The New York Times Book of World War II, 1939-1945

by The New York Times

  The reported agreement would permit Japanese troops to remain for two years in North and Central China, unless in the meantime “the new Government”—that is, the puppet Government—“demonstrates its ability to maintain peace and order.” Permanent Japanese garrisons would be stationed in North China and Inner Mongolia; Inner Mongolia would be “governed jointly” by the Japanese Army and Chinese, and Japan would “supervise” railroads, customs and economic development in China. General Chiang Kaishek is abundantly right in saying that such a peace would make China a Japanese protectorate in all but name.

  At a moment when Japan’s civilian leaders would like to rebuild friendship with the United States, these “terms” remind us that the mentality of Japan’s military commanders has not changed; and the absence of denial from Tokyo suggests that the army still controls the Japanese Government’s policy. Was it not the “moderate” and “liberal” Admiral Yonai, the new Premier, who announced the other day that Japan’s policy in China was “immutably fixed”? Apparently it is fixed in accordance with the army’s unchanging ideas. There is every sign in the “peace terms” that Japan still aims at the complete domination of China, to the detriment of Chinese and foreign interests alike. There is no word in them about respect for the foreign rights which the Japanese have violated in their ruthless and unjustified invasion.

  JANUARY 20, 1940

  NORWAY, DENMARK TO DEFEND BORDERS

  Two Scandinavian States Declare Neutrality but Will Fight if Freedom Is Threatened

  Special Cable to The New York Times.

  COPENHAGEN, Denmark, Jan. 19—Norway and Denmark today declared their absolute neutrality but added that if their independence was threatened they would employ all the military means at their command.

  Premier Theodor Stauning, supported by six Danish party leaders, recommended that the nation restate its policy, and the neutrality proposal, backed by the threat of military measures in the event of an attack, was adopted by a vote of 135 to none. There was one abstention—the representative from Schleswig, a German.

  The Communists as well as the National Socialists supported the proposal.

  The Norwegian Premier, Johann Nygaardsvold, was supported when he introduced a similar proposal. He added that a coalition government would not be considered until there was an actual question of war.

  During the debate on this issue the Liberal leader, Johann Ludwig Mowinckel, compared Norway’s position with that of Finland and added that in 1935 Russia had already made threats against Finland. He revealed conversations that he had had in Moscow and which in turn he had transmitted to his government.

  NORDIC NATIONS ACT

  COPENHAGEN, Denmark, Jan. 19 (AP)—Denmark struck out today with a firm declaration, adopted by a unanimous vote of the lower house of Parliament that her neutrality “must be maintained” and her independence defended.

  The declaration was echoed in Norway, where Prime Minister Johann Nygaardsvold told Parliament that any attacks upon the nation would be met with resistance.

  In neighboring Sweden, meanwhile, Stockholm authorities announced a new program of air raid defenses, including trenches in parks and additional shelters.

  The Danish declaration was designed partly to correct impressions abroad that Denmark, because of limited armaments, would not resist an attack.

  The pronouncement said:

  “The Lower House decides to declare that all parts of the Danish people agree that the country’s neutrality must be maintained and that all disposable means if necessary shall be used to keep order, preserve and protect the realm’s peace and independence and promise the Cabinet support in its work in this direction.”

  Danes said that both foreign policy and domestic politics were involved in the decision to make the public declaration.

  Political sources said that a precise pronouncement appeared required since there were suggestions abroad, based on a pessimistic New Year’s broadcast by Premier Theodor Stauning, that Denmark might be unwilling to put up armed resistance in event of attack.

  FEBRUARY 4, 1940

  REICH SMOKING BILL SOARS

  47 Billion Cigarettes Used in 1939—War Strain Cited

  Wireless to The New York Times.

  BERLIN, Feb. 3—The strain on humanity of the international situation evidences itself in many ways. In Germany in the critical year of 1939 it brought about a strong increase in the use of tobacco in all its forms.

  Reports state that 47,000,000,000 cigarettes, 9,000,000,000 cigars and 32,000,000 kilograms of pipe tobacco were smoked, while 7,000,000 kilograms were used as snuff. Of cigarettes alone, 15,000,000,000 more were smoked than during the pre-depression year of 1929. The total value of tobacco of all kinds sold last year amounted to about 3,000,000,000 marks.

  FEBRUARY 12, 1940

  WOMEN IN WAR

  Winston Churchill’s appeal for a million more women to work in British munition plants is another reminder that total warfare makes little distinction between the sexes. It is estimated that 4,000,000 women in England, Wales and Scotland will be drawn into industrial war work and millions more into the auxiliary services where men can be released. There has never been any such mass mobilization of women, not even toward the end of the World War. In the air raid precautions service alone 580,000 women have been enrolled and 35,000 are serving directly with the army. Feminine fliers have been found useful in transporting planes for the Royal Air Force, and 11,000 are registered as R. A. F. auxiliaries, with an equal number in training for the Women’s Royal Naval Service. The arrest of a member of the women’s aircraft service for desertion and her detention to await a court-martial emphasize the serious nature of the responsibilities women have assumed.

