Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, JANUARY 6, 1941. THE PACIFIC AND EUROPE.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 January 1942, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, JANUARY 6, 1941. THE PACIFIC AND EUROPE.

JN an article in the London “Sunday Express,” according to a cablegram received yesterday, Mr John Gordon has expressed an opinion that: “The ultimate defeat of Japan, despite what Australia thinks, depends chiefly on what happens in Europe in the next few months.” The kindest thing that can be said about Mr Gordon’s optimism is that it is of small practical importance and points to no sound basis for Allied policy in any area of conflict.

The British writer’s “profound conviction that great things are on the eve of happening” apparently is inspired chiefly by the present course of events on the Eastern front. “This ’Russian triumph,” he says, “holds in it for Germany the seeds of real disaster.” This, at a general view, may be true. It is not in doubt that the German armies on the Eastern front have been fairly and squarely beaten and have suffered a shattering defeat to which limits have yet to be set. Developing in accordance with its present promise, not only in the Moscow region, but in the Crimea and elsewhere, the Russian counter-offensive almost certainly will stand out as the greatest single contribution yet made to ultimate Allied victory. It may still be running well ahead of events, however, to anticipate an early collapse of the German fighting forces and nation under their Nazi dictatorship.

Even if a German collapse were more likely than, at any immediate view, it is, the prospect thus opened most certainly would provide no reason for a slackening of effort in any other theatre of war. Rather it should impel the Allies to redoubled effort in every area in which the Axis is being fought.

Nowhere is dependence on the course of events in Europe less warranted than in the Pacific, where Japan is striking with savage vigour in an endeavour to make the most of the immediate difficulties, due chiefly to lack of adequate preparation, in which the Allies admittedly are involved. The only policy worth considering is that stated by General Sir Archibald Wavell, now Allied Commander-in-Chief in the South-Western Pacific, -when he said: “We must hold on until we can collect our forces for a return blow.”

It may well be only prudent, instead of basing exaggerated and possibly vain hopes on the Russian victories, to remember that Mr Churchill toasted 1942 as “a year of toil, a year of struggle and peril, and a long step forward to victory.” There are in fact no adequate reasons as yet for assuming that even the tremendous losses she has suffered on the Eastern front will prevent Nazi Germany from striking new and formidable blows. It is still worth while recalling that in a speech in the House of Commons at the encl of last September—the speech in which he said that Germany’s only shortage, though that shortage was serious, was in the air—the British Prime Minister also expressed an opinion that if Hitler could stabilise his Russian front and stand on the defensive, he could undertake simultaneously three other campaigns—one against the Nile Valley; the second aimed, through Spain, at North-West Africa and the third an attempt to invade the United Kingdom.

It would certainly be in his (Hitler’s) power (Mr Churchill observed), while standing on the defensive in the East, to undertake all three of these arduous enterprises on a great scale, together at one time.

There have been, great developments since Mr Churchill spoke, and it may be hoped that, at a, long view, the Russian victories and the victorious British offensive in North Africa are of more lasting significance than the advantages Japan has gained meantime in the Pacific. It is too soon to conclude, however, that the Germans will not be able to stabilise their Eastern front and to. strike elsewhere; and assuredly there can be no question, in the Pacific, of turning from vigorous effort to feeble dependence on what is to happen “in Europe in the next few months.’’