COMMENT and REFLECTIONS

Evening Star, Issue 23451, 16 December 1939, Page 11

COMMENT and REFLECTIONS

The brisk naval engagement off the South American coast between three British light• cruisers and the German pocket-battleship Graf Spee has imported a touch of drama to a war that, bloody enough at close range, has singularly lacked the constantly-recurring dramatic suspense of the last war. For some weeks big squadrons of British warships have been scouring the South Atlantic for the three German raiders known to be at large there. It was one such British squadron, a light cruiser unit comprising the very modern Exeter and the older twin vessels Achilles and Ajax that the raider blundered into, to he worsted in a running fight that apparently lasted many hours and provided shore onlookers with a thrilling spectacle from “ ringside ” seats. The Graf Spee sighted the A jax escorting a French liner, and obviously knew nothing of the other units within call or she would never have closed, since it is her mission to destroy commerce, not to engage fighting vessels —to keep the sea, not to be located and driven to port. However, when the Ajax's call brought up the Achilles and Exeter, fight she had to, for if the British cruisers lacked the metal to meet her squarely (their combined broadside is I,ooolb weight under hers), they had the heels of her, steaming as they do 32 knots to her 26. This turn of speed seems to have been made excellent tactical use of by the British ships, and presently they had manoeuvred the raider into a position where his silhouette was clear against the sky, while they were in the shadow of the land. Using smokescreens further to obscure their position, they made dashes from these to deliver their salvos, then retiring again; and presently, though the Exeter was crippled by a hit from the raider’s llin gims, and fell out of the chase, the Achilles and Ajax drove the big fellow into Montevideo to nurse his considerable hurts. Fortunately, the British casualties, though not fully announced yet, appear to have been light. This is a matter of wide concern in the Dominion, for more than half the ratings on the Achilles are New Zealanders, and pride in their participation in this dashing affair was tempered by general anxiety.

Two other warships have joined the victors in the estuary outside the River Plate to await the emergence of the Graf Spee, if she dare emerge. Should one of these he the Barham, the German stands as little chance as did the Spanish fleet in its dash from Santiago harbour in the Spanish-Ameri-can war. The Barham’s 15in guns would blow her out of the water in five minutes. It is more likely that she will prefer to suffer internment.

There has been much speculation, by the way, about the insignificant toll taken on ships of commerce by these over-gunned pocket battleships. Probably the need for conserving fuel has confined them to a comparatively small area of Sea and to relative inaction. The British Navy has destroyed lately half a dozen vessels in these waters which were probably supply ships for the raiders; losses such as these make their ultimate, fate certain.

Finland continues her stout resistance to the Russian invaders, but it is too much to hope that she can indefinitely sustain the ever-increasing Soviet pressure (the Red army command is assembling a force of 1,500,000 men and 1,000 aeroplanes), even though the moral support of the League of Nations has been accorded her with the expulsion of Russia, and the promise of munitions aid from a dozen sources. The situation, indeed, grows daily more complex and grave. Nobody knows the Soviet goal, nor how closely she and Germany are committeed to common policy here and in Eastern Europe. The ignoble drama is deeply stained with treachery, so that even the most astute and knowledge able commentators are astray. As late as November 23, one of the most reliable scouted the idea of Russia going to extremes with Finland. “To do so,” he said, “ would he to invite war against Sweden and Norway also, and war is the last thing Russia wants to face. In this instance particularly she is not going to war with the Scandinavians and Finns — with her western frontier now touching Germany, her eastern frontier touching that of Japan, and having trust in the intentions of neither Germany nor Japan. Her own invented role of scavenger, and her role borrowed from Hitler of intimidator, are paying too well to he discarded for something more active. She l has got Polish White Russia, the Polish Ukraine, Estonia, and Latvia, and dominance over the sea approach to Leningrad, and that is quite a substantial bag. It has been secured without risk. What extra she wants from Finland is not to be compared with it, and certainly is not worth war.”

For a while we have heard little of Hitler, the prime instigator of this era of broken nerves, shattered faith, splintered hones, and torn flesh, A new work on his career is announced with the title ‘ Hitler Speaks,’ and the title is astonishingly apposite. It is, perhaps, not far from the truth to say that speech, and particularly the amplification of its orbit of reception by radio, 'has been the Fuhrer’s passport to potver. The radio has given his hysteria the infectivity of an epidemic, and the German people appear to he singularly susceptible to the super-charged emotionalism that characterises the Hitlerian technique, leading one American critic to dub him “ the male virago.”

This view of a whole people led astray by a. fanatic megalomaniac may or may not be true. It is the official version, but there are many dissident voices. Hear the London * Listener ’: “ Few things are more puzzling to the average Englishman than the contrast between the brutality of Germany as a State and the kindliness of the German people as individuals. It seems incredible that the intelligent, warmhearted, rather sentimental people one has known and liked can he transformed, by the mere act of donning a uniform, into ruthless, simple-minded savages. Yet the popular conception of the Germans as a people as pacific as ourselves, but condemned by some hideous caprice of Providence almost always to be governed by war-loving rulers, is a little too naive to be convincing. It is more intelligent to recognise that this duality is somehow inherent in the German nature, that ‘ Jekyll and Hyde ’ can be the parable not only of a man hut of a nation.”