The New York Times Book of World War II, 1939-1945
Page 28
RETURNS TO CABINET
Mr. Churchill returned to the Cabinet as Secretary of State for War and Minister for Air in the government formed by Mr. Lloyd George in December, 1918. His political influence waned in the middle twenties to the point where he was defeated for Parliament in Dundee, and it was a long time before he was called out of what amounted to a retirement. Then Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin made him Chancellor of the Exchequer, a post held by his father, Lord Randolph Churchill.
After the rise of Adolf Hitler Mr. Churchill was one of those who insisted that another war would be the result of the German rearmament program, and he kept on insisting until, in 1937, Great Britain took a step toward meeting the challenge by initiating a naval building program.
On Sept. 4, 1939, the day after war between Great Britain and Germany was declared, all units of the British fleet received a code message which said, simply, “Winston is back.” Prime Minister Chamberlain had made him once again the First Lord of the Admiralty.
MAY 11, 1940
ALLIES SEE VICTORY IN LOW COUNTRIES
Military Leaders Emphasize Strength Of the Defenses Of Netherlands And Belgium
By HAROLD DENNY
Special Cable to The New York Times.
LONDON, May 10—Though the scope and exact objectives of Germany’s sudden invasion of the Low Countries cannot be defined this early, military leaders express complete confidence in the ability of the British and French to defeat Germany if the new operation takes the nature of a wheel into Northern France, such as Britain’s little army faced in 1914.
The German armies will meet far more effective opposition than they encountered in the last war. When the Kaiser’s armies swept through the Netherlands and Belgium in 1914, the defenses, even forts such as the Germans reduced at Liege, were only embryonic compared with the deep, strong, elaborate fortifications of today.
The Netherlanders and Belgians have devised elaborate water and other obstacles the Germans must conquer if they are to arrive in Northern France. If the Germans manage to get through the Netherlands and Belgium and arrive at the French border it is believed here they would be a tired, battered force with much of their elaborate, costly equipment smashed.
The British and French have been confident of their ability to stop the Germans with terrible losses. The junior officers have been hoping Herr Hitler would attack the Low Countries because they believe that would end the war much more quickly.
Higher officers of the British Expeditionary Force in France have avoided overconfidence, never ruling out the possibility that Germany or some other combatant might devise some new means to overcome tank traps that now seem impregnable. But they remain confident that any right wheel through the Low Countries into France would do far less damage to the Allies and suffer far more itself than happened in 1914. Military opinion among the allies and neutral observers here tends to the belief that developments in defense since the last war have outstripped developments in offense.
If Herr Hitler’s purpose turns out to be not to invade France, but merely to use the Netherlands and Belgium as bases for raids against England, then it will be a job for Britain’s air force and navy as well as the army, and Britain also has confidence in these other arms. If Herr Hitler begins intensive air raids on London and other British centers, the air force and anti-aircraft defenses unquestionably will take a heavy toll of his planes and would present the question of how long he could keep on spending planes, pilots and gasoline.
FRENCH HELP IMMEDIATE
By G. H. ARCHAMBAULT
Wireless to The New York Times.
PARIS, May 10—The French military reaction to the invasion of the Low Countries was immediate. The German move had been threatened so long that there was little surprise. Defense plans had been perfected since the first alarm in mid-January.
It seems likely that the German intention is to cut off the Netherlands from Belgium and cut off Belgium from France by using swift, mechanized columns and large air forces. This process was applied in Poland and repeated in Norway.
But the Netherlands and Belgium are prepared. Competent circles here believe the mechanized divisions will find their progress impeded soon after they cross the frontiers. In Belgium everything had been prepared east of the Meuse River to blow up highways, railroads and bridges in a few minutes. At other points roads have been obstructed by rock and felled trees for 100 yards or more.
Everywhere there are machine gun emplacements, sweeping all possible lines of advance. Similar precautions had been taken in the Netherlands. All the water defenses in both countries were ready to operate instantly.
It is no secret that the Allies have had a large mobile force constantly prepared at the Belgian border. It seems likely that once more Belgium will be the cockpit of Europe for a war of movement.
It must not be forgotten that the Maginot Line in the last eight months has been extended from the Luxembourg border to the North Sea, that everywhere it is very strong and that French morale is at its highest point.
MAY 11, 1940
TIMES SQUARE THRONG IS SOMBER AND GRIM
Crowds Fill Area to Watch the Latest War Bulletins
The intense interest in the latest war developments was reflected again yesterday by the crowds that filled Times Square to read the bulletin boards about the base of the Times Building.
As night fell and the electric sign spun out the newer reports fifteen patrolmen and three mounted policemen were sent into the area to keep the crowds watching the bulletins on the move. The press became so great in the early evening that the roadway was partly filled by spectators and vehicular and pedestrian traffic was impeded.
During the daylight hours five patrolmen were needed to break up the groups that formed to debate the war after digesting the bulletin board notes and studying the detailed maps in the windows of the Times Building.
