GERMANY AND JAPAN

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24790, 15 December 1941, Page 4

GERMANY AND JAPAN

The statement issued from White House on the obviousness of German efforts to force Japan into war with the United States in the hope—doomed to disappointment, according to Washington—that a substantial curtailment of the American lease-lend programme would result, has a clear relation to the revision of German strategy made necessary by the unexpectedly stubborn and effective resistance met by the Nazis in Russia. In the United States the German-Japanese alliance was seen fundamentally, from the Nazi angle, as representing a threat to America. It was intended to keep the Government at Washington preoccupied in the Pacific and to retard or discourage the policy of making supplies of war materials available to the democracies fighting Germany. Not until comparatively recently, it is thought, did Herr Hitler begin to press Japan to challenge the United States actively in the Pacific, although, it seems, the so-called Japanese “ diversion operation ” was always a part of Berlin’s ultimate strategy. At the outset of the campaign in Russia the Germans anticipated a quick victory. They were not disposed at that time to view the leaselend programme seriously, and they were not anxious to take any action which might have the effect of putting the United States on a fullscale war footing. But when the Russian offensives began to drag, when major' objectives were denied the German armies and the prospect of a winter campaign had to be envisaged, the German High Command could see American aid expanding and strengthening the Allies nol only in the Middle East but in Russia itself. It was, informed quarters maintain, at this stage that German demands for Japanese intervention became insistent. The Nazis accused the American navy of attacking German submarines, arid are believed to have put pressure on Japan to fulfil her obligation, as a member of the Axis, to go to war against any nation that was an enemy of Germany. Whether or not Japan was influenced to any extent by this view is not known. Her own ambitions were doubtless the driving force that impelled her to take the final plunge. But it is at least certain that German insistence, supported by persuasive promises of German help, were factors which encouraged Japan to risk all in a resounding clash with the other Pacific Powers.