THE CHINA MAIL, APRIL 4, 1941.
CHINA MAIL New
Trend
WINDSOR HOUSE
WAR PRODUCTION
'No one who under- tands the immensity of
In War
adopted in the last war.
fall, while Wendell L. Willkie
he task of turning over As Axis moves in the Balkans ndustry from a peace to appear to herald the opening of a war basis will have been new campaign, signs begin to multiply that Great Britain is pre- urprised at Mr. Chur-paring to conduct the struggle on hill's recent statement, entirely different lines from those hat Britain is still only a That is why any estimate of the partially armed nation. outcome at this stage is highly uncertain and why we have at Under the modern con-
one and the same time Colonel eption of total war a na- Lindbergh giving technical rea- ion is only fully armed sons for Britain's expected down- when industrial war pro-furnishes well-authenticated in- luction reaches a maxi- num such as to keep fully equipped the largest pos sible fighting force. The number of men who can profitably be trained to ight is limited by the capacity to equip them German occupation of adequately. Far more took away Britain's chief ally, but munitions will be needed for, say, 4,000,000 soldiers
formation indicating probable British victory.
The very completeness of the German victories in the first half last year has enabled Mr. Churchill to discard a line
of strategy which Britain followed in 1914 and 1918 and which its leaders clung to tenaciously up to the moment when Mr. Churchill
took over the Government.
France
it also took away one of the most |
pernicious sources of defeat-the West Front theory.
n this war than for Scope of Dunkirk 6,000,000 in the last.
pay, the new unity is an immense asset and likely to take effect in surprising ways during the com- ing campaign.
This West Front theory-the "billy-goat tactics," as Mr. Lloyd George termed it, "butting away
What Mr. Churchill--and Mr.
him George before
had To achieve the desired Lloyd
been struggling to get rid of for results requires the most nearly a quarter of a century was exact organisation of all effectively liquidated for all pre- sent purposes at historic Dunkirk. the major activities of the with the disappearance of
the country. Control at the West Front myth. Britain becomes united in its strategic outlook, and top is essential, and the while the loss of France and the people have asked noth-Low Countries is a heavy price to ing better than that they should be told what each should do in the common cause. From the moment that conscription for the one's strength against unbreak- army was adopted it was able
the postulate that the war could generally agreed that the only be won by defeating Ger- same fundamental must many in the west and that armed strength should not be frittered be applied to civilians, and that the Government sidiary fronts. should have power to con- trol property and profits, and the labour of men and women, rich and poor alike.
walls"--was built around
away by sending it to other sub-
Strongly advocated by Joffre, Halg, and some of the most in- fluential members of the British
and French Governments and
for
services, this theory was respon sible the loss of almost 1,000,000 French and German sol- diers during the terrifle eight-day German attack ол Verdun in
The machinery to be in February, 1916. set in motion was intri-
It was responsible for the loss of the flower of Britain's youth cate. The fighting ser- 480,000 from schools and univer- vices had to decide what sities in the attack on the Ger man lines at the Somme the ful-
at Arras and Messines between
schendaele
+
SIDI
BARRANI
BARENTE
KEREN
TALIAN AFRICAN
EMPIRK
AGORDA
AN OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE
(Leaving it to Mussolini to try and conjure the picces to- gether again.)
points with devastating sureness. weeks and months in wrangles be-
While the West Front theory gave | tween Lloyd George, Haig, Joffre, maritime supremacy, the navy is policy to adopt, or between Chur- Britain no advantage from its Millerand and the rest as to what
the key to Britain's policy to-day.
chill and Fisher as to whether to force the Dardanelles. She has Signor Mussolini, failing to ob- lost Russia as an ally, but it may serve this revolutionary change of well be that effective help to the tactics, and assuming that he had indomitable and self-reliant little value than no an open lane for supplies to his Greece has more
empire launched help at all from millions of Rus- North African his attack on Egypt last August, sian soldiers, who in 1915 as soon as France had dropped 1916 were impotent because they out. To his surprise he found the had no ammunition.
while the
lane suddenly closed,
of blundering British-instead
or
equipment they needed.lowing June; for 300,000 more, The supply departments butting against the German lines placed orders on a gigan April and June in 1917 and 430,000 along with insufficient men
the tic scale with firms cap-more in the Flanders mud of Pas- supplies as they had done at Gal-
the following Sep-lipoli in April, 1915, when able of adapting them tember.
