Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 7, 1940. AN ATTACK IMPENDING.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 August 1940, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 7, 1940. AN ATTACK IMPENDING.

QNCE again, threats are current, of an early Nazi offensive against. Britain, A cablegram from Stockholm yesteiday quoted Germans in Norway as predicting that the blitzkrieg would be launched before the end of this week. Only events, of course, can show what these predictions are worth, but the policy demanded plainly is that enjoined by the British Prime Minister (Mr Winston Churchill), when he declared a few days ago that the possibility of German attempts at invasion had by no means passed away, and added: — The fact that the Germans are now putting about rumours that they do not intend to make an invasion should be regarded with the double dose of supicion which should be attached to all their utterances. Our sense of growing strength and preparedness must not lead to the slightest relaxation of vigilance or moral alertness. While there is much to discourage the Nazis from attempting to overcome Britain by massed air attacks and invasion, they mav be impelled to this effort ol desperation by their tears 01. a lone' war and also by the fact that they have some present advantages which they cannot hope to retain if the war continues into another year. The greatest of these present advantages is numerical superiority in air strength. The weight of authoritative and expressed opinion is that although Britain and her Allies are now building up their air strength more rapidly than Germany, who has probably reached her peak of production, the Nazi dictatorship still has at command considerably the greater force of machines and perhaps also of trained men. All estimates of the position are more or Jess speculative and those of some British authorities seem to lean to the conservative side. The fact that Germany has a substantial numerical superiority in aircraft, and particularly in bombing machines, is not obviously or necessarily in itself decisive. In the weeks of intensive fighting since the middle of June, British air squadrons have not only inflicted much greater losses on enemy formations than they have themselves suffered, but, as official figures show, have done five times as much bombing as the Germans and have attacked enemy bases and establishments with a daring and effect the Germans have failed to rival. It is definitely possible that the Nazis are about lo launch massed bombing attacks on Britain and on British shipping on a very much greater scale than anything of the kind they have yet attempted and the prospect thus raised must be considered with the fact in mind that no fully effective direct, defence against attacks of this nature has been devised or seems likely to be. On the other hand, account has to be taken, not only of the possibility of reprisals in kind, but of the extent to which the German air organisation is and will be open to attack at its bases of operation and fuel supply and in other ways. It would be unprofitable to extend speculation on these lines, but the superiority of fighting and striking power of which the Royal Air Force has given proof in well over a thousand raids into enemy territory, and in innumerable air combats, is a factor of not a little weight to be set against whatever numerical superiority in the air the enemy may still possess. INVESTIGATION IN FRANCE. ACCORDING to the London “Times,” the Petain Government is asking the newly-constituted French Supreme Court to determine “the exact extent lo which the British Government influenced France’s decision to declare war and also the subsequent conduct of belligerent operations.” It is added that:— Particular attention will be given to the British Government’s actions when on the eve of the outbreak of war, Mussolini offered to make a final effort to maintain peace. According to the Petain Government’s version of events, the French Parliament was not consulted before the declaration of war. This violated the Constitution of 1875, and several Ministers are apswerable for the consequences. It must be hoped that it will be perceived as clearly by most, Frenchmen as by the people of oilier and friendly nations that, save in one particular—“the conduct of belligerent operations” —the programme of investigation thus set forth touches almost the ultimate depths of fatuity, if not of something worse. Whatever may be the truth regarding this or that point of constitutional procedure, it is not in doubt that France wentto war as a united nation, intelligently alive to the vital need of protecting its life and liberty against an overshadowing and deadly menace. It is as well established that, having thus acted, France was betrayed and made helpless, much less by the Germans than by the machinations of an internal and strangely influential gang. It may be hoped that in a liberated France there will one day be a full and searching inquiry into this campaign of treachery in order that the nation may be vindicated and safeguarded and the brand of infamy placed where it belongs. In that inquiry, “the conduct of belligerent operations” in a fashion which led up to and made inevitable the surrender in the Forest of Compicgne of necessity will receive full attention.

No clear and complete explanation yet has been or can be <!'iven of I lie process of treachery by which the armies of France were in great part prevented from fighting in defence ol their country. Apparently credible accounts are being given by disinterested observers, however, of an astounding' and engineered disorganisation of military command and of supply by which splendid troops, to their own infinite humiliation and dismay, were made helpless. In time, no doubt, the tacts will he brought out fully, by Frenchmen, and it will be for Frenchmen to act on these facts.

Meantime the persecution of men who strove to organise the defence of the nation can be regarded as nothing else than an extension of the terrible crime of which France has been made the victim. A final touch of degradation is added to this infamous procedure in imputing blame to French Ministers of the immediate, pre-war period for having failed to take up Mussolini's offer to act in the role of peacemaker. The only forms of peace then offered were that. Nazi Germany should be left to batten at leisure on the bodies of her slaughtered victims and to prepare for fresh enormities, and that .Mussolini should be allowed to extort a certain amount of blackmail from France. In Hie eyes of all self-respecting men. Mussolini was and is a figure of contempt. Even by his Axis partners, as recent German dealings with the Balkan States have shown, the Dnee is regarded, quite frankly and openly, in that light. In tin l fate that has now overtaken France there is an ample vindication of the men who sought lo organise the nation to repel that fate ami to make any sacrifice rather than accept it.