A month ago, when the Nazis invaded Scandinavia, the discussion of international affairs was of less interest to the cracker barrel forum than the airing of personal opinions about ideologies. The throngs yesterday were far more somber and tempers were more even. The orators seemed deeply concerned about the future attitude of the United States Government.
As homeward-bound throngs paused to read the bulletins their conversations indicated a growing fear that the war was getting close to home. Even the women, who during previous international crises had given the news reports scant attention, studied the bulletins carefully.
MAY 12, 1940
ARMY CORPS MOVES 600 MILES IN 6 DAYS
41,000 ‘Blue’ Troops Travel From Georgia To Louisiana in a ‘Lightning’ War
Completing the largest and fastest mass movement of armed troops ever witnessed in this country during peacetime, 41,000 khaki-clad soldiers and officers of the Fourth Corps finished the first phase of the Third Army manoeuvres when they arrived in Louisiana yesterday after a forced overland march covering more than 600 miles in less than six days.
Airborne Infantry officer using a “walkie-talkie,” a radio field telephone, during maneuvers of the Third Army, in 1940.
Long columns of army trucks, rumbling tanks, armored cars and official staff cars were still pouring westward along the nation’s highways yesterday morning. The long route of march took them from Georgia across Alabama and Mississippi to converge at Alexandria, La., for a big ten-day “battle”—an unprecedented peacetime manoeuvre against the Ninth Corps, based on San Antonio, Texas.
Designated as the “Red” army, the Ninth Corps troops theoretically are invading the United States, pushing with mechanized and motorized units eastward through Texas to the Sabine River area in Louisiana, where the “Blues,” or Fourth Corps troops, are converging to check the assault. Facing a superiority in numbers, plus sudden unexpected assaults by enemy planes, the advance guard of the “Blue” Fourth Corps lost in the first encounter with the invaders. But reinforced yesterday so as to reach its full strength of the some 41,000 soldiers, the “Blue”
defending army will begin the second phase of the manoeuvres this week with a numerical superiority over the “Red” army, which numbers about 30,000 troops.
Along the route of last week’s unprecedented military march, interrupted only by overnight bivouacs, the Fourth Corps, commanded by Major Gen. Walter C. Short, organized the services of about 9,000 civilians to warn the defending army of approaching enemy planes. Serving the “Blue” forces as they would in time of war, this watching group of citizenry, made up largely of American Legion members, reported to the staff of the defending army all enemy moves on land and in the air.
It was probably the most extensive aircraft warning system ever established in this country. In addition to the citizens’ corps, fifty planes from the navy’s training school at Pensacola, Fla., took part in the aircraft warning plan, but the navy planes will not participate in the actual field manoeuvres.
As the second phase of the fighting continues this week, practically every officer of the regular army and those reserve officers who have been invited to watch the manoeuvres are intently focusing their attention on the tactics of lightning war which the Third Army exercises, under Lieut. Gen. Stanley D. Embick, are expected to illustrate graphically.
With three of the army’s new triangular, or “stream-lined,” divisions, along with a provisional tank brigade, comprising the principal units of the Fourth Corps, and one triangular division, plus a horsed cavalry division which includes the army’s only completely mechanized cavalry brigade, as principal units of the Ninth Corps, the manoeuvres are the first in the peace-time history of the country to involve two army corps of the regular army. The mechanized and motorized units of this highly mobile force are expected to provide military men with practical experience in handling powerful combat units, and to serve as excellent instruction in the military art of lightning war.
Product of the army’s reorganization program, the new-type division has 11,000 men, about half as many as were mustered by the old “square” division which contained about 22,000 troops. Because it is fully organized with new and improved weapons, the “streamlined” division has a fire power equal to that of the old unit, while in traveling speed the new division can make time considerably faster than the old.
About 400 tanks, some of them of experimental design, are participating in the Louisiana-Texas manoeuvres, while more than 340 scout and armored cars make up the combined mechanized reconnaissance forces.
In addition, there is an air armada of 128 planes, including bombers, pursuit, attack and observation ships, which will act to disorganize, if possible, the enemy infantry forces and to make air raids against communications and supply units. In all, more than 8,000 vehicles of all types are being used in the manoeuvres, and of this number some 3,500 are new, high-powered trucks, command cars or special vehicles.
Adolf Hitler at his headquarters at Bruly-de-Peche, Ardennes, Belgium, with General Alfred Jodl to Hitler’s left and Field Marshal Walter von Brauchitsc to his right during the campaign of May-June 1940.
MAY 13, 1940
GERMAN ARMY TACTICS
By HANSON W. BALDWIN
The attack upon the Low Countries, which was approaching its first climax yesterday, is apparently developing in accordance with the time-honored tactical system of the German Army.
The flank attack, or the “double envelopment,” has long been the favorite German tactic; planes have now enabled the Germans to attempt the so-called “vertical envelopment” by means of parachute troops against the defenders of the Netherlands.
