NOTES ON THE WAR

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 43, 19 August 1943, Page 4

NOTES ON THE WAR

TIME FOR ACTION

BALL AT ALLIES' FEET

With the conquest of Sicily complete, the Mediterranean fully open, the Red Army still advancing in Russia, and the war of attrition grinding down Japan's resources, in the Pacific, the moment has come for decision and action which, if prompt and correct, may greatly shorten the war. The ball is at the Allies' feet.

The most immediate consequence of the Allied conquest of Sicily is the liberation of the Mediterranean searoute from Axis attack. The Sicilian Channel is no longer a gauntlet which Allied shipping must run, or go the roundabout way, via the Cape; Allied sea-power now controls the bMediterranean and shipping may move freely from Britain and America to the Middle East and Far East via the shortest route. This means quicker dispatch of war material to Persia in particular • for transport overland to Russia, and now, happily, to China also, via Turkestan and Sinkiang. It was suggested in these notes some weeks ago that this was a feasible route for the movement of heavy material, tanks; artillery, and bulk supplies, provided only that Russia, through whose territory. supplies must pass, gave her consent. This consent must now have been obtained, in itself a sign that the Soviet Union no longer fears any active opposition by Japan on the ground of a breach of the peace treaty between the two countries. According to all _ accounts there is far more war material stacked up at different points in Persia than the Russians can handle. The latest report is that the Russian service in Persia was giving precedence to the lighter stuff and rushing small arms, machine-guns, and their ammunition through, leaving hosts of tanks and aeroplanes on the spot. Some of these can now go to China, where they are sadly neded, by way of- Meshed, Bokhara, Samarkand, and Kashgar across the plateau of Sinkiang to Lanchow, from which there is a road to Chungking. Asia and the Pacific. It is a commonplace that the secret of victory over Japan is the arming of China, which has the man-power and the right strategic position for a direct attack on Japan itself. The new route to China is a long one, but it is free from the bottleneck of the narrow, difficult Burma Road. But, if things go well in Europe, as they should do in the next three months, it should be possible for the Western Allies to divert some of their sea-power, warships and transport ships, to the East, and there concentrate for a landing in Burma, a reopening of the Burma Road, and a campaign against the Japanese in the whole of South-east Asia, from Indo-China to Malaya, accompanied by a forward movement of the Allied Pacific forces over a wide arc from north to south. The forces necessary will be large, but India is training a great army, and the Alaska Road will permit of reinforcement in the far north, while the American, Australian, and New Zealand forces should be sufficient to manage the south. Against such a concentric attack, supported by sea-power, it is hard to see how the Japanese could survive very long. Problem in Europe. Such is the strategic problem of the war in the Pacific #nd Asia, as it may present itself to the War Council at Quebec, where the best military and political b»ains of the Western World are gathered. No wonder it is described as the most important conference of the war. The problem of the war in Europe is militarily simpler and nearer a solution, if it is politically more difficult. Militarily, it is for the Western Allies to push the advantage they have gained in Sicily to an occupation of at least that part of Italy which stretches from the toe in the south to the hip along the northern Apennines fronting the Valley of the Po. From. this part of Italy it should be possible to gain control of the southern Adriatic Sea and make landings where b necessary in Greece, and the Balkans, assisted by the Brir tish Imperial Armies in the Middle East. Operations like these, perfectly feasible now, would tend to force a j withdrawal of the Germans to the north, or, if they stood their ground, . to impose such a strain on their military resources as would substantially weaken their resistance to the Russian advance. If at the same time the Allies could manage a landing somewhere in the west, coupled with a continuous pounding of .the enemy from the air, such as is already reaching far into Germany, it does not seem beyond the bounds of possibility that the war in Europe might end this year or early next. But it would require a tremendous effort on the.part of the Allies and the most accurate judgment of the points where to strike. . That is why the decisions of the Prime Minister and the President at Quebec are so vitally important to the world just I now. .