  The same tendency pervades every warring nation of Europe. In Finland the courageous women of the Lotta Svard supplement the fighting forces and are encountered far up on the battle fronts. In France women keep the farms going. In Germany they are asked to make new sacrifices in the name of patriotism. When a nation goes to war today, everybody goes. Women are simply engulfed in the general catastrophe like drops in a tide.

  FEBRUARY 25, 1940

  Hitler Leads in Poll

  Georgetown Students Vote on Leading Personalities

  Special to The New York Times.

  WASHINGTON, Feb. 24—Adolf Hitler was voted “the most outstanding personality in the world today” by students of the College of Arts and Sciences at Georgetown University in a campus poll undertaken by the Hoya, undergraduate weekly publication. Of 269 votes polled on this question, Hitler received 113. Pope Pius XII took second place with sixty-four, and President Roosevelt third with thirty-five.

  President Roosevelt and Postmaster General Farley placed first and second in the “favorite political figure” class, with District Attorney Dewey and Al Smith running third and fourth. Mr. Roosevelt was picked by eighty-nine students as top Presidential choice, with Mr. Dewey and Paul V. McNutt trailing in that order.

  The New York Times was ranked as the “favorite newspaper” by seventy-eight voters. Loyal to home products, thirty-nine put the Hoya in second place, and The New York Herald Tribune trailed in third position.

  Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt easily won the title of “most outstanding woman in the world today” with Queen Elizabeth nosing out Mme. Chiang Kai-Shek for second place.

  One hundred forty-nine voters listed “Girls and Love” as the favorite “bull-session” topic. Sports finished a poor second with twenty-seven votes, and war was third with eighteen.

  FEBRUARY 25, 1940

  SIX MONTHS’ BLOCKADE TESTS NAZI AUTARCHY

  By OTTO D. TOLISCHUS

  Wireless to The New York Times.

  BERLIN, Feb. 24—Although Germany bitterly complains about the new British “hunger blockade” which would starve her women and children and therefore justifies the most drastic counter-measures, her spokesmen also proclaim that by virtue of her own autarchy, her foresight and her remaining foreign trade—especi
ally her political and economic rapprochement with Russia—Germany really has made herself blockade-proof. In fact, her spokesmen say, time is working not against Germany as in the last war, but for Germany, which day by day and in every way is getting stronger and stronger.

  What is the truth about these apparently contradictory assertions?

  Unfortunately, the truth is not so easy to obtain, for, in totalitarian warfare statisticians are joined to the propaganda forces so that statistics either are lacking or must be taken with a whole cellarful of salt, a safe way of reading them being to discount what they claim and accept only what they admit. But, with this qualification, an approximate estimate of the situation is still possible.

  FINANCIAL CONDITION

  The problem of material resources readily divides itself into three parts—finance, food and raw materials.

  As regards finance, the government and its agencies already collect some 40 per cent of the national income in taxes and levies. In addition, the government also has mortgaged for its benefit all of the nation’s savings and a good part of its remaining wealth. The declared public debt long since has passed 50,000,000,000 marks (it was 49,699,000,000 marks by the end of October, 1939). Methods of financing are causing so many headaches among financial experts that the projected additional tax and other financial measures still await the light of day.

  Members of the British Auxiliary Territorial Transport Service trundling lorry wheels across the barrack square at Eastern Command in Bedfordshire, England, in 1939.

  As regards food, Germany claimed to be 82 per cent self-sufficient before the Polish conquest, and conquered territories rapidly are being converted into granaries with true German efficiency. But Germany was 80 per cent self-sufficient in food before the last war as well and had even larger conquered territories at her disposal during that war. Yet she was forced to her knees by a “hunger blockade.” The National Socialist regime blames her defeat on mismanagement and lack of foresight of the imperial regime, especially the great “pig murder” early in the last war, undertaken to save feed, and boasts that nothing like it can happen again. Its ration system, introduced even before hostilities began, and its agricultural “production battles,” going on for years, are cited as proof of this.

  STORE OF RAW MATERIALS

  As regards raw materials, the German Institute for Business Research figured out as early as July, 1938, a self-sufficiency “of 65 per cent,” which, theoretically, should be much higher now owing to the progress of the Four-Year plan. But the institute itself warned that “according to the ‘law of minimum’ even small gaps in the raw-material supply can exert a great influence on production possibilities if the lacking goods are absolutely necessary for the manufacture of certain commodities.” In other words, lack of a few pounds of copper might stop a whole armament plant. And that the war has curtailed supply is evidenced by the fact that despite a drastic crack-down on all production for civilian use, stored stocks are rapidly being used up.

  In both food and raw materials, therefore, Germany remains dependent upon her foreign trade.

  All in all, it appears, therefore, that the blockade is unable to starve out Germany, and so far at least has been unable to cripple her war machine, which still is working at capacity. But it has definitely put Germany on short rations in every respect. And whether these rations cripple Germany’s military might will depend largely on the conduct and duration of the war.