Where the front is continuous and no flank exists the Germans endeavor to make flanks by a break-through, and then enlarging the gap thus made. In Belgium the break-through of the first Belgian defensive line apparently has been made near Maastricht, north of Liège; and German mechanized and motorized forces, covered by air power, may now attempt to fan out over the Belgian plain to exploit the break and if possible to encircle the Belgian Army in much the same manner that Hannibal destroyed an army of Romans 2,000 years ago.
Throughout most of German military history the flanking or encircling attack has been a favorite manoeuvre, and it was the double envelopment—Cannae on the grand scale—that the Germans so successfully used in their Polish “Blitzkrieg.”
Cannae in 216 B.C. (in itself a “conscious copy of the tactics of Marathon,” 490 B.C.) was Hannibal’s most brilliant victory against the Romans. With 50,000 troops he faced the Romans’ 86,000. Hannibal made both his flanks extremely strong, the Carthaginians enveloped or outflanked the Romans on both wings, surrounded and annihilated them. Cannae has gone down in history as a classic of military perfection to be studied, and if possible emulated.
WORLD WAR TACTIC TRIED AGAIN
It was this same principle of the flank attack that the Germans, in their attack through Belgium, tried in the World War, and it is the same tactic of assault upon one, or preferably both, of the enemy’s wings that dominates their military thought today.
But the steel and concrete fortifications of the Western Front and the more or less protected flanks of the French and British Armies may force—as was the case in the World War—an adaptation of the tactic of encirclement.
Captain Rohr, a young, brilliant German staff officer, was among the first to realize during the World War that the bloody battering against fortified lines and strong trench systems was getting nowhere. There developed the tactics of “infiltration,” which are simply opportunistic tactics. In the offense a continuous pressure against the enemy’s lines was developed; wherever a weak spot appeared it was immediately exploited; troops were poured into the breach, without regard to the strong points and citadels of resistance left unconquered on either side of them, and the local “break-through” was then exploited and widened by pushing on into the enemy’s rear areas and by encircling the flanks thus created.
Tanks and mechanized forces are used to exploit the breaches made and to keep the battle moving; tank masses may be thrown against the weakened enemy lines after the main assault has cracked or split the defensive structure.
The German offensive doctrine is methodical but not cautious. Careful and precise preparations for every attack are always made; secrecy and deception—to veil their intentions—and surprise—to give them maximum effect—are much valued.
FREE SCOPE IN ACTUAL BATTLE
But once the gage of battle is joined, much is left to the discretion of the field officers, particularly to battalion commanders; the battle is decentralized as much as possible; initiative is strongly stressed. For the German military mind—though popularly associated with rigidity and inelasticity—is prepared to accept risks, knowing that no battle can be fought, no war won without the assumption of risks, recognizing that “war, far from being an exact science, is a terrifying and passionate drama.” And the German “Truppenfuehrung,” or “Field Service Regulations,” specifically state, that “in spite of technique, the worth of man is the decisive factor.”
Initiative, flexibility and mobility are the keynote of German offensive tactics. The importance of fire effect is stressed. The artillery is handled somewhat like Pelham’s famous battery of “Jeb” Stuart’s cavalry; sometimes in the attack it trundles almost on the infantry’s heels; indeed the German infantry regiment, to increase its fire effect and the power of its attack, is probably more heavily equipped with howitzers and heavy machine guns than the regiment of any other army.
In the attack no rigid tactical objectives are set; modern German Army leaders believe, as Nelson did a generation before them, that no commander can do far wrong if he keeps in contact with the enemy. Schlieffen’s Motto “Waegen und Wagen”—weigh the chances, then chance the risks—still expresses the spirit of German offensive tactics.
MAY 14, 1940
ISOLATION HOPE FUTILE, SAYS HULL
He Tells International Lawyers We Cannot Close Our Eyes to ‘Orgy of Destruction’
Special to The New York Times.
WASHING
TON, May 13—The world is threatened with “an orgy of destruction not only of life and property but of religion, of morality, of the very bases of civilized society,” Secretary Hull declared tonight.
Americans cannot close their eyes to the menace abroad, strong though their nation is; nor can they delude themselves “with the mere hope that somehow all this will pass us by.” Mr. Hull said before the annual meeting of the American Society of International Law, of which he is president.
“Our own nation, powerful as it is and determined as it is to remain at peace, to preserve its cherished institutions and to promote the welfare of its citizens,” he warned, “is not secure against that menace. We cannot shut it out by attempting to isolate and insulate ourselves. We cannot be certain of safety and security when a large part of the world outside our borders is dominated by the forces of international lawlessness.”
The United States is already feeling the repercussion of these lawless forces, he reminded his listeners, by being obliged to build up “immense” armaments at the cost of improvements in the standard of living.
CALLS FOR UNITED PUBLIC OPINION
The Secretary of State voiced a plea for “a wholly united public opinion” in support of this country’s efforts to keep alive in the world the principle of order under law.
The “truly terrifying developments” of recent years have stunned millions of persons, who become “a prey to doubt, hopelessness and despair,” Mr. Hull said.
He mentioned no nations by name and couched his speech in the language of an objective plea for the preservation and extension of international law as a basis for relations among sovereign countries.