DESPERATE STROKESWHY?

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 15, 18 January 1940, Page 8

DESPERATE STROKESWHY?

Nazi intensification of the war at sea with attacks on unarmed trawlers, the threat to the Low Countries, and other signs of the desperate measures which may be in course of preparation, may be read as indications that the critical phase of the struggle is approaching. The circumstances suggest a quotation from the Apocalypse: "Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time." The review by Mr. Cross, Minister of Economic Warfare, of the progress of Allied economic measures, supplies at least,part of the reason. In four months Germany has reached the economic position she was in after two years in the Great War. This is in spite of the greater preparedness with which she began the war. Mr. Cross's statement, it should be notpd, made allowance for this greater preparation. He warned the public that Germany had been hammered and welded into a war machine. This made her technically stronger, but at the same time more brittle. Do the Nazi leaders know that the time is approaching when blows upon their war machine will reveal its brittle character? The desperation of some of the latest measures, taken or contemplated, suggests that this is so. The (evidence quoted by Mr. Cross supports the suggestion. The Minister quoted reports of disorganised manufacturing through lack of materials, of factories closing down, of motors exported without tyres, and of drastic rationing of textiles. Th,ese are the direct results of the blockade, and they are being seen, not after years of warfare, but after four months. It may be admitted, as British authorities have been careful to point out, that the rationing does not show a present insufficiency of supplies, but is partly a measure to eke out resources and postpone insufficiency. But the interruption, even for short periods, of the manufacturing now so vital to Germany, cannot be explained in this. way. Nor is the hammered and welded war machine of the Nazis likely to be stopped through lack of organisation—the failure to distribute- materials regularly and methodically. Of the resources available to them, the Nazis will make the best use, and when stoppages occur it is reasonable to assume that the diminution of resources has necessitated late modifications of plans. This is possible* for several reports lately have revealed Nazi disappointment with the results, of the GermanSoviet trade pact. That was intended to restore trade to "the highest turnover of past years" (in 1931), but it is" extremely ddubtful if it has done so. With the Finnish war not going according to plan,* Russia has been unable to give undivided attention to the needs of Germany. Probably in the supplies of which Germany has greatest need, mineral ojls and metals, for example, deliveries have been much less than anticipated, for Russia's developed resources of war commodities are not so great that she has a good surplus when she has a war of her own to fight. Even without this diversion of the surplus, it would not nearly suffice, in essential war materials, to make good the German loss sustained through the naval | blockade. There is, indeed, reason | to believe that events are following the course foreseen by Mr. L. P. Thompson, an economic and statistical expert who recently reviewed Germany's economic strength. It is, in fact, inescapable, he wrote, that neither by ordinary commercial methods nor by coercion can Germany hope to evade the slow but- sure pressure of naval blockade. In the corner of the world which remains open to Germany there simply do not exist some of the materials essential to the conduct of war and, indeed, to the maintenance1 of civil life. But Mr. Thompson adds a significant note —a note sounded also by Allied statesmen even when they are encouraged by the achievements of economic warfare: "That does not mean that the task of the Allies is easy. Though Germany cannot sustain a long war, the Nazis have built up a machine which can, while it lasts, strike hard in an effort .to break our stranglehold. But it is a stranglehold. And both the Nazis and we know it y • i