FRANCE FIGHTS ON

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24325, 15 June 1940, Page 8

FRANCE FIGHTS ON

The French armies fight on while the smoke and flame of battle envelop Paris, the very heart and centre of French life and culture. The hour is a grim one for more than the French people. So far in the unequal contest that has raged on French and Belgian soil since Herr Hitler struck through the Low-

land countries the invader has won every advantage. The initial disaster of the break through at Sedan was followed all too quickly by the sorry collapse of Belgian resistance and the heroic tragedy of the withdrawal from Flanders. These, for the Allies, were costly failures, enabling as they did an almost immediate concentration of Germany’s immense striking power for the assaulting of French defences from the sea to the Maginot Line. A longer resistance in the initial stages of the campaign on the Western Front would have contributed to the exhaustion of the enemy’s power. As things are, he has been able to hurl his immense reserves of men and machines against lines onlythinly held in comparison with the weight of the attack, and the inevitable outcome has been a gradual yielding to the inexorable pressure of superior forces. We are told that the forces thrown into the battle for Paris, this week declared to be itself an open and undefended city, can now be estimated at more than a hundred divisions, including the immensely formidable armoured units which have moved, through each successive stage, as the spearhead of the enemy attack. On three sides of the capital, to the north, west and east, the struggle is going on with a violence that literally defies description, and apparently, despite the heroic fortitude with which the French army has met a remorseless onslaught, the enemy has reached the gates of the city. But the French Premier, in a stirring message to the world, sounds rib defeatist note, but rather pledges his ■ wounded country to “rise and fight again,” firm in the hope that France will survive even this unparalleled assault on her ancient liberties. M. Reynaud has addressed one more appeal to the American people for the greatest aid that they are capable of giving, but in doing so has repeated the hope of the French people for “ the common victory of democracy.” There is reason to believe that the maximum assistance that can be afforded by the United 11 States to the Allied cause, short of actual armed intervention, is already pledged, and that the task to which President Roosevelt has committed his people will be undertaken with a full appreciation of what is at stake in Europe. M. Reynaud freely accords to Herr Hitler the initial victory. The advance into France has been delayed but not stemmed. But even when Paris has fallen —as fall it must —into the invader’s hands, it will still be much too early to attach any meaning of permanence to that word “ victory.” There is one thing always to be remembered. In M. Reynaud’s words, in losing this battle France has inflicted “ great losses and greatly damaged the enemy’s morale.” That seems to be indisputable. Every mile of the German advance has cost the enemy a pitiless toll, both in men and equipment. Behind his lines, communications and supply bases have been devastatingly assailed. None but himself can know, or even estimate, the price that has been paid for these swift successes. The processes of attrition are operating continuously to his disadvantage, while, on the side of the Allies, the vast organisation of supply is slowly but steadily being extended, against the day when it will be the turn of the defenders of democracy to deliver the hammer blows of assault by means of which the final victory will be won. In the meantime it is permissible to hope that the withdrawal of the armed forces of France to new positions to the south and on the flanks of the city will save Paris from the worst ravages of total war. That is an end entirely justifiable in itself. The glories of Paris may survive even while the tide of battle sweeps around that noble metropolis.