Evening star., 1940-09-01
BY MAI. GEO. FIELDING ELIOT.


A year of war has ended. For
the free peoples of the world it has
been year of disillusionment, dis
appointment and defeat.
Especially has 1t been a year of
cruel surprises. The great French
Army has gone down before the
might of Germany: the world-famed
Maginot defenses have been turned
and taken. Save for precarious
footholds in Sweden and Switzer-
land, the last vestige of free govern
ment has been extinguished on the
continent of Europe. Germany
stands triumphant on the ruins tf
European democracy.
Yet not quite triumphant. Be-
tween Adolf Hitler and the full re-
alization of victory still stands en-
battled Britain. holding the Atlantic
gateways of Europe. denying him
the sea, giving him back blow for
blow in the struggle for mastery of
the air. The Balkans still boil and
bubble. The enimga of Russia hangs
in the background like a dark, inn
penetrable cloud. Across the Allan
tic, America arms apace. The lau-
rels of his victory are not without
their thorns.
We have learned lessons from
this year of war.
First of all. we have learned, or
at any rate re-learned, that which.
We should never have forgotten
the fundamental lesson that wars
cannot be won, victories cannot be
achieved by standing on the defen-
sive, by abandoning all initiative to
the enemy, by building walls and
settling down behind them to sloth-
full comfort and the ease of a fools
paradise. We have seen the results
of the strange "cult of the defen-
sive" which grew out of the mis-
reading of the lessons Of the last
war. the sneers at Fochs "attaque,
attaque, toujours rattaque'-Foch,
who was victorious. Foch whose VIC
tories have been thrown away by
those who sought to prove his
theories wrong with clever words
and brilliant sophistries.
II we have learned that much,
never again to be beguiled into a
Maginot psychology of defense" ;"
this year has not been without It's
compensations, here or in Britain.
Rest of Years Lessons.
AS for the rest of the years les
sons, We may consider them in de-
tail:
Sea power. Sea power still
functions as Of old, because the sea
is still the worlds great commercial
highway. The progress of modern
lndustrialization, making industrial
| states more and more dependent on
a supply Of raw materials increasing
ever in quantity and variety, has.
indeed. enhanced the importance of
sea power But the growth of air
| power and its ability to strike over
the sea, and at ports and bases,
| has greatly altered the old condi-
tions under which sea power used
to function, especially as regards
coastal and narrow waters. The Sc
cure base which sea power needs
has been, so to speak, pushed back:
probably for the future sea power
| will be exercised, not from islands
close to continental shores, but
from distant continents themselves;
to be precise, from North America
rather than from the British Isles.
Air power. The war did not be-
| gin with q tremendous surprise air
attack to crush all opposition in y
hours or such a matter. as predicted
| by some of its less well-balanced
enthusiasts. Instead, air power has
shown that its chief value, its
greatest field of usefulness, lies in
| operations closely co-ordinated with
| those of surface forces 1t has taken
! its place in the infantry artillery
team as third and indispensable
factor, bringing new element to
that combination of fire and move
ment which is the essence of all
tactics. When it has acted inde-
pendently it has proved far less
| decisive in it's results, as sober stu
dents of its qualities had believed,
because of its lack of continuity of
effort. Just as sea power takes a
long time to produce decisive re-
suits by blockade, because it lacks
| the power of direct assault, so air
power seems likely to take long
time because Its powers of direct
assault are so circumscribed by its
inherent qualities.
Armies. We have learned that
the great mass armies of other days,
millions of men armed with rifles,
] al axfi