Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 8, 1941. WAR STILL AT CRISIS STAGE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXII, Issue 86, 8 October 1941, Page 6

Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 8, 1941. WAR STILL AT CRISIS STAGE

The British War Cabinet in 1917-18 used to look for enlighten- : ment to the Chief of the General Staff, Sir Henry Wilson; and some of its members were rather startled one day when Sir Henry opened his exposition with the remark: "Gentlemen, this morning I am a Boche!" But, unconventional though Sir Henry Wilson's approach to a life-and-death issue may have been, his method has its merits. Sometimes a war problem is usefully elucidated if one places one's self in the position of one's enemy, and from that standpoint assesses the enemy's motives and likely moves. If the reader of the war news were a Boche, if he were Hitler, what would he do? Would he not do his violent best— his last, deadliest summer-time best —to put Russia out of action before America enters the war? If anything in warfare is predictable, it is ■ that Britain, Russia, and America, in full military alliance, can overthrow Hitler. That is close to a certainty. Much less certain is the overthrow of Hitler by Britain and Russia only. And very far from certainty is the overthrow of Hitler by Britain alone, should Hitler quickly eliminate Russia, either by the military method or by the political method. Therefore, if the news-reader were Hitler, would he not stake his heaviest throw on the overpowering of Russia in what remains of the Northern summer? Can he—assuming that for the moment he is a Boche— suggest any other course? Is it not an irresistible conclusion that Germany's Russian enemy must be ousted before the American enemy fights—the penalty being Hitler's forfeit of the war?

No more need be said to emphasise the deadly importance of Hitler's new fling at Russia. The military course of the war on this huge Russian front none may predict. Hitler may never penetrate the Russian land mass sufficiently to overthrow the Russians—or he may. But the political position, while not a position of clarity, is far clearer than the hazards of the campaign itself; and one certainty is this: if the Americans are really convinced that their own defence depends upon the complete defeat of Hitler, then they are taking a tremendous hazard in staying out of the war and thus depriving Russia of the moral as well as the material support of American total belligerence. If Russia were eliminated because of America's delay, then America, on. later entering the war, might never be able to restore the favourable military situation which democracy can derive now from a British-Russian-American military alliance, or alternatively might! restore that situation only at immense j cost in blood and money. It is quite j certain that if Roosevelt were Hitler, j he would strain every nerve to eliminate Russia before America's arrival in the war. And it is equally certain that if Hitler were Roosevelt, he would at once swing America into the war, and would thus keep Russia in the war, at any cost and whatever the circumstances. But direct action, rapid action, which is a function of dictatorships, is rarely a feature of democracies. For that reason, democratic freedom now faces one of the gravest crises in its history, with Russia sore beset, with British energies fully strained, and with Hitler using his maniac strength to capitalise the' military delays of the great but hesitant American people.