NOTES ON THE WAR

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 8, 10 January 1941, Page 8

NOTES ON THE WAR

NEWS

BOGYMAN!

THREAT TO IRELAND

THE WAR OF NERVES

It should not be forgotten that > Hitler is a psychologist as well « r as a psychopath; and that he I kept the world on tenterhooks for months before the Avar by playing bogyman. His conJ tinual crying of "wolf, wolf," ' A\as all the more disturbing because everyone knew there was 1 a wolf. He, or his agents, - threatened us Avitli. secret 1 Aveapons till, that scare was ; thoroughly worn out, and; in the upshot imaginative people 1 invented more secret weapons, and more absurd ones, than the German experts did. And. he is slill at it, carrying on the "war : of nerves," as a stop-gap for the time when active • warfare, is i largely suspended by forces that he cannot control. Winter's Heavy Hand. We in New Zealand, basking in the heat of summer, do not realise unless Aye are reminded of it that Europe is i handcuffed and ; enchained by winter, and by an excessively severe one. Even the airmen, who have shown that the peacetime respect for storms and cloud has little place in the warrior's outlook, have been held to the ground. The northern ports of Europe are icebound; canals and rivers are frozen; \ roads and. railways are only partly usable. These conditions do not help the improvement of armies or of supplies, or the, courage of anxious people. So it is advisable to regard with caution the many stories of concentrations of troops on this or that frontier. There have been so many of these reports that, adding them together, one Avould suppose that the marching and coun-ter-marching of great armies which in the end do nothing or disappear i 3 one of Europe's major industries. The Invasion Threat. The biggest threat which-."the Ger- ! mans have made is that of a direct invasion of Britain. So much tangible evidence of preparations was seen, and so ' much of it reduced to smoke and flinders by the" R.A.F., that there was clearly an intention behind the threat; but it seems iioav as if the intention, has faded, and the threat has degenerated into a turnip-lantern and a sheet. Still, we are not to rest; the British, citizen's sleep, uneasy as it may be, is to be disturbed with the nightmare iof an invasion from Ireland. And; the people of Eire are threatened with even worse—an occupation by Nazi armies '"to protect them from the menace of British occupation." Norway and the Low Countries have suffered from this German generosity, and no Irish resident can now be unaware of the courtesies that German protection'has brought to its beneficiaries. A Desperate Venture. It is possible that Germany might attempt to invade Ireland. Indeed, it is the possibility behind German threats that gives them their value and their power, even if they are only pretences; and the Free State has already begun to take such precautions as an ill-prepared country can take. Fortunately an invasion of Ireland i*equires mechanical preparation on a very large scale: not perhaps as large as for a direct invasion of England, but still a great deal, and it will not be so simple to ferry troops to Ireland as it was to Nonvay, or to drop an army from aeroplanes as it was in Holland. Both those operations were performed upon near neighbours, and . shielded from interference by distance and unreadiness. No preparations for a large-scale invasion across the Channel or of Ireland can be made without detection and violent interference, and an attempt to carry it out would be the most desperate thing that Hitler has undertaken. The threat to invade Ireland looks very like a bogy. Blood Thicker Than Water. One of the later revolutions in surgical aid for the gravely injured is the recruitment of a vast army of blood donors for transfusion operations, combined Avith the discovery that the timefactor, as between the taking and the giA'ing of the blood, has become unimportant. When it Avas first practised, transfusion had to be performed directly from donor to patient, and care had to be taken that ithe blood of the donor Avas of a suitable type. Then it Avas found that by suitable chemical treatment, blood could be kept for a considerable time, so that it was possible to set up "blood banks'* from Avhich a supply could be obtained for emergency use without calling upon a donor on the spot. The greatest advance in the practice of transfusion Avas the discovery that only the "plasma" or liquid part of the blood is necessary. (This is the fluid Avhich. fills a blister.) The solids are easily extracted from fresh blood, leaving the plasma, or serum, and this fluid will keep apparently indefinitely. Moreover, there is, Avith serum, no question of "typing"; all serum is alike and it can be mixed and used Avithout discrimination, and can be shipped anywhere. A cable message reports that 10,000 Americans have already given blood to be sent to Britain, and that 500,000 have volunteered to maintain supplies. This is a form of "aid short of war" to which even an out-and-out Nazi can hardly object. Shortage of Explosives. It is reported that there is evidence of a shortage of materials for the manufacture of high explosives in enemy countries, especially: Italy, the explosive particularly mentioned being T.N.T. (trinitrotoluene). . This is noAV the most important high explosive used for military purposes, and is made by the action of nitric acid on toluene (or toluol), Avhich is distilled from coal tar. Italy has always had to import coal, and her participation in, the war made her dependent entirely upon supplies railed from Germany, which also supplied her with manufactured T.N.T. Germany has used a large quantity of high explosives for aerial bombing, and it is possible that the recent diminution on bombing attacks is an enforced economy measure, brought about by the wrecking of chemical works. In -the 1914-18 war, there was an uproar from interested quarters (which included Germany) when cotton Avas placed on the contraband list because it was a Avar material.' Nitrated cotton is the basis of "powders" of the cordite class. Germany had to overcome this handicap by using other forms of cellulose: and also had to get OA'er the loss of imported nitrates for the production of nitric acid, by developing the noAV enormous industry of manufacturing nitric acid Avith atmospheric nitrogen-