CONQUERORS WHO COULD NOT HOLD ON

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 90, 12 October 1940, Page 18

CONQUERORS WHO COULD NOT HOLD ON

JTCHOSE who are oppressed by the speed and extent of Hitler's conquests may be advised to study history. A glance at the maps shown in this page will, show that Napoleon ;and Kaiser Wilhelm II both succeeded in overrunning the . greater part of Europe, and .yet both failed,.in their assault on Britain. In this fact we may: well find encouragement.

Threat of invasion by an enemy holding or controlling most of Europe is no new thing, for Britain. In the past Napoleon and the Kaiser have menaced our security, but they were beaten by the. power of the British Navy. .So it will be with Hitler's Germany.

At its greatest extent Napoleon's immense empire included France, Spain, the Low' Countries (Holland and Belgium), Norway and Denmark, the Confederation of the Rhine, Prussia, the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, the Illyrian Province, the Austrian Empire, and Italy. Eastwards his way was barred by the Russian and Ottoman Empires. In the Mediterranean he held Corsica and the Balearic Islands.

In 1803 war broke out again between Britain and France, and Napoleon planned the invasion of our shores. He gathered at Boulogne a fleet of 2500 flat-bottomed shallowdraught transports in which he intended to convey his armies across the Channel and land them between Dover and-Hastings. For two years and two months his transports awaited a favourable opportunity, which never came, and Napoleon's grandiose scheme collapsed.. Nine-years of sea war followed, during which Napoleon's power dwindled, until in 1814 came his defeat and abdication; followed in 1815 by Waterloo.

Though the Kaiser, too, had dreams of the invasion, of Britain it was never attempted by his army and navy—for the same reason that wrecked Napoleon's plans: Britain commanded the seas. The German navy was held in an iron grip and seldom sallied out from its home bases.

The Kaiser's conquests included an immense extent of Russia, almost all Belgium, a slice of France,, and the entire territories of Rumania and what is now Yugoslavia. Bulgaria and Aus-tria-Hungary were fighting with him, and Turkey also was his ally. Syria, Palestine, and Irak were in the hands of Britain's enemies. The Kaiser's hold on Europe and the Near East was, in fact, greater than Hitler's. But in the end he failed to hold any territory outside Germany itself.

As Mr. Churchill recently reminded us, he felt confident in 1914 of the Navy's ability to secure Britain against invasion or serious raid by sea. Gn June 18, 1940,. the Premier

repeated his pledge. "So far as seaborne invasion on a large scale is concerned," said Mr. Churchill, "we are far more capable of meeting it today than we were at many periods in the last war."

Hitler's conquests look very imposing on the map and almost rival those of Napoleon. Italy is his confederate; non-belligerent Spain is his friend. Together they may menace Gibraltar and challenge Britain's control of the Mediterranean, but the British Navy is still pre-eminent. And there is one vital factor that is not disclosed by these maps—the moral and material aid Britain is receiving in ever-increasing measure from her Dominions and colonies overseas.