The New Zealand Herald AUCKLAND, SATURDAY, MARCH 24, 1945 EVERYBODY'S BUSINESS

New Zealand Herald, Volume 82, Issue 25160, 24 March 1945, Page 6

The New Zealand Herald AUCKLAND, SATURDAY, MARCH 24, 1945 EVERYBODY'S BUSINESS

Some recent events in diplomatic history—not all—might encourage an optimist in the belief that the world is in one its rare moods of sweet reasonableness. If the principles enunciated at Dumbarton Oaks prove to be something more than noble sentiment, and find ultimate expression in the accepted code of nations, a most notable triumph of diplomacy will crown the hardwon victory of- arms. notable might be illustrated by the conclusions recently reached at Mexico City by the representatives of 20 American Republics. The frank' realism with which the .published findings of the conference dealt with the menace of Argentinian aggression is startling if the debate took place in the full knowledge that the delegates, should they eventually become an American regional council, will be subject to the Security Council in the event of the adoption of the resolutions of Dumbarton Oaks. It is a striking development in the politics of the Americas if the United States is ready to give Great ■Britain and Soviet Russia, as members of the Security Council, a say in Latin American affairs. The framers of American policy must in-* deed be commended for so bold an abandonment of the policy of more than a century, for since 1823 European interference in Central and South America has been fiercely resisted and generally prevented. Acceptance of the principles of cooperative peace laid down at Dumbarton Oaks, and applied in the Act of Chapultepec, involves a good deal more adjustment than the Aus-tralian-New Zealand Pact demanded. Seen only as the simple machinery for the furtherance of the universal benefit of peace, there is little remarkable in the provisions of either convention. The lack of clarity on this point was the acknowledged weakness of the old League of Nations, and it was the absence of rules for common action which made the infatuated States of prewar Europe the successive victims of Nazi aggression. In their transatlantic context, the acceptance of such rules represents a revolution in outlook, which, if it finds confirmation in the United States Legislature, is one of the most astonishing moral phenomena of the war. Those who have followed the progress of American thought will find it most difficult to believe that the Monroe Doctrine can be so easily buried. By this doctrine, the United States guaranteed the independence of the South ■ American States against European aggression. Formulated in 1823 with British encouragement, this famous tenet survived a,ll the resentment of South American opinion against the overlordship of the "Yanquis." It survived the manifest inconsistencies of more than one American adventure abroad. It survived the demonstration that British sea power, behind which the Monroe Doctrine had maintained South America in security, and upon which it was chiefly dependent in the nineteenth century, was no longer the assured guardian of all the seven seas and both hemispheres. In the twentieth century the doctrine has been a vague poison in American thought, a justification for isolation, a brake on vigorous action. Loyal to Monroe, America could still debate in 1941 the question of Nazi infiltration in the south, as if it were academic and could inquire whether the Doctrine should fix its frontier on the Amazon or the bulge of Brazil, blind to the challenge of Dakar. If therefore the Chapultepec findngs are a true sequel to Dumbarton Daks, it means that important sections of American leadership are prepared to lead the nation in the lourageous building of that foreign policy of co-operation which, as Wal;er Lippmann has conclusively lemonstrated, has ever been denied t by the complex born of Monroe. 3ddly enough the scene of their iction recalls the very situation of .823. It was the support from the Jnited States for the independence >f the American republics which led ,o the Monroe Doctrine and conributed so powerfully to isolationsm, behind, incongruously, the hield of the British Navy. The time las, of course, come when what hap>ens in one hemisphere is the contra of the other. Peace is so lemonstrably everybody's business. America fights today in a war begun >n the Vistula. A war begun on the Mate could conceivably in this closecnit globe spread to Europe. It is lonceivable that the police force ivailable for such a contingency night conveniently be based in the north. Uneasiness over European "intervention" in the Americas had some justification. :ts roots go back to French mcirclement on the Mississippi md the adventures of the French •Second Empire in Mexico. Franco md the Hispanidad Movement iave kept it irritatingly alive. kVhat matters is that American iction in South America may depend lereafter upon European approval, [f, , after the prejudice of a cen-'-ury, America is prepared to concede that point, the greatest of all carriers to co-operative peace has 'orthwith been removed. GERMAN COMMAND CHANGES As he has not beijn able to meet Lincoln's simple test of generalship: 'Can he win battles?" Field-Mar-shal von Rundstedt has been relieved )f his appointment as commander-in-?hief of the German forces in the vVest. Rundstedt lost the invasion -jattle and was dismissed. His successor, Field Marshal von Kiuge, "ailed so badly that he went to a suicide's grave. Rundstedt was then in his command. His Ardennes counter-offensive, which he lescribe'd as Germany's last effort, lid not produce results commensurate with the expenditure of men ind material. In the past few weeks ic has heen driven out of the best defensive system the world has seen.* ft would not be wise, perhaps not [air, to place all the blame for these failures on Rundstedt's shoulders. Should he survive the war sufficiently long to give military history the

benefit of his memoirs, interest is likely to centre upon the influence of the Nazi hierarchy on his plans, It has been stated, for example, that he did not desire to fight the decisive battle in Normandy. Once the Allies succeeded in landing he wished to conduct a series of withdrawals in which he would manoeuvre the Allies into positions vulnerable to a counter-offensive. It v is impossible, of course, to say how such a plan would have fared for it 'would have provoked Allied strategy in keeping. Field-Marshal Montgomery, who has had more to do with Rundstedt's discomfiture than any other leader, remarked during the Ardennes operations that he would like to penetrate Rundstedt's brain. He has done better than that, for he has penetrated the brain of the German High Command and convinced it that Rundstedt could not win the final battle of the Rhine. As the Allies are so confident of success, Field-Marshal Kesselring, who succeeds Rundstedt, might well remark with Foch in 1918 that he has been given a lost Although he has displayed skill in Italy, lost battles are not novelties in his career. He failed in the Battle of Britain in 1940 when his Luftwaffe had a tremendous advantage in numbers over the "so few" of the Royal Air Force. He lost the Battle of the Sicilian Narrows when it was imperative that Germany should retain air superiority there in the final stages of the North African campaign. Sicily was taken from him mainly because of faulty Italian tactics in depending almost wholly on a perimeter defence. He might have won Salerno had he not had opposed to him Allied generals who knew when to employ the last ounce of their strength. In his retreat through Italy the terrain has favoured him and he also had the good fortune of having to contend against steadily diminishing Allied forces which were drawn upon for more urgent service elsewhere. His appointment is not likely to cause a change in Allied plans on the Western Front. On the contrary, it could be welcomed, for Kesselring cannot possess the local knowledge of Rundstedt nor has he had experience against Anglo-American forces in their greatest and best strength. His inspection of the critical Ruhr area, isolated by bombs and drenched with both bombs and shells, is not likely to hearten him. Kesselring will not stay the Allied leap across the Rhine.