From Week to Week

Grey River Argus, 3 June 1942, Page 7

From Week to Week

(By

H. Winston Rhodes)

Hitler’s Trump Card

It is to be feared that, many New Zealanders do not understand how necessary SoYiejt ineutrality in the Pacific war has been and continues to be to the anti-fascist cause. There are not a few who cynically ano recklessly hope for the outbreak of hostilities between the Soviet -Union and Japan. Whether this hope arises from a blind hatred of the Soviet Union and a desire to see its difficulties increase or Whether it arises from the wish to evade immediate responsibilities even to the extent of seeing the cause which they support endangered, I leave my readers to decide.

More than a year has passed since Hitler has been able to present the German people with a major victory; On every side he has either been checked or forced to change his plans. Never has this happened since his rise to power. At the present moment he is making desperate attempts to stave off defeat on his Eastern front and to convince himself and the German people that the Spring offensive is a Nazi one.

Nevertheless, if he is able to play it, he has still a trump card in his hand. The leaders of the Soviet Union have proclaimed again and again that if he is forced to fight a two-front war victory may be obtained this year. But if he is able to force the Soviet Union to fight a two-front war by persuading Japan to attack the Soviet maritime provinces he will have a further respite.

It should be apparent that as long as the Red Army is the only army to bear the brunt of the Nazi attack, as long as British and American arms are not powerful enough to offer a serious menace to Japan in her home waters or to open a Western front sufficiently extensive to draw off a considerable . proportion of the Nazi army from the East, it would be dangerous for the Soviet Union either to provoke war with J'apan or to be forced to defend her Pacific coastline.

Japan’s Continental Policy

Up to the present only a very small part of the Japanese army has teen engaged in the Pacific war. The numbers employed in Malaya, in the Dutch East Indies and in Burma were never at any time large in comparison with Japan’s available manpower. For many months there has not been any large-scale activity in China, although after the fall of Hong Kong the Chinese won an important victory against large Japanese forces. But following the conquest of Burma Japan is once again turning her attention ’to the protracted Chinese incident.

The Japanese military and naval leaders must know that in order to break the power of Britain and America they must think in terms of' world war. They know that if Germany is defeated by the Red Army it will not take very long before British and American power will be striking very heavy blows at Japan with ths possibility also that the Soviet Union will not be as determined to maintain neutrality as before.

But they know from bitter experience the strength of the Soviet Far Eastern Army, for on more than one occasion it has proved itself superior to their picked troops in Manchuria. They can guess how determined will be the resistance of the Siberian peoples and how dangerous the Soviet air fleet will be to their own Japanese cities. Furthermore if hostilities should break out there will be in the rear of the Manchurian army millions of people waiting to do their best to hinder J'apanese military operations. Only a few months ago a whole army of eighteen thousand Mongols came over to the Chinese from Inner Mongolia. Japan’s Chance There is certainly no need to under-estimate the hazards of a Japanese attack against the Soviet Union but, during the next few months, when the British and American offensive is not likely to develop to any great extent in Pacific waters, when the Red Army will be engaged in the most terrific struggle of ail time, Japan’s chance against the Soviet Union will be brightest. It is interesting to note in passing that all Japanese offensives against Russia including the ißusso-Japanese war, the intervention and the Bordeincidents —have taken place in the Spring.

The present attack in China, following immediately after the campaign in Burma and the closing of the Burma Road, seems to indicate that Japan is anxious to complete her control of China in order to prevent the use of land bases, and with the help of blockade to make one more attempt to conclude the Chinese incident-. It is her navy that must fight the War in the Pacific, but her army, now that raw materials have been seized, must penetrate further into the continent, secure, and if possible, extend her northern boundaries and ensure that Hitler will be able to defeat the Red armies. Japan’s Greater East Asia depends upon a weakened Soviet Union at Japan’s back door.

Let no one imagine that the Soviet Union is so strong that a Japanese attack can make no difference. In spite of the immense amount of pioneering work that has been done Siberia is not yet sufficiently developed to be able to withstand without aid from further west a fullscale attack on her new cities and industrial centres. Her railways are close to the border and much of her industry follows the railways. Nevertheless the Far Eastern Army has been built up on the principle of independence and is so strong that its presence is sufficient to cause , a series of military headaches to the Japanese High Command.

Japan at the present time is on the horns of a dilemma as so often in her recent history, and only one thing must seem clear. That is that with a strong Soviet Union, particularly with the possibility of a Soviet Union victorious over Germany, with an incompleted Chinese incident, Japan’s control over vast supplies of raw materials does nor yet count for very much.