Wairarapa Times-Age THURSDAY, JUNE 26, 1941. GERMANY TAKING RISKS.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 June 1941, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age THURSDAY, JUNE 26, 1941. GERMANY TAKING RISKS.

ACCORDING to Mr George Bernard Shaw, Germany lias not a dog's chance in her invasion ol Russia and he even added, in some observations reported a couple of days ago, that: “Today there is nothing to do but sit and smile while Stalin smashes Germany.” It would be very pleasant to feel that cheerful talk, of this kind could lie accepted at its face value, but it has to be admitted that to the ordinary observer the grounds on which Air Shaw’s sweeping confidence presumably is based are not as completely and clearly visible as could be desired. There are reasons for hoping that Soviet Russia may make an important contribution to the ultimate defeat and destruction of the Nazi regime. If the Russian nation is able to maintain its organisation and cohesion and defends itself as indomitably as it often has in-its past history, the present invasion may prove as disastrous to Hitler and his gang as the campaign of .1812 did to Napoleon. Many questions are still open, however, which have a vital bearing on tin l probable fate and outcome of the. latest Nazi venture. Little is to be learned at the moment from reports of fighting, heavy in places, along some 1,000 miles of borderlands, and the extent to which the Red Army is capable of -withstanding the German war machine, particularly in its admittedly efficient combination and co-ordination of mechanised land forces and air force, has yet to appear. There is not yet any clear indication even of the main lines of the Nazi plan of campaign. Without emulating Mr Bernard Shaw’s sublime optimism, however, it is possible Io believe that Germany is taking tremendous risks in her invasion of the Soviet Union. Even should Germany make substantial detail gains, as she may, in the Ukraine and elsewhere, she must still expect — assuming always the continuance of an organised and resolute Russian resistance—to find herself deeply involved in the war on two fronts which has always been the bugbear of her ablest strategists. While her air and mechanised hordes are breaking into Russia, in the hope of gaining a command over economic resources which will enable her to face and carry on a long war, the Luftwaffe'day by day is being defeated by the Royal Air Force, and no effective reply is being made to powerful nightly onslaughts by British bombers on the principal industrial centres of Western Germany and on German naval and other bases. It is hardly in doubt that these attacks will increase rapidly in power and effect as Britain’s own resources, and the material aid she is receiving from the United States, expand. It is entirely reasonable also to assume that, air superiority sooner or later will open the way to action by land forces against the enemy in his own territory and in territories he has occupied. The hope of the Nazis no doubt is that by defeating Russia they will thereafter be able to draw on her as a rich magazine of supplies and Io return the mass of their air and land forces to Western Europe. It would be taking a great deal for granted, however, to assume that, the Germans are likely to be able Io carry this programme smoothly into effect. If they wore able to establish full military control over even, a comparatively limited part of Russia, the Germans admittedly would be able to add very largely to their available volume of essential supplies. Apart from the vast stores of wheat to be drawn from the Ukraine, for example, if they were able to break through that, territory, and by way of the Black Sea, into the Caucasus, they would go far to satisfy their most, urgent, military need by obtaining greatly increased supplies of oil. At the same time, achieving so much, they would attain important vantage points from which to threaten new and extended aggression in the Middle East. It is certainly not yet necessary to assume, however, that the pursuit of these aims will prove Io be compatible with a rapid return of German air.and land forces to Western Europe, ■where the expanding striking power of Britain is a magnificent, reality. '.ln order to profit by her invasion of Russia, Germany must establish an assured and easy command over at least, some important portions of that country. What prospect she has of doing this depends primarily upon the fighting power of the Red Army and Air Force and the spirit of the Russian people. The counter-possibility at least is to be considered that instead of gaining an easy and assured command over Russian resources, and an opportunity of employing her technicians to exploit them to the full. Germany may find herself involved in difficult and indefinitely-extending military operations in Russia and may thus be handicapped terribly in her continuing struggle with her principal opponent, the British Empire, in Western Europe, in the Middle East, in the air and on the seas. Even the known and admitted weaknesses of Russia—amongst them her deficiencies in modern military equipment and the poor standards of efficiency of her transport system—do not necessarily mean that the German invasion will serve its intended purpose. It has been demonstrated in China during four terrible years that against a resolute and united, though pitifully ill-provided nation, a modern army possessed of an overwhelming superiority in air force and mechanised equipment is capable of holding little more than the ground on which it stands. If the Russian people are capable of emulating the example set by the people of China, the outlook for Nazi Germany' in her eastward thrust, however the immediate fortune of battle may turn, is anything but promising.