Evening star., 1939-11-26

the cream OF breaking the British block
ade from the air and from under the
water has revealed itself for what it is,
when the products of the American
aviation plants begin to flow across the
Atlantic, the tale will make children
shrug
What can Germany do to break out of
the impaSse she has so blithely and
confidently walked into? Invade Hol-
land, Belgium, Switzerland? 1t is not
likely TO bring her victory 1t Is certain
to increase the number of her foes. 1t
might even so rouse world opinion as to
sway the United States out of it's neu-
trality. The Americans have such
strange prejudices. Remember the first
World War And witness the sympathies
kicked up there by little Finland.
Another Damper.
The generals are not the onlv damper
on the Fuehrer's war ardor. Even un-
der dictatorship the mass of the ma
ton has to be reckoned with. The
German people are neither psyche
logically nor materially prepared for
major struggle. The very propaganda
which, these past six years, was de-
signed to rouse their martial spirit
tends now to sway them toward de-
featlsm. Their leaders had whispered
to them so long and so effectively that
there would be no war, that their peer
less F'uehrer would wiring from the foe
everything that Germany had lost and
had failed to attain in the last war
the forfeited colonies, the annexed
provinces, the Ukraine, the road to
Baghdad and the Indies, the virtual
hegemony of the CONTEMPLATION
firing shot, that their minds geared
themselves to white war, but not in
the least to bloody one.
Now that, contrary to Nazi promises
and Rlbbentrop's assurances, England
and France have snapped out of their
lethargy and are in the melee, the IL
fusion has faded out and the legend of
the Fuehrer's magicianship is in
heap. Now they see the edge of the
preclplce to which their supermen have
brought them. And, frightened, dis
illusioned, Inundated, they instinctively
draw back.
They set out to the front in 1914
with flowers in their rifles and a song
on their lips. They were well-fed then,
and they had behind them rich and
powerful, well-organized and united
country, a fatherland one could be
proud of. They go to the battlefields
today, since there is no choice, with
contracted hearts, knowing that their
families will stand in queues Tor the
barest life necessities, that their friends
are perhaps tortured in concentration
camps, that their children will be regi-
mented in youth camps under leaders
of questionable repute, that the future
is uncertain and that the fatherland
has come to be byword in the civilized
world.
For What Purpose?
And what is it all for? All these wears
DR.. Goebbels has been telling them that
the short rations and the iron discipline
were sacrifices in good cause-to keep
Bolshevism out of Germany and Europe.
and to unite the scattered remnants of
the German race" And now it is no
other than the Fuehrer who throws the
doors wide open to the dramatic return
of Soviet Russia to the frontiers of the
fatherland, while in Czecho-S -Slovakia
and in Poland he introduces by his an
neXatlons unaSsimilable stocks into the
body polite, for the future disunity of
the Reich.
Beyond the border the ruler of Ger
many sees landscape no less dark The
pact of August "a with Russia was in
his mind no more than tactical chess
move, destined to halt the rush of
Europe toward general war Instead,
he finds himself saddled with an
alliance" that promises him no profit
and which effectively sets up an eastern
front far more menacing and durable
than anybody ever imagined Poland
could be. While the German army
dawdles in the West Stain picks off
one by one the ripe fruits in the East,
turns the Eastern Baltic into a Rus
sian lake and blocks the German
advance toward the Balkans and the
Middle East.
In 1914 Germany had allies She has
nothing but foes or false friends in
1889. Bulgaria is encircled. Turkey has
gone over to the enemy. Austro-
Hungary has been broken up; the
fragments which Germany has lately
absorbed trouble her sleep and her
digestion, while the rest-the portions
annexed by Yugoslavia, Rumania and
Italy-belong by tradition, fear and in
terest in the opposing column. In these
circumstances Germany cannot dare
throw all her weight intr the western
battle-ground. She risks being caught
in the rear by that mysterious friend
ship between Russia and Turkey which
20 years of change and turmoil in
Europe have failed to disturb, by a
potential combination embracing all of
Southern Europe from the Black Sea to
the Straits of Gibraltar.
Not Much Change.
And thus the maxim that war is but
continuation of diplomacy in another
sector and by other methods" was never
SO true as it is today. AS a matter of
fact, though the Notifications are
manned and the armies in position and
the bombing flotillas poised, neither
sector nor methods have appreciably
changed since September l. What we
are witnessing is continuation of the
diplomatic debate which has been going
on for year and half, with the pistols