NOTES ON THE WAR NEWS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 60, 12 March 1943, Page 5

NOTES ON THE WAR NEWS

WEATHER TELLS

FACTOR ON ALL FRONTS

--■ It might be supposed that mod- , era warfare would be independent of climate and weather, but experience in this war gives little support to the theory. It is true • that armies do not exactly in these . . times go into winter quarters or take a siesta in the torrid heat of the desert or the vapour bath of the rainy season in the tropics, but ' weather conditions and climatic - changes do influence the fighting. ¥ The most familiar instances are ?the thaw in Russia and the monsoonal rains in South-east Asia as immobilising agents. The Red Army has shown that the frost and snow of the Russian winter, With its blinding blizzards and icy • - winds sweeping over the steppes, are . lib 'obstacles to its progress, indeed r.: tattler an advantage when compared " with the effect of such weather on its enemies. Hence winter has been twice now the season of Soviet major offensives and German retreats and defeats, while twice the Axis has made summer the occasion for its greatest advances. .But both sides settle down to a warfare of position in the spring thaw between winter and summer. The,phrase "positional warfare" has -already been used of the military "situation south of Kharkov. To the ' Abfth it is still cold enough, and the ground still frozen for the Red Army •to Switch its offensive northward to 'the-front from Kursk to Leningrad, •-while letting the Germans bog down irrthe mud of the Donbas. There are •still hopes, before the final thaw, of • substantial Russian gains in the north'erjti front. Over the greater part of - -the battle area in Russia there are, even today, few good paved roads; the rest are just dirt tracks through the forests or over the plains, and in the thaw they become simply impassable •for^eavy traffic and transport. In the Napoleonic campaign of 1812-13 horses and men were suffocated in the mud ■ and hundreds of vehicles and guns lost., !;SprJMg in Tunisia. -►In Tunisia the winter, which has so impeded Allied operations, because -Ahey are on interior lines with poor •communications, will now be passing, and the time coming for operations in" real earnest on a large scale. It was the same in the last war in Allenby's advance on Jerusalem in the early winter of 1917. The rain-sodden landscape of the coastal plains in win,'teris about as dismal and dreary as possible, and in December, 1917, "mechanical transport practically broke down in the mud". Camels were called in" By the thousand and donkeys and asses carried supplies into the hill •country. It was not till about the 'middle of 1918 that the Egyptian -Babour Corps with local levies, had Reamed the standard gauge railway to Jerusalem and improved the roads , over the plains and over the hills to ■ Jericho, so that transport could move freely. All these difficulties and more .will have been experienced in Tunisiar where the enemy commands all the best interior lines of road and railway, centreing on their bases at Tunis and Bizerfa nnd the coastal regions with the ports of Sousse, Sfax, -and Gabes. All the best airfields "■were, and are still, in the hands of the enemy. But the coming of fine ''weather and the spring which carpets 'the"hills and plains with wild flowers wm'give the Allies their chance. As for an- warfare in Western Europe the ' advantage of the weather for this -fitonth will be to the Germans, if they are able to take it for the prevailing winds in March are easterly. Next •month they blow more from the south--:west and should assist the long-dis-tance day-bombers like the Fortresses .and." Liberators. Shorter nights will -hamper the night-bomber. Climate in Pacific. it: The climatic influences in the Pacific theatre of war are mainly of the monsoons bringing rain. These should be passing in the South-west Pacific very soon, but in Burma and the rest of S6ntti-east Asia the rainy season begins about May and will practically preclude large-scale military operations in the region of Upper Burma, the Burma Road, and Southern Yunnan. It ' will be remembered that the Japanese .-■tirpjSd their operations perfectly to fit :in. vwith the dry season in all this area. '.They.had completed their conquests of and the East Indian islands before the advent of the monsoon, which ".. deposits huge quantities of rain in the Abakan district of \yestern Burma and '■'the Indian province of Assam. Thus lUtle advance towards the reconquest •of; Burma is to be expected in the two 'Vremaining months before the monsoon, Itmless it is assisted by naval operatkms. lii! China and the North. ''Similarly, the winter is good for in China, for the rivers then are at their lowest and the coun- ■ *try is mainly hard. The spring thaw of 'snow-fed rivers like the Yangtse and ""■ the^Hoang-Ho leads usually to heavy " --flooding of all the surrounding country . "and' is calculated to impede the moverrtent of troops. The spring is also the period of heavy fogs over the Northern : Pacific, including Alaska and the Aleutians. The "Alcan Road" is also bound to suffer in the thaw. Bridges will be carried away by the break-up of the ice and the melting muskeg will convert stretches on the flat into quagmires. No part of the world war is therefore likely to escape the influence of climate.