering flash of resolve which “lifts the hearts of men and nations and "springs from the spiritual foundations of hw“man life itself.”. Finally, to those whose minds are oppressed by the outlook in the Mediterranean and the Middle East Mr Churchill issued a reminder that, to achieve his purpose, Hitler must either successfully invade Great Britain or win the battle of the Atlantic. His final victory must be woi. in the west or not at all; and it is to the west that the British people can look with most confidence.