LOUDON AND THE WAR

Evening Star, Issue 24004, 1 October 1941, Page 9

LOUDON AND THE WAR

SIDELIGHTS ON RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN BEABY-MADE QUISLING FOR THE UKRAINE (Special.) July 22. It is fairly obvious that, apart from other points of military efficiency, the Germans have been staggered by tho Russian, strength in planes and tanks. When Hitler made his treacherous surprise attack on Russia the aim was, as in the case of Poland, to destroy as many plan ee as possible on the ground. This plan was. at least partially defeated by the fact that, since extending their western frontier, the Russians haye constructed a large additional number of airfields. No details have ever been published of the Soviet’s strength in either planes or tanks. Rut Marshal Voroshiloff told the Supreme Council of the Soviet in 1039 that since 1930 the total of Russian planes had been’ increased by over six times, and that of tanks by more than 43 timeg. An intelligent guess as to what the 1930 figures probably were would make the Soviet’s air strength when this war began about 20,000 planes, and the tank cadres about 60,- ■ 000. Unless there is a great contrast in. efficiency, this would make (Russia stronger than Germany in both forms ■of this vital equipment. ' Berlin had everything cut and dried for a lightning defeat of_ Russia. When Bailer’s mechanised divisions had seized the Ukraine, that desired land described by Hitler in * Mein Kampf ’ as “ flowing with fat,” a puppet governor was to be installed under Nazi protection. For this role the Germans have held in reserve—on ice as it were—a Quisling who ruled the Ukraine for about 18 months during the closing stages of the last war. This gentleman, now advanced in years, revived the Ukrainian Cossack title of Hetman, and his name is Paul Skoropadsky. He is a tall commanding figure, and served at the Russian Tsarist court as a page before fighting in a crack (Russian cavalry regiment. He visited this conn- ’ try after the last war, and sought support for himself as ruler of an independent Ukraine. With him came his aide-de-camp, Vladimir Korostevtz, another dashing Cossack. The two were guests at several house parties, where the Hetman’s A.D.C. caused some excitement by insisting on wearing an automatic with his dinner jacket. THE LIMIT. now we ought no doubt to have familiarised ourselves with German .mentality. We ought to know there is no depth of gangster treachery nor height of brazen impudence beyond its facile unscrupulous range. Yet the attitude of Berlin to the Anglo-fßussian agreement is rather breath-taking. Less than two years ago, with much ideological mouthing by Hitler, Goering, and Ribbentrop, Germany concluded a pact with Moscow. Three weeks ago Germany suddenly and treacherously tore up that pact of convenience and hurled her formidable war machine against the Russians. But when the British and Russian Governments unite wr a common object—the defeat of the universal aggressor—Berlin howls from the rooftops that “ Britain has betrayed Europe!” The Anglo-Russian £act isy according to Germany, “an 'Open demonstration of tho antiEuropean front of British plutocracy.” There is an utter a contempt for human understanding, about this attitude that revolts the mind like a harlot’s laugh. It calls for the pillory and the whip. History may provide the pillory. Our R.A.F. is administering the whip. RUSSIA’S AIR CHIEF. Victory or defeat on the Russian front may depend mainly on the ability of the Soviet’s air force to keep the air. So far it appears to have held its own effectually. It will be poetic justice if Germany owes defeat largely to the son of a Jewish tailor. Because the chief of the liussiau air force, a handsome, dark-haired aerial gymnast named Yakoff Smushkevitch, had that origin. He worked as a baker’s apprentice in Vologda as a youngster, but joined the Bolsheviks in 1917, and was attached as a political commissar to a fighter-plane unit. He was set on becoming an airman, however, passed as a first-class pilot-mechanic, and in one month passed also what is ordinarily a two-year advanced flying course. He won the May Day aerial acrobatic championship, and the title “ Hero of the Soviet Union,” a decoration to which he gained his bar as commander of a Soviet fighter squadron against the Japanese in Outer Mongolia. His unit claimed to have shot down 600 enemy planes. Two years ago, at the age of 37, Smushkevitch became Chief of the Soviet Air Force.

APROPOS? In the current issue of the ‘ Round Table ’ appears a quotation from Napoleon’s diplomatic intimate, the Marquis Caulaincourt, which seems curiously topical at this moment. According to the marquis, who is certainly not likely to have been misinformed, Napoleon’s greatest anxiety in 1812 was lest the English should take it into their heads to launch “ expeditions against my coasts, now at one point and now at another; to re-embark as soon as forces were collected to fight them, and go at once to threaten some other point —the situation would be insupportable.” How far such tactics, adapted to existing conditions across the Channel and on the eastern front would prove “ insupportable ” to Germany’s would-be Napoleon, is an interesting question for our Imperial General Staff. Napoleon did not possess, or even envisage such aids to “ insupportability ” as paratroops or air-carriers. The Marquis Caulaincourt, by the way, was Napoleon’s Russian Ambassador at one time, and earnestly pleaded against the Moscow adventure, the tribulations and hardships of which he nevertheless shared with his master.

AMERICA’S BIG MOVE. President Roosevelt’s move as U.S. Commander-in-Chief in occupying Iceland has immense significance. In his last fireside broadcast he told us America would not permit Axis occupation of bases either in the North or in West Africa, threatening the Atlantic lifeline. He has now put words into deeds by sending a strong military force to Iceland, and it remains a possibility that in given circumstances he would do the same in West Africa. But beyond this the President’s occupation of Iceland, with U.S. naval patrols all the way, enables us to concentrate on a much shorter lifeline. The U.S. will deliver the goods in Iceland; we can guarantee their transit therefrom with great economy of merchant shipping and naval escorts. This is a big stroke in the Battle of the Atlantic. Incidentally, it enables us to recall for other duty the troops we have in Iceland, and brings a large American force

nearer the European cockpit, American reactions may be interesting to General Anchinleck’s frank statement that to win the war properly on_ Gorman soil American man power will bo needed. NIPPED IN THE BUD. Evidence accumulates that the Aniericans acted only in the nick_ of time in Iceland. According to reliable reEorts, German troop concentrations had een proceeding for weeks in northern Norwegian ports. Particularly a closed area was created around Bergen with the sternest regulations, so that by June 25 over 100 people had been fined for non-observation of one special regulation or another. In addition to the suspension of traffic during a curfew extending from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. inhabitants were forbidden to look out of their windows. The Gormans, of course, may still proceed with their plans. On the whole, both Britain and Americans wish that they will do so. As the Americans have anticipated by their action what was to have been a thrust at Iceland and Greenland, so they are looking at the situation on the west shoulder of Africa from a similar standpoint. Dakar is here the vital spot, providing a stepping stone to South America, as Iceland and Greenland do to North America. •* HOW DOTH THE LITTLE BUSY BOCHE?” The radio palm of the moment goes, nem. con., to the Gorman home broadcast on July 5. “Wo know that in the six years which the envious allowed us to use after we had come into power for peacefully doing_ our work only a fraction of those social problems which we intended to solve were solved!” But the German wireless announcers betray a growing irritation with the Russians for putting up a much stiffer fight than they were expected to do. “ The Russian soldiers form a collectivity of destruction, machines without feeling or soul which hurl themselves at the adversary until brought to a standstill. We have seen, for instance, that the Russians often allow our first wave to pass through well-camouflaged earthworks. then fall on it from the rear or hold up the second wave in order to

isolate our shock troops.” The sublime inference appears to be that these unsporting Russian tactics are a distressing revelation of human depravity to Hitler’s high-soulod lily-handed panzer troops.