Evening star., 1943-02-24
Nozis Held Fighting
To Sustain Prestige
Advantage Of Hitting Foe
Hard and Promptly Cited
By Major Eliot
By Maj. George Fielding Eliot.
Monday was a day of bad news.

| By MAJ. George FielduQ Eliot.
Monday was a day of bad news
American forces in Africa suffered
fresh reverses. Enemy submarines took
a heavy toll of lives in the Atlantic.
| Premier Stain warned that heavy fight
| ing lay ahead, despite all the victories
| of the Red Army, Many Americans
| thereupon awoke with a sudden shock
| from the roseate and optimistic dreams
| Of the past month or two and began to
| realize that there is lot of fight left in
| the enemy, and that victory is not Just
| around the corner
| In this sense, the bad news had a
| beneficial effect, which has been height
ened by the frankness and promptness
| with which the War Department in
| Washington and Gen. Dwight Eisen-
| hower's command in North Africa in
| formed the country of the setbacks in
| tnat area. This is all to the good and
| the country has reason to be grateful
| to the Secretary of War, to Gen. Eisen-
hover, and to Maj. Gen. Alexander D.
SurIes, in charge of Army Public Rela-
tions.
The fact is, that on the African front
the enemy is successfully gaining what
he is fighting for there-time to make
himself more secure within the fortress
Of Europe, and perhaps little prestige
Ito be gained if he can extend his pres
ent successes to hold his wavering
allies and satellites in line, and to
hold in check the rising tide of revolt
t1a Of +Io
tries. In Russia. meanwhile, he is with
drawing to positions which he can better
defend, with shortened lines Of COM
munication
The less he has to spend In men and
! resources on the job of transportation,
the more he can devote to fighting and
to production. While all this Is going
U-boats to delay the accumulation of
American power on the other side of
that ocean
All these operations are intercon-
nected, and must be read in the light of
the present objective of the German
high command: Not to win, for they no
| longer hope for that, but to make the
S>tH
and to get some sort of peace while the
present rulers of Germany, or at least
the German general staff, still retains
some measure of,power or standing with
the German people.
In other words, they want a breathing
space, and chance for comeback 20,
or 80, or so years hence Their purpose
is world domination, and they regard
peace and war as mere incidents in their
| unending and relentless struggle toward
, that goal.
Our purpose is the exact reverse of
thelrs-the attainment of peaceful
| world, in which free people can live,
develop and be happy. free from the
fear of conquest or enslavement We can
reach that goal only by the utter des-
tructlon of the elements now ruling Ger
many, both NaZi and Prussian- military;
not only by physical destruction, but by
the destruction in the hearts and minds
of the German people of the evil myth
by which they have been so long de-
ceived.
There Is but one means of doing this,
and that means is victory-victory as.
swift, as overwhelming, and as unmis-
taxable as we can make it, Stains
anxiety lest the enemy be allowed time
to recover from the Russian blows Is
perfectly understandable
The Germans must be allowed no
respite; 1t is for respite that they are
fighting in Africa, for a chance to reor-
ganize shattered divisions, to reallocate
their manpower and material between
the armed forces and the civilian fronts,
to train men and women in new duties;
to rearm formations with new weapons.
to complete defensive preparations; but
above all, to restore to some extent
German prestige or rather the prestige
of the Nazi-Prusslan ruling caste with
the German people, their slaves, their
satellites, and with the few remaining
neutrals.
Disaster in Russia followed swiftly by
disaster in Africa and that again fol-
lowed by fresh disaster on some new
front would mark definitely the transi-
ton from what Prime Minister Churchill
has called "the end of the beginning" to
the beginning Of the end for the German
war loros. But disaster in Russia fol-
lowed by even qualified success in Africa,
and that in turn by long period of
semi-stalemate, would have an entirely
different effect
That is why it is so vitally important
| to push the African campaign through
to Anal conclusion quickly; that is why
! it Is so vitally important to open new
| front against Germany as soon as mill
| tary conditions make it possible to do
! so. The time to strike harder is when
! the enemy shows signs of weakening;
| every boxer knows that Well-placed
| blow at the end of a round in which his
| opponent has suffered badly may be
| worth a dozen blows at the beginning of
the next round after that same oppo-
nent has had chance of rest and re-
! freshment.
| increasingly as this year progresses. 1t
will be Americas responsibility to strike
the decisive blows which alone can bring
| this war to victorious end Those blows
will be struck the harder and the quick
er, if we have confidence that when the
| news is bad-as sometimes it will be-
it will be told us frankly, and if we have
! full realization that when the news is
good, it is cause not for SNUG satisfac-
! ton but for ever tiercer effort to make