Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1940-09-08

UCIc OcJOTC Tue UuT UTOuytL VII
awakening, says Mr.. Wells.
A. P. Photo.
rant Of the German expansion or
criminally negligent, or, what is graver,
he did not want the British Air Force
to be match for the German.
discount Swinton, often described as
q typical product of the English public
meaning private-school system, has
been serving during the present war as
head of the Secret Spy Committee"
appointed by Prime Minister Churchill
to ferret out fifth columnists. The work
of the committee has been subject to
severe criticism in the House of Com
mons, but all information about it has
been suppressed by Churchill. The
viscount was raised to the peerage in
1885. He is Sc now. He was born
Philip Lloyd-Graeme and changed his
name to Cunliffe-Lster in 1924 20 in
herit a waste" silk fortune from his
mother in-law, a daughter of the first
| Lord Masham. He was one of the few
cabinet members ever to be howled down
| in Parliament so vociferously that he
was unable to deliver a Speech-at the
time of the coal mining debate in 1923.
when he was a president of the board
of trade)
Select Class Favored.
! This revelation of a reluctance to
recognize the essential solidarity of the
British people in the face of war, and
of a disposition to keep things in the
hands of a select class, is enforced by
| the poor showing of the war Office dur
| ing the past twelvemonth. Few Britons
can feel much satisfaction with our mill
tary record At the end of year they
still have every reason to be uneasy
about our generalship.
The war Office and the higher COM
| mand seem to have learned nothing
and forgotten a good deal since 1918.
Their personnel Is drawn mainly from
the duller individuals of a mentally
Understandable class. They are not
even the elite of their own set.
The council schoolboy or the strenuous
| student has no chance with these army
people" They are too exclusive, de-
fenSive and ill-bred to work with any
one outside their peculiar limitations.
There has been a certain amount of
| uninspired experimenting with mechan-
| lied units, but our army people seem
! to have diSdained experiments of CO.
| operation with air forces and para
chutists. They do not seem ever to have
| studied what has been done in Russia,
| and for the first half year of the war
| they remained in a state of criminal
lethargy about the new offensive tactics
revealed in Poland What sort of train
ing and exercises were our men getting
! during that long pause?
missed the Bus"
When the invasion of Norway oc-
CURED, We were stuffed up by Gen. Sir
Edmund Ironside with a lot of buster
and Dragging about Hitler's inevitable
defeat. Let us never forget that missed
| the bus boast of his. He was chief of
| the imperial general staff Plainly Mr..
| Chamberlain was as badly informed as
any of us, and as much a victim of
military incompetence. 1t was scarcely
his fault If he repeated Gen. Ironsides
foolish phrase.
Most of that ill-equipped selection
of samples we sent to Norway instead of
an army, was got away again; the
first of our glorious excavations. That
was the exploit of our sea arm. The
men, the units, have been sullen and
splendid during that year of retreats,
but they have fought without any in
telligent leadership or any ineligible
plan. They were stupidity sacrificed by
the incapacity in control Every time
our army people gave them away, and
| every time they refused to be given
| away, and so the war has kept on.
Never once was there an attempt to
retain even foothold in the abandoned
| countries. That was beyond the wits
OF Whitehall. The designs, so far as
they had any, the methods, the subse-
quent excuses, the displays of piety and
self-pity, of our generals have been be-
meath contempt.
Army Is Improving.
Yet, there are many signs that in spite
OF our incubus of generals, the essential
lesson is soaking in and that new sort
"a Amy Id Soiilll1S 1llIO UculS 1TOIl Lne
ground upward. We are rapidly replac-
ing the old idea that modern wars can
be won by Officers" who do all the
thinking and men" whose job is disci-
plined obedience, by the new realization
that all our fighting men can and must
understand their weapons and Cooper
ate intelligently like a football team.
The day of an illiterate lower class
ranker is passing.
1t is not only because of the manifest
1neffciency of our higher command that
our awakening democracy is looking with
resentful inquiry at the War Office. 1t
is even more uneasy about the role that
ministry is playing on our foreign policy.
One may ask, what has the War Office
to do with foreign policy? Here again
we have to bring in the name of Lord
Swinton, and here again we find our
selves in state of baf1ed perplexity
about his ideas and motives and what
he stands for. 1t is plain; it becomes
nlainer tn ordinary sound minded f7rht-