Carefully Coordinated Grand Strategy

Manawatu Times, Volume 68, Issue 205, 30 August 1943, Page 3

Carefully Coordinated Grand Strategy

BRITISH, AMERICAN AND RUSSIAN ACTIVITIES

(British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, Aug. 26.

Au assurance that all the Allied activities—British, American, and Russian—against Germany were “carefully coordinated in one grand strategic concept” was given by the Home Secretary (Mr. H. Morrison), speaking at Douglas (Isle of Man) to-day. “It would be misleading to assess the scale of the effort of the Allied iorces in the recent operations in the Mediterranean or the effect of these operations on the war against Germany as a whole merely by the number of divisions engaged by either side or by tho casualties they sustained,” Mr. Morrison said.

“On our part the effort should be reckoned not only by tue number ot front-Une troops engaged, but also in terms of the men, women, vehicles, ana ships required to convey the men ana supplies to the battle, including the part by tho Navy and R.A.F. in safeguarding the long sea routes. “But for our continuous pressure on the Axis southern flank, the bulk oi the German resources we have been pinning down in the Mediterranean would have been employed on their Eastern Front where their army is engaged in mortal combat with the Russians. The German army must be broken before the 'Nazi tyrants would collapse, and the overriding consideration which governed every decision ana every action was to cause a maximum diversion of German strength and maximum attrition to the German war machine.

Mr. Morrison said that the air bombardment of enemy production, communications, and facilities, like the amphibious operations, represented a far greater share of the war potential of the country delivering it and resulted in a very much greater strain on the war economy of the country suffering it than might appear from the comparatively small numbers of men engaged in the actual operations. Collapse of Fascism Mr. Morrison said that the conquest of Sicily had resulted in the collapse of Italian Fascism, which before long might lead to the collapse of Italy as a lighting partner of Germany, and from that “there may follow other consequences still wider and still more embarrassing for the German High Command.

“The pressure of the Russian ffrmy on the Eastern Front, the pressure oi the British and American thrust from the south, and the weight of the British and American air attack on the German war machine, which are all carefully coordinated in one grand strategic concept, will before very long, we hope, lead to conditions which will pave tne way for the overthrow of the Wehrmacht.

“There is but one single pattern in the whole Allied strategy, and it is our intention that every man, woman, ana machine shall exert their whole fo.* e m the onslaught on the German Citatle A o* Europe. It is the object of our strategy in the west that we shall be able to play our part in bringing the war to an ena at the earliest possible moment ana then, in consultation and collaboration with our Allies, help in the Pacific ana the restoration of Europe. We shall shrink from no sacrifice and avoid no risk that will shorten the war, providea we are satisfied it really will shorten the war and not lengthen it. It is the Government’s belief that when the whole pattern is unfolded and we can look back upon it as a completed thing we shall find that our time has been well used and our resources well applied.”