Evening star., 1940-01-14


thought the war would last very long.
The man on the street" fixed its
duration at from six weeks to six
months. There was little reliable in
formation on internal conditions in
Germany. The best reports available
to the average citizen, gathered from
tourists, commercial travellers and the
newspapers, were to the effect that con-
ditions beyond the Rhine were very bad,
that there was at least 10 per cent dis
satisfaction with the Hitler regime and
that the whole structure would crack
quickly with the added stress of hostii-
ties
How far this opinion was shared in
official quarters, where more authentic
reports were available, is hard to say.
The censored reports Of operations dur
ing the first two or three weeks gave
support to the popular opinion. French
troops had penetrated the outer defenses
of the Siegfried Line-so the British pub
lie was led to believe-without striking
blow. English aviators had flown over
Germany dropping pamphlets without
meeting an enemy plane. The air raids,
so confidently expected, had not mate
rialized. At that time the Polish de-
London papers made it appear as if the
Germans were having hard time on
the eastern front.
Government Changes Tactics.
r. MO how'd to choffor fhic copSlopoo
The government apparently grew little
worried about it, eased up on the CEN
sorship of reports of enemy successes
and tried to disillusion the public. But
when Prime Minister Chamberlain an
nounced that preparations were being
made for war lasting three years, most
people, one would gather from casual
conversations, thought that it was just
some more propaganda to prevent over
confidence. If folks minimized the war
they would not take it seriously enough
to do their best to win it.
All this was before the tragic parade
of ship sinkings, before the collapse of
Poland and the Russian advance toward
the West. Englishmen Il and French
men also for that matter, although they
never were so optimistic in their prophe-
cies-scampered in their pajamas to the
shelters when air raid sirens sounded in
the -illumined nights-with a good
deal OF confidence that it was only a
temporary annoyance.
This state of mind was one effect Of
censorship. It was, it begins to appear,
a bad effect. Public opinion is q dan
gerous thing with which to experiment
and the British censors, however great
their devotion to the duties assigned
them, were far from masters of mass
psychology. The average Englishman at
the start was sorry for the Germans,
sorry that it had become a painful ne
cessity to chastise them. He felt no
enmity. He wanted the chastisement to
be as gentle as possible But it never
entered his head that there would be
much difficulty about administering it,
Far From Spanked.
The war has dragged on. On land few
have been killed and few hurt. But
there has been no discernible progress
whatsoever. Germany is as far from
being spanked as on the morning of
September 3. Meanwhile there is a con-
stantly greater and greater drain on the
purse OF the man on the street, certainty
OF quick victory has given way to un-
certainty of any eventual victory at all.
For nation, as well as for an individual
anticipation is worse than actuality.
Very early in the war of inaction,
Americans, who had nobody in the front
lines to be killed or manned and who
were paying nothing but actually profit
ing little, began criticizing the French
and English for their inaction, for being
afraid to get hurt" They called it
''phony war" Naturally this sentiment
was hardly shared at first on the other
side of the Atlantic. One might suppose
that the British and French people
would have been very well satisfied at a
bloodless war which at the same time
was bound to be q victorious one. This
seemed certain for the first month or
two.
But as the weeks have gone by and
the uncertainty has developed, it has
become too great strain on the nerves.
It has resolved into a continuation of
the war Of nerves on greatly accentu-
ated scale and, it must be remembered,
the average Englishman on September 3
was rather relieved at the apparent evo-
luton of this two-year psychological
conflict into one of real gunpowder.
The impasse has remained unbroken.
British and French on one side and
Germans on the other have held back
from the terrible carnage which is bound
to result from any serious attempt to
break either the Maginot or the Sieg-
fried Lines. This is one OF the few times
in the history of wars in which human
life has been cherished for its own sake.
But the nervous tension has grown,
Perhaps in the long run, it will be found
that Hitler has played the cleverest
game-letting the war of nerves con-
tinue with the certainty that the reac-
tion would be worse upon the allies
than upon his own people. So, among
the ill-informed, nerve-tortured masses,