Evening star., 1941-10-05
End Shadow,Boxing and Fight;
Time for Action, Says Wells
Britain Urged to Turn Great Army, Now Frettins
at Delay, Loose Against Germany and
Aid Russia in Crushing Nazis
By H. e.. Wells,
Noted British Novelist and Historian.

date now-if it is going to fight now.
But a year hence it will be out of date.
Has it been made just for show?
Reactionary propaganda gets into
great fuss at the mere idea of attempt
ing any sort of landing upon the con-
tinent. 1t counts up to the shipping
and material needed to transport that
little army, not allowing for return
Journeys. and the difficulty of keeping
up supplies and reinforcements. Always
they assume that Jerry will be ready at
a long-appointed spot But is there
going to be a long appointed spot? Are
our military authorities such fools as to
appoint that? Have they really made up
their minds where that division is
going? Then by high road and low
road alike. Jerry knows and will be in
sufficient force to meet it and We may
reckon on disaster.
But Suppose that even our own high
command does not know for certain and
has plans worked out for landing this
force at 80 different points. Then Jerry
will heave to be ready in superior force at
heavily those statistical German divi-
sions that scare our military experts.
1t really does not matter if Jerry knows
all those 80 plans, so long as we keep him
guessing which is to be used. The more
plans the better There is no need for
secrecy. We hold the air sufficiently to
survey the enemy from the Arctic to trop-
ina1 f,in fod in
Guiding the Baltic and the Mediter-
ranean. Measure it. Are We to suppose
that Jerry has constructed an invincibIe
Maginot Line along that vast front?
We have the advantage of inner lines
and everywhere now we have eager
friends who will sabotage Jerry's COM
munications and supplies. Even or
military experts .must have observed that
Jerry has way of feeling for weak
place along line and pushing hard when
he finds it. Why should we not be feel
ing with major raids and minor raids for
his weak spot? We have tens of thou
sands of bright boys fretting to do a Job
of that sort. Our "blimps" insist that
none OF this accumulating material shall
be put into action until it is trained to
the very highest pitch of efficiency But
the best way to learn to fight is to fight.
Most of our military experts" display
abject inferiority to the military science
Of the Germans and yet they will not
learn anything from them in this matter.
The Germans do not hesitate to put bows
in their teens into the fighting line Our
newspapers note the youth and the elder
illness of prisoners We take. Those raw
boys and old stuff cost only third of
the highly expensive soldier, full of
health and beans. that We are employing
IN shadow-boxing exercises
We are not only not using this Al
material We are letting it spoil. That
Is something that needs stressing. This
shadow boxing is already producing a
sense of unreality in our community as a
whole. People who were prepared to make
heroic sacrifices year ago are beginning
to wrangle small indulgences Soldiers
on what one might call inactive service
are definitely disposed to introduce a
facetlous element into the maneuvers.
Time for Action.
The modern British Tommy is often as
sensitive and intelligent as his officer. He
is ashamed of being useless to Russia. of
being called up out of civil life for in
effective drilling. and his Illustration in
cllnes him toward derision and insub-
ordination
II people lose their sense of reality of
this war, they will lose their sense of the
gravity OF foolish peace. All this talk
OF the war going on to 1943 is helping
the enemy. It's effect will be to prepare
people by sheer boredom for a patched
up peace early in 1912 After few
months more Of this heroic shadow
boxing, the Atlantic communities will
feel that practically they have done all
that was expected of them and will be
quite prepared to celebrate another
armistice day
We hear all sorts of guesSes at the
policy Germany is pursuing now. Obvi-
ously, Lord Van Sittart's long term. i'm
placably military Germany wants to drag
the United States into this war before
the shadoW-bo changes over to grim
reality. After the failure of the Hess
peace offensive-and how near that
to our Prime Minister for averting it we
can still only guess-it is plain that the
enemy realized that the Britain he was
lighting had the likeness of bull terrier
rather than an anti-Bolshevik fool. The
British have tasted their own blood. they
have been blistered and bombed, and
they will have no peace but a complete
German defeat.
But America has yet to be blooded 1t
is haunted by the shadow of a grave
social conflict and may be content to &C
cept this shadow boxing as a real war
and Germany scotched, but not killed,
as victory. In which case the third, last
and most disastrous punic war may be
expected in about II years from now.
1t Can Happen Here