Evening Post FRIDAY, MAY 2, 1941. THE "MIND OF THE BOCHE"

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 102, 2 May 1941, Page 6

Evening Post FRIDAY, MAY 2, 1941. THE "MIND OF THE BOCHE"

. «, | Sometimes in the critical days of 1918 the late Sir Henry Wilson, as Chief of the General Staff, used to assume the enemy standpoint when appearing before the War Cabinet. Addressing Mr. Lloyd George, he said one day: "Prime Minister, today I am a Boche." Then followed "a penetrating description of the war situation from the standpoint of the German Headquarters"; and Mr. Winston Churchill, the recorder of these incidents, observes in his history that Wilson's explanations of German strategy to the War Cabinet were lucid and forceful. Whether any of the military experts who have followed in Sir Henry Wilson's footsteps approach the present situation from the same angle when they appear before the War Cabinet of today will not be known unless and until a history of these troublous times appears, as illuminating and as lifelike as Mr. Churchill's history of 1914-1918. But surely there is* today a great opportunity for some gifted student of war to penetrate "the mind of the Boche." Here is Hitler with two feet on the mid-Mediterranean, a Greek foot as well as the Italian heel and toe. Hitler is standing there with his toes turned inward. Where is he going? East? Or Wesl? Or both? Westward is the Spanish-Portu-guese peninsula, clasping jealously at the Western Mediterranean, and falling ehort of joining hands with Africa. The gap between them is the Straits of Gibraltar, which Spain and Spanish Africa might try to close. Is Hitler going there? Easti ward are Turkey and Russia with the oil of the Caucasus and the more distant oil of Irak and Persia. Will Hitler strike there? Southward is Nojih Africa, where there are no oil and no Gibraltar, but a Suez of importance comparable with Gibraltar, being the Eastern Mediterranean key and the link with the Red Sea; and linked with Suez is the city-port which took its name from Alexander the Great, and which is now the base of Britain's Eastern Mediterranean Fleet. What are Hitler's intentions? Already, because of the fall of France, he has access by land to the Spanish frontier, westward. Eastward, he has no access to Asia and Asia's oil save by the compliance of Turkey and Russia. Soutrnvard, he has no direct land link with North Africa, but has been successful to a surprising degree in transporting across the narrow strip of water south of Italy, or by air, heavy armaments, troops, and supplies. Will Hitler then saddle himself with the old Roman African adventure which shaped so badly under Mussolini's hand? What makes it difficult to penetrate the mind of the Boche is the fact that there are so many things that the Boche may do. For the same reason, he perhaps finds it difficult to penetrate his own mind. One key to his actions, if not to his mind," is that in Europe he-operates on interior lines. He sees a projecting piece of the European continent, such as Norway, or Greece, or Spain. To him, such a territory and coastline appear to be tilings useful in a war against sea power. He also appreciates that his enemy has a similar appreciation of the strategic importance of European peninsulas. Under the Hitler technique, the next step is to say that Britain is about to land an army on this or that peninsula; that story provides pretext for Hitler getting to the important spot first. And, having the advantage of interior lines, Hitler generally can reach the coveted strategic position either more quickly or with the superior force that commands success. By such technique, and by virtue of his central striking position, Hitler predicted our arrival in Norway and pushed us out when we got there; he has done the same in Greece; and in the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) he has reached the point of declaring that Britain is about to invade—the usual premonitary sign that he is going in himself. His pretexts and his practices in this line of business are now well-established clues to the mind of the Boche. But there are other mental areas of Hitlerism where the fog of war is hard to pierce. One unlighted or very badlylighted sector of the mind of the {Boche is the Russian-Turkish sector. (The mental complex here draws its

intensity not only from Hitler but from that other strange personality Stalin, and from .the realism of the Turks. Can Russia and Turkey afford to let Hitler into the vital oil regions? Something of what is, in Hitler's mind is revealed by his attempt to direct the Irak army and people against British reinforcements that are coming in via the Persian Gulf, under treaty. In fact, Hitler's designs in Asia are at the moment more evidenced by the antiBritish machinations in remote Irak than by anything happening in the buffer countries, Turkey and Russia, who stand in the Nazis' Bagdad path. A distinct stage in his southward campaign (North Africa) is marked (by the massed attack on Tobruk, which indicates that the Axis transport operations between Italy and Africa have progressed sufficiently to start the second phase of the enemy offensive against Egypt. Criticisms of our naval operations against this branch of Axis transport, must be discounted by an allowance for. distance of the Sicilian Channel from the Fleet's base (Alexandria) and for naval preoccupation with our remarkably successful evacuation of Greece. To sum up—the mind of the Boche may direct him possibly to the Asian oil regions, probably to Spain; it already directs him to North Africa. But the mind of the Boche, with its usual strategical cunning, knows that in none of these fields the decision lies. The decisive theatre is the Atlantic Ocean, on both sides of which decisive armament is gathering, the cumulative weight of which, backed by democratic morale, will win this war. That is the fate which Hitler, with all his resources, cannot circumvent.., Here is the point, the vital point, at which the mind of the Boche breaks down.