Evening star., 1940-09-01
By Marquis W. Childs.

government. They moved with cautious
dehberation, their plans based on a war
that should come to a climax toward the
end of 1941 or the beginning of 1912.
Production Jagged in all basic industries,
as the magazine Fortune has shown in
a remarkable analysis of British French
failures that appeared not long after
the debacle of late spring and early
summer. Few people really believed in
the war and beneath that passive dis
belief was an active dislike on the part
Of many for the war and everything
connected with it.
False Security
Were they fighting to put Poland back
together again? To restore Czecho-Slo-
vakia? Or Austrian independence?
These were the questions that fretful
people asked themselves as the war
months dragged on. OF course, the
Maginot Line made everything quite
secure. There might be unpleasant
ness, but no one doubted eventual VIC
tory Only few military experts, some
American, some British, a few discern
ing men in public life, talked pessimisti-
cally. And they were put down as pro-
Nazi or alarmists. Security was a habit
so old, in terms so certain, that it was
difficult to see around it.
On the night OF April the Nazis took
Norway in a series of moves that had
been in preparation for weeks and ac-
tually in motion for at least three days.
The world, including apparently the
Allies, was taken by surprise. There
followed Immediately that wholly false
glow of optimism spread by Chamberlain
and the men around him. This time
the same fatal mistake as Napoleon in
invading the Spanish Peninsula. Now
British sea power would strike a blow
that might well prove decisive.
But the admiralty, fearing the belliger-
ence of Italy-long threatened by belli-
cose rumbling from Mussolini-declined
to risk major units of the British fleet
in the treacherous Norwegian fjords. 1t
was more important to protect the Medi-
terranean rendered dangerous by bases
established by the axis powers during
the Spanish War. So one disaster after
another occurred, eliminating in the i'll
fated land operations at Narvik. 1t was
in Norway that for the first time an
American correspondent, Leland Stowe,
gave to the world the story of Britains
unpreparedness at critical moment.
Next Move Unsuspected.
Still even after the retreat from Nor
way, which apologists in England sought
to disguise as mastery victory, scarcely
any one realized what was happening. A
few military experts saw how ominous
1t was that the Nazis should be able to
operate from North Sea ports. Most peo-
pie sought a naturalization to the effect
that this was no more than an incidental
operation.
On May 10 the Nazis began their in
vasion of the Low Countries. Holland
collapsed in less than week after Queen
Wilhelmina and her cabinet had fled
to London. This did give the world
pause. 1t revealed as in lightning flash
the incredibly swift destruction of
country that had calmly assumed the
protection of declared neutrality. Here,
too, as in Norway, was the terrifying
spectacle of the fifth column at work,
bringing home the realization that in
these secure democracies there were some
men and women, and perhaps many men
and women, who wanted the Nazi tri-
umph.
Only planes and tanks count, said the
military experts, pointing to the pathetic
$50 planes that the Dutch had, many Of
them obsolete. They cited Rotterdam
as an example Of modern warfare. In