Detroit evening times. (Detroit, Mich) 1921-1958, 1941-02-19
S+ra+egis+s
Plumbers in
Present War
Hitler Out-Foxed England
But Channel Holds Him
(The opinions sxpressed by
General Johnson are not neees-
sarily those of The Detroit
Times.)
BY HUGH s. JOHNSON

Tllo has Gel ldiiify Dtcn
= tough war for the military
"experts"-both columnist kibit-
ger or radio amateur variety and
the real professionals.
The amateurs have been bad
enough, but the biggest boners
of all have been pulled by those
who from training. education
and profession should really have
been expert. l mean the great
general staffs of all the coun-
tries, including our own, and not
excepting Germany, Italy, Rus
STA and Japan.
The English and French bet
their national existence on the
exporting of their soldiers and
sailors that they could hold Hit
Ter on the Maginot Line and out
maneuver him north of that.
THEY pushed Poland into the
storm and then tossed her
to the wolves and left all the
small nations of Europe chat
had been advised by their own
military experts to rely on AL
lied strength to be conquered in
a few weeks.
The English experts bet they
could outfox Hitler on the Nor
wegian coast. They were wrong
about that. too. Then Hitler's
military high priests told him he
could clean up the British Isles
in 1910. but he is still at the
channel ports.
r Mussolini's mighty military
men told him that Greece and
north Africa were pushovers,
and see what happened to him.
Japan expected tea party in
China. She got it but it was
spiked with arsenic. Russia was
advised by her professionals that
she COULD swallow Finland at
gulp.
THAT didn't happen and since
4 Joe Stain is more direct in
his methods, he liquidated his
experts and got some new ones.
I don't know if they are any
better.
We have real experts, too.
They muffed the whole program
of getting us ready to defend
ourselves, and now they are
busily engaged in exporting US
into a war for which we are no
better prepared relatively than
we were when il started.
The sciences of both tactics
and armament have shifted too
fast for the experts. There are
too many imponderables in mod
ern war. The basic PRINCIPLES
of war never change, but mill
-tary genius consists in applying
them to new conditions and no
such genius has yet appeared
no. not even Mr.. Hitler's bright
young men. Notwithstanding
their unparalleled conquests.
NOR example. Mr.. Winston
i Churchill now tells us that
this is just a war of machines
ships and land mechanical mon
sters-and that we shall never
have to mobilize great masses
of men TO go to Europe. I'm
mediately, Mr.. Hopkins, Mr..
Willkie and all our journalistic
military experts echo that
opinion and the principal Amer
lean objection to getting us INTO
this war is lulled to sleep.
/ don't know whether war is
no longer a matter of mass man.
power or not--and neither does
Mr.. Churchill. l only know 1t
always has been.
He is clicking pretty well on
military matters just now, but
it is doubtful whether any
leader ever made so many mill
tary mistakes in the course of
one lifetime and survived them
as a public character.
1t depends altogether on what
direction this war takes whether
il will develop into a war of
massed man power. There is no
one on earth wise enough TO
predict those directions.
HITLER certainly has both
IL machines and mass man
power, at least $50 divisions. Ii
the war aims of England (which
we do not and cannot controi1
are as Mr.. Churchill has stated
them, to reconquer Europe, it is
just simply silly either to say
that the job will not require
mass manpower or that we shall
not be called upon to furnish it.
This country has been well
war danced into sufficient hys-
terra to get into this war. In
fact, it is already in it.
Apparently there is nothing
that can he done about that.