WESTERN FRONT

Evening Star, Issue 23481, 23 January 1940, Page 12

WESTERN FRONT

INACTIVITY MAY CONTINUE WESTERN FRONT, January 1. The whole of the western, front ia blanketed in snow. Nature thus underlines the fact that so far it has been a war of strenuous inactivity. In the first two months General Caution commanded the" western'front : then General Mud; and now General Snow. There is still no certainty that when the snow melts and the roads _ and fields dry up, and spring replaces winter, either side will launch a large-scale attack. The Germans have built up what they call their west Wall, The French Premier, M. Daladier, told tho Senate that France had erected a rampart of steel, concrete, and men to protect her inviolate territory. There is no talk, about attacking. Certainly, on the Allied side, all the emphasis is on defensive measures. Th<& French talk always and confidently of means of defeating tanks, not of using them. The British Expeditionary Force hat been busy building a defensive line with anti-tank guns, anti-tank ditches, concrete blockhouses, and barbed wire; its latest acquisition is a corps of Indian mule-drivers to assist in keeping behind the fortified lines. Thus, the year opens with the possibility that on nest New Year’s Eye the troops who are now in the dingy towns and villages of this part of France will be doing the same again next year without , many of them having fired a shot at the-enemy. It will be a bigger army then, but there is likely to be less work for the new arhralsj; including the 'Australian and Canadian divisions, to do. There is a limit to the • miles of trenches, concrete work.’ and barbed wire that .can be ranged along the frontier. If the three armies remain on the defensive during the spring and - the summer, the principal problem facing the leaders will be to keep this armies, totalling several million men, ; in good spirits and cheerfully occupied.: It is a job which huge citizen armies have never had to face before, and) it will present a special problem for the leaders of the dominion divisions which have come so far and, whose men, possibly, will less clearly see the; value of standing guard more or less Inactively . on the frontier than the men of th« British and French armies. For many months yet most of _ the B.E.F. will consist of men who. enlisted before the war in order to be ready to defend the country against attack, men of the type corresponding to those who enlisted in the dominions in the last war in 1915 and 1916 rather than in tho first few months, wheii more restless and adventurous spirits joined up. ' SOLDIERS’ GROUSING. The men of the dominion armies will be drawing much higher pay than the British and French soldiers, ■ with, which to enliven their periods off duty. The soldiers we know best on this front are the hardened regulars and reservists who have served their time in. the Regular Army. It has not been an easy life even for them to work all day in mud' and cold, living in dreary bil- N lets for four months, and'there has been a good‘deal of grousing, which has been the soldiers’ prerogative since Caesar invaded Gaul. Certainly more space has been given to the ‘soldiers*' grouses in the English papers in the past four months than in any similar period in 1914-18. There is a tendency to. emphasise that the soldier of 1940 is immeasurably better off than his father was _25 years ago. That is true, but the_ soldier of 1914-18 was saved the .necessity and inevitability of his discomforts more visibly, and had a sense of personal achievement to take the edge off his privations. ■ There is a possibility that it will be a war of nerves rather than of muscles and steel on the western front this year. That being so, leaders of the dominion formations should he thinking of it in these terms now. The Army’s first move —namely, the organisation of games, entertainments, comforts, canteens, and “ non-military-employment ” generally, may become as important as the organisation of training and work in the field. It is interesting to note _ that the Canadians, who were the pioneers in establishing army educational services in the later years of the last war, are founding an array educational service at the very beginning of this war. It will provide classes for everybody who . wants them, and will enable young men whose enlistment interrupted their university or technical training to finish their courses while serving in France. If it is going to be a war of nerve* and not of action on the western front, the army which accepts this fact first and acts accordingly is going to steal a march.