  MARCH 13, 1940

  Finnish Losses, Soviet Gains Under Pact

  Russia is to get a lease on Hangoe (1), the entire Karelian Isthmus (2), territory east of Maerkaejaervi (3) and parts of the Sredni and Rybachi Peninsulas (4). The gains are shown approximately by the diagonal shading.

  MARCH 21, 1940

  UNITY IS PARIS AIM

  ‘Strong’ Leader Is Called to Satisfy Critics of War Inaction

  By P. J. PHILIP

  Wireless to The New York Times.

  PARIS, March 20—Dramatically in the last hours, but following a long series of incidents that steadily indicated the probability of that finale, Premier Edouard Daladier resigned today, and of course his entire Cabinet resigned with him.

  Tonight Paul Reynaud is considering the invitation of President Albert Lebrun extended this afternoon that he should form another Cabinet. He has promised that tomorrow morning he will answer whether he is willing to undertake the task; that is to say, he considers that he will know by then whether he would be likely to succeed.

  Opinion in many quarters tonight inclines to the belief that M. Reynaud will accept. He has certainly that energy of mind and purpose that first the Senate and then the Chamber of Deputies have asked for the conduct of the war. Most probably, if he forms his Cabinet, he will himself take the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and keep M. Daladier at the Ministry of War if the latter will consent.

  MAY INCLUDE TWO SOCIALISTS

  He is credited also tonight with wishing to take two representative Socialists into the Cabinet. In the past he has always been a user of slogans, and his slogan just now seems to be that when one is in a war parties and personalities do not matter. The only thing that matters is winning. If he succeeds in getting the requisite support, this will be his first Premiership.

  [The Socialists, the largest party, were not represented in the Daladier Cabinet. M. Daladier was reported last night to have changed his mind and agreed to enter a Reynaud Cabinet as Minister of Defense, according to The Associated Press. It also was reported that Georges Mandel would remain as Minister of Colonies.]

  Meanwhile the effect on public opinion of Premier Daladier’s resignation is what matters most of all. That it should have happened at the end of a secret session of the Chamber is considered unfortunate. The voters in this country like to know the reasons why their Deputies vote or abstain from voting the way they do.

  It is admitted that there has been much criticism of the way the war was being conducted and that criticism has been principally that the Premier did not adapt his actions quickly enough to circumstances.

  He has lacked initiative and imagination, his critics say, and the failure to support Finland quickly enough has been taken as an example, not because any one seriously believes that more could have been done directly for Finland, but as an indication of what might happen elsewhere if the same tempo of doing things were continued.

  If these and other criticisms had been made in open session, it would undoubtedly have been better. That they were made secretly and ended in a very confused vote is not likely to help the formation of any other Daladier Cabinet. M. Reynaud may succeed. If he does not, others probably will be called, and if none of them can succeed, it seems inevitable that President Lebrun will turn again to the man who was not so much defeated as forced to resign because so many Deputies abstained from voting.

  MARCH 24, 1940

  PARIS AND BERLIN: A REVEALING CONTRAST

  By ANNE O’HARE McCORMICK

  Paris (By Wireless).

  At every turn Paris proclaims that it is the capital of a France at war. It is a city girded for battle, prepared for bombardment, ready with every form of succor for expected casualties. In a day here you meet more volunteer workers, hear of more “foyers” for this, that and the other service for soldiers, see more signs of behind-the-front war activity, than you encounter in a month in Berlin.

  War is a leveling process and the face of war is singularly alike in all countries, but the first glimpse of Paris after Berlin illuminates the whole difference between two systems of government and two patterns of life. France at war has passed under a form of government control as complete in some respects as that prevailing at all times across the Rhine. Yet in the very aspect of the two capitals it is clear at once that in one the authorities attend to everything and in the other the habit of private enterprise and individual initiative is too strong to be smothered even under the iron mask of war.

  An officer on leave from the front was describing yesterday a small
engagement in which a French scouting party of nine men was suddenly confronted by a compact company of fifty-four Germans. By instinct, without orders he said, the French immediately fell apart and formed a long line while the Germans advanced in formation, all together, with the result that nine Frenchmen lost only two of their men and captured seven of the Germans.

  The incident is typical of the contrast one immediately feels between the mass formation of Germany and the one-by-one march of France. Whether the self-regulated will win proportionate victories over the ordered mass when the opposing forces are multiplied by thousands is not only the supreme question of the war but its main issue. Daily it becomes plainer that the struggle in Europe is the Apocalypse of the long drawn-out fight of man to control the machine. For at its apogee the machine is a war machine, and Hitler is only that machine made flesh, utterly careless of the individual and especially contemptuous of that private monopoly of himself and the use of his own mind which the Frenchman guards with peculiar obstinacy.

  Two other contrasts between Berlin and Paris immediately hit the eye. Paris is not only the capital of France at war. It is the Allied war capital, the military center for both nations as obviously as London is the political center.