The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 31, 1941. A YEAR OF WAR.

Evening Star, Issue 24082, 31 December 1941, Page 6

The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 31, 1941. A YEAR OF WAR.

The war looks more threatening to New Zealanders as the year ends than it did at the beginning of this year, because it is now threatening this country. But that docs not mean that it is going worse than it was a year ago. It would bo a strange review of it, drawn up in the manner of Robinson Crusoe’s comparison of tribulations and causes for thankfulness, that would not show it to be going much better. The threat to New Zealand may or may not materialise, but in any case it is not in the Pacific but on the other side of the world that the war will bo lost or won. The Japanese have had some successes, but if tlio Allies, who have held off and hamstrung Germany, cannot, with America now added to their number, in a very short time from now handle the Japanese, the surprises of war will bo greater than they have ever been imagined to he in the past. A year ago the Battle of Britain had been won against Gocring’s Luftwaffe. Hundreds of thousands of our kinsfolk knew more about tho dangers of bombardment than New Zealanders are ever likely to know, and had survived thorn. It was accepted that the Battle of the Atlantic was the most vital peril threatening the Empire. That battle is now well in hand. A year ago British forces wore driving Italians before them in Libya. Now they are driving Germans. The Suez Canal is no longer threatened via Egypt. The Nazis had made plans for establishing themselves in Syria, in Iraq, and in Iran. All those plans have been foiled. If they had hopes of getting the French fleet from Vichy they have not got it yet. Neither have they got a thoroughfare to Gibraltar through Spain. Something greater has happened for the Allies’ encouragement, which might have seemed inconceivable. A year ago Russia was in association with Germany. But Germany, as if she had been suddenly smitten with madness, chose to attack Russia. Probably there was no madness; strategically and economically', as her onsets had been resisted by Britain, Germany had no choice; but in Russia she met her match. Tho distances were too far, tho snowstorms too terrible, the spirit of tho people too indomitable, as they were for Napoleon. The German divisions had to fall back in Russia, beaten and broken; they are falling back still in a land which its inhabitants make a desolation. Strength may remain vet for new thrusts against Turkey or elsewhere, but the oil of tho Caucasus has been as unattainable as Whitehall was for Hitler’s throning, and the world knows, and Germans themselves know, that his truculent armies can be defeated. Britain, Russia, and America stand together. We can. imagine how the Japanese successes come as a mockery to Hitler. Ho will not expect those to last, long, or Japan to succeed whoro tho strength of Germany was too small. Wo have foreseen many disasters during the year, none of which has happened. It is the enemy’s strength that diminishes, while ours grows. Before the armies of Germany were defeated in Russia her air force, her navy', and her great propaganda machine l'-.d’ all largely failed. Germany has not a friend in the world. Mr A. P. Herbert, writing in ‘ Punch,’ declared that he always observed alternate weeks of cheerfulness—when he was called a wishful thinker and ‘‘ facing the facts ” —when he was called a “ defeatist.” When he thought of what Britain had clone all over the world, the perils she had surmounted and what she was still doing everywhere, he felt like treating himself to an extra week of complacency. At least, while “ blood, toil, tears, and sweat ” are the price we are willing to pay for victory, we can go forward with confidence.