NOTES ON THE WAR NEWS

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 122, 24 May 1940, Page 9

NOTES ON THE WAR NEWS

PRELUDE TO BATTLE

POSITION IN FRANCE

TEST OF LEADERSHIP

The war news today emphasises certain elements of gravity in the ! situation of the Allied armies, chiefly British, based on the Channel coast in western Belgium and north-western France. The German 6 armoured columns and mechanised units which ; passed through the Arras-Bapaume gap to reach tidewater at Abbeville have been raiding round north of Abbeville and harassing communica-j tions between the armies and their base ports. One of the places mentioned is St. Pol, between Arras and Bethune and between 40 and 50 miles south-east of Boulogne..Unless and until these units, which cannot be over-numerous, are cleaned up, the trouble will continue. It will cease if and when the gap is closed. Fighting is raging fiercely from Arras eastward to Valenciennes and along the line of the Schelde (or Escaut) held by the Allied armies in Belgium. It is reported that the Germans have crossed the Schelde near Audenarde, where Marlborough fought one of his great, battles on July 11, 1708. Little fighting is reported along the Somme-Aisne front, to the south of the gap, held by the French, and it is clear that the main German attack is directed against the Allied armies based on the Channel ports. These have suffered from the air, but are pronounced as "still usable." In a "Tight Corner/ Thus the situation in the west is rapidly approaching a crisis. The armies, hampered as they are by refugees streaming before and even alongside the German advance, can be depended on to fight well. The question then is one of leadership in the field, plus the furnishing of the requisite arms, munitions, and supplies. This the resolute Governments of ■ Britain and France will see to as far as is humanly possible. In the field the British Commander-in-Chief, Lord Gort, has managed exceedingly well so far under the most difficult circumstances. His record and performance show him to be a fighting general, of the type General Freyberg has made well known to New Zealanders. There is no better type for a "tight corner" such as is the position in which the Allied armies in the north, through no fault of their own or their leader, find themselves. . Also, there are no better soldiers for "tight corners". than the British. They have shown that again and again throughout their long and not inglorious military history. It is then that they shine best. Liddell Hart, in his so often quoted "Defence of Britain," lays the greatest stress on this national characteristic. Where British Are Best. The British have never been a military nation in the sense that can be truthfully attached to the French and the Germans; their real role is rather !on the sea. British victories on land from Crecy onwards have been won, Liddell Hart endeavours to show, by a peculiar combination of the tactical defensive with the strategical offen- ! sive. In simpler terms, they let. their I opponents exhaust themselves in attack and then counter-attack with decisive results. The battles Liddell Hart cites are Halidon Hill, Crecy, Poitiers, and Agincourt, in our early history, and in modern times Wolfe's victory at Quebec, those of Wellington's Peninsular Campaign, and the crowning victory of Waterloo, the greatest example of all. On the contrary, when j the British adopted'the tactical offensive they rarely succeeded and sometimes disastrously failed. The one brilliant exception is Marlborough, the famous ancestor of the present British Prime Minister, Mr. Winston Churchill. Of Marlborough Liddell Hart says: He was able to show that the offensive could succeed if a favourable opportunity was created and exploited with sufficient skill. Thereby, in ten years of war he achieved three definite victories which had a far-reaching effect, if they fell short of deciding the war. But their glamour is apt to obscure the depressing conclusion —that the continued pursuit of a spectacular decision brought decreasing returns, and ultimate terms of peace much . less favourable than those which could have been obtained by a timely compromise. I Trust in Weygand. On the French side, and Commander-in-Chief of the whole Allied forces lin the West, is the veteran soldier General Weygand, Foch's right-hand man in the Great War, and one of the engineers of final victory. In him the people of France repose their entire trust to save France in the present crisis. On his decisions and on his dispositions of the Allied forces their fate largely depends. It is not necessary nor much use in times of crisis to look for Heaven-sent military geniuses. There have been exceedingly few in all history. One could number them on the fingers of both hands. And some of them, like Hannibal and Napoleon, have, in the long run, led their countries to disaster. What is rather needed is the man like Wellington, who would never give in, never acknowledge defeat, but fight on and on until his spirit overcame [ that of his adversary. That is what happened in the American Civil War. General Grant was not in the first flight of military leaders; as a skilful commander he was not to be compared with Lee or Stonewall Jackson on the other side; but he plugged on and on, "fighting it out" in his own way until he won. It was so in the Great War. The Allied generals, taken all round, were not the equals in skill and technique to the German leaders. They produced no tactical genius like Ludendorff, the "robot Napoleon," but they beat him in the long run by the same qualities of resolution and doggedness that distinguished General Grant. General Weygand has a reputation • based on performance in crises as serious as that which faces the Allies now. It is not likely that he will fail. No Need for Alarm. In the meantime as the confused battle rages in the West it must be said once more that place-names do not count for much, when the manpower is lacking to hold them. Fighting is reported in- and around Boulogne, according to the latest news, but it must be only a sudden raid of one of the German armoured columns, with a roving commission, that have passed through the Arras-Bapaume gap. Such columns, though they can do great damage, as cavalry raids used to do in past wars, cannot hold places. The tank is only useful when mobile. When its fuel is exhausted, its career of destruction ends. The French are j advancing from the south to close the j gap through which the tanks came , and Amiens is reported to have been ' recaptured. It looks as if the German success will be short-lived. The real j battle has not yet begun.