THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS WEDNESDAY, MAY 22, 1940 HIGH CRISIS IN WEST

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23662, 22 May 1940, Page 8

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS WEDNESDAY, MAY 22, 1940 HIGH CRISIS IN WEST

Remorselessly the Nazi juggernaut rolls across North-West France from cast to west, from Sedan toward the Channel ports. So far nothing has availed to halt its progress. It moves westward at a steady 10 miles a day, with occasional spurts by lighter advance guards. None can afford any longer to ignore the extreme gravity of the position already created and the possibility that French, British and Belgian Armies may be trapped in the contracting area between the German advancing front and the English Channel. At the latest reports, the Germans had reached Peronne, 30 miles from Amiens, with the Somme estuary and the Channel beyond. If the Germans succeed in taking and holding Amiens, the envelopment by land of the Allied forces will be virtually complete. It was on May 1-1 that the Germans penetrated the Maginot Line extension at Sedan. The original dent was rapidly enlarged into a bulge, which has now become a gaping hole 100 miles long from east to west and 50 miles deep from north to south. And still the edges of this vast hole continue to cave in, most rapidly toward the Channel ports and also, too fast for comfort, on the road to Paris. Into the hole—into German hands—have already fallen large parts of five Departments of France, Ardennes, Aisne, Pas de Calais, and Nord. Dismaying as these captures are, it is probably true to say that the German General Staff is not at the moment primarily interested in territorial gains. It is playing for the bigger military prizes of the cutting in two of the Allied Armies, the envelopment of the North-Western group, and the possession of the Channel ports. At the same time Laon has been seized, first as a buttress of the elongated German southern flank, and second as a jumping-off point for a possible descent on Paris.

In all the foregoing, nothing has been said about the battle in Belgium, where the whole of the Belgian Army and a large portion of the British Army are engaged. Although they have to resist heavy pressure from the German right wing, they would apparently be strong enough to sustain it and hold their line, were it not for the thrust of the German wedge below the French frontier. This is undermining the whole position in Belgium. British and Belgians have fought back stubbornly and strongly, although they have had to meet pressure doubled by the release of German forces from Holland. But, because the ground is being taken from under their feet further south, they have been forced to make successive withdrawals. Now their line is drawn back fairly close to the Belgian coast. In conjunction with the French at the southern end, the present British-Belgian line may be presumed to run a little south of east from Zeebrugge until it meets the Scheldt, a river whose course it follows from Ghent to Cambrai. The Scheldt is not yet more than the base line, the Allies holding positions in advance of it on a tributary, the Dendre, as well as a sharp salient reaching out from Ath by Mons to the point at Maubeuge, thence bending back to Cambrai. The German wedge is already thrust below this salient and its maintenance does not seem militarily feasible for much longer. Fighting is proceeding a few miles east of Cambrai at Caudry and south-east of Valenciennes, at the base of the salient. French counter-attacks reported here would not be intended to deepen a salient already dangerously deep, but to delay the German advance and keep open communications with Maubeuge. In any case both Cambrai . and Valenciennes stand on the "Scheldt and must be firmly defended. Even the Scheldt line may, however, be threatened from the German salient west from St. Quentin. Once again the threat develops from the South. Thus British General Headquarters reports repeated German attacks by armoured tanks south of the Scarpe, a tributary of the Scheldt that runs through Arras and Douai to join the mother river at the French frontier. The thrust was made northward from Peronne and to the westward of Cambrai. If successful, it would have taken the whole Allied line on the Upper Scheldt in the rear. It is the most heartening news since the blow fell on May 10 to learn that, in an engagement in which British tank met German tank, the enemy was "successfully beaten off." Nevertheless this threat to the whole Allied position by a move on Arras and Vimy Ridge must still be closely watched. Nor can the German capture of Peronne, the old fortress which with near by Mont St. Quentin holds the key to Picardy, be regarded other than with gravity. Only thirty miles further west lies the great city and railway junction of Amiens, guarding the last good crossings of the Somme before the Channel is reached, and astride the main London - Dover - Calais - Paris railway, to say nothing of the lateral line by Somme and Aisne to Laon, ltheims, Chalons and Nancy. A German thrust down the Somme to the sea would complete the land envelopment of the Allies' northern Armies. Nor can it be considered reassuring that, with so much at stake in the North-West, the Germans could spare the force to capture the great bulwark of Laon, dominating the Aisne Valley and guarding the flank of any advance down the Oise to Paris.