125,000 "Anzacs" landed to find plants. There was im- And for all this tragic cost in the Turks unsurprised and well tens of millions of prepared to meet them-in two mense demand for mashells, and even the whole Mes- months disposed of his army and chine tools and skilled la sinos ridge blown off by long and all Eastern Libya. at a cost of less bour. More tools had to elaborate mining operations, only than 1,000
a few square miles of territory selves. be manufactured, more were gained.
men, with
casualties to them-
Russian Failure
and
Every day desperate appeals were being sent from General Yanushkevitch, Chief of Staff of the Grand Duke-Nicholas, to the War Minister. "Two or three times a day cartridges are asked for from the fronts, and there are none, My heart is heavy," the un- happy general would plead. More- over, the 'Russian people to-day are little likely to be more help-. ful to the conquering Nazis than the Czechs or Norwegians who are already under the German heel-
and at the right moment is the
man who above all has been try ing to shift Britain's 'policy from the West Front to the world-wide!!
The net result so far for Britain | naval policy. is two new bases in the central Mediterranean at Crete and Ben- ghazi-which bid fair to eliminate and prospect of Signor Mussolini's making further claims to control of the Mediterranean
Fascist Fallacy labour trained. Care had Reversal of Polidy- to be taken that the rate
By a similar miscalculation, Mr. Churchill reverses when on Oct. 28-the Duco de- of production of one party he attacks where the cided to invade Greece, he found of a weapon kept pace enemy is weak, instead of where that the British, instead of land-
From the human staridpoint; an ill-equipped, ineffective with the rate of produc- the enemy is strong: He may have ing
only a fraction of the men and force at Salonika as the Allles while Britain is in some ways tion of other parts manu arms that were assembled on the had done in 1915; with some idea weaker in political leadership than factured in perhaps many Allied front in 1916 and 1917, but of proceeding against the Turks she was in 1914, yet the Palme everything he has is effective. were able to send timely equip-Minister who gave General Wavell all the men and equipment he other factories.,
He may have lost most of the ment to the Greeks by sea, with needed for the campaign in Libya continent, but the continent is a an effective air force detachment Registration for service getting miss of discontent and to supplement their bombing and in the Forces has now incipient rebelllon, so that the reconnaissance work,
German occupation is only partial. been followed by the in-
y effective: dustrial registration of Moreover, if he does not control the civilian population by the land, he controls the sea and can uncover the enemy's weak age-groups-that is, by the making of lists of those who may be called over and run industrial on to serve the State in undertakings. national" industry. Com How far this vast ma- pulsion in like manner is chinery of production has remains intact, there is every rea- Considerations such as these. applied to employers who, been organised to: the son to suppose that it will pro- must be thrown into the balance
ceed to uncover the Nazl weak before one can size up: the pros if engaged in vital, war best possible advantage points, as it has uncovered the pacts of the war. work, have no longer the cannot yet be fully judgItalian for though, the Nally ure In the matter of the imponder- an entirely different propositionables that play so vital. a part in right to dismiss their em ed, but there is no doubt from the fallan Black Shirts, the the final destiny of human af- ployees except for mis that equipment is now vast extent of their conquests may fairs, they mount up to a formid- be expected to leave, inevitable able array the more so since the conduct, and the Gov coming into production weak points.
new strategy of sea control, unlike the strategy of the West, Fronts ment has the power on a sole that is literally
Britain has lost, France and Bel- makes cooperation from America ingly exercised,
enormous.
-gium, But the will: hồ longan wante; both easy Fatidseffective;
Heavier tests, than these-may be expected to face the British at any mament, but so long as the fleet
He is the man who in 1915, as First Lord of the Admiralty had the enterprise to spend £70,000' of ' public money on unauthorised ex- periments in a field that was no official concern of his-tests with a new contraption subsequently known as the "tank."