NOTES ON THE WAR NEWS

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 134, 7 June 1940, Page 8

NOTES ON THE WAR NEWS

THE BIG BATTLE

PRELIMINARY STAGE

GERMAN TACTICS

The big battle raging across France, from the sea at the mouth of the Somme to the northernmost tip of the Maginot Line at MontJnedy, is still in its preliminary stage of tentative attacks by the Germans ton the French line seeking a "soft spot" to try for a break-through towards Paris. At such a stage detailed comment in the-absence of-definite news would be only speculative and hardly worth while. *

Attacks are briefly reported at several* points, most intense, it appears, at Amiens and Perohne on the Somme and on the Ailette Canal between the rivers Oise and Aisne. Heavy artillery bombardment is also mentioned in the Champagne country of; tKe upper Aisne, probably at Rethel, where there is no flanking canal and where the Germans have previously made attempts to cross. It is impos- j sible to say at this stage on which point (or points) the Germans are concentrating. It is quite possible that, if their numbers are sufficient, they may try to break through at several points and deal, with the Allied armies in detail. But the battle has not progressed to; anything like that stage, and there is no need to assume it will." The Germans are using all sorts of tactical tricks, including heavy smoke screens, but there is nothing so far to show that they have anything up their sleeve to spring another surprise on the Allies, as they did at Sedan and elsewhere on the Meuse. The menace of the tank seems to have been met by General Weygand's plan of deep defences, a sort of network of gun nests that catches the stray tank that gets through, while any odd armoured 'vehicle that succeeds in penetrating further is tackled by special mobile units scouring the country in the rear of the lines. The furthest advance of the enemy so far reported—at the time of writing—is to Chaulnes between Amiens and Peronne. Chaulnes marked the limit in this area of the German line in 1915. Defence in Depth. It may be asked how it comes about that-/there is any advance at all by the enemy against the French line. The answer is that it is not an entrenched line at all in the sense of the trench warfare of 1915-18. The French have had.no time to dig trenches all across 200 miles of country. There is no Maginot Line here, nor anything like it The defence lies in a zone rather than a line, a zone of great depth where every use has been made of r points of vantage in the terrain within the respite won by the Battle of Flanders and the defence of Dunkirk. Such a long and deep zone cannot be held everywhere in strength ■—France has not the men to spare for that—and so advances are possible here and there, wherever the force applied by the enemy is too much, for the resistance of the defenders in forward positions. Here the French . have adopted the tactics used by the* Germans in the later stages of the Great War of holding front lines lightly and letting the enemy press forward into salients subject to flank attack. In the Grand Style. What the world is witnessing now is what M. Reynaud in his spirited broadcast called the beginnings of a battle in "the grand style." The issue will depend, as it does in every such battle, on the skill and resource and resolution of the High Command, and the discipline, ability, tenacity, and courage of their armies shown by the conduct of the individual, officer and man, right through. There is nothing else for it. The Germans may have still that distressing numerical "local superiority" in the air, and they may have more and, perhaps, better tanks, but these advantages cannot last. They must be met, as they were met in the Battle of Flanders, by the same superior soldierly qualities that saved the Allied armies from complete destruction at Dunkirk. All the evidence is that the Germans cannot last; that they must win now or never; that if they get a setback now, their morale, keyed to the highest pitch by the fanaticism of success, will begin to sink quickly. Reason to Hope. M. Reynaud put the whole position before the world. It is a grave hour, but 'there is every reason to hope. General Weygand has declared himself satisfied with the way the battle has begun and the way his orders to resist at any price are being obeyed. At such a vtiaie it is above all necessary to turn a 4ea£ ear to rumour, to avoid spreading it, and" to* regard any story, circulated by whatever means and with whatever assumed authority, in the light of common sense. Yesterday, for instance, a rumour spread about town, causing ' much unnecessary anxiety, that the Germans were "only sixteen miles from Paris." Agitated inquiries were made from sources of information such as newspaper offices. There was apparently nothing whatever in the cable and wireless news to justify the rumour, but when an investigation was made the canard turned out to have been the result of the mis-hearing of the broadcast from Daventry, in which the distance was given as sixty miles.