European Front

ON THE WORLD TODAY

THE loss of the Crimea, the defeat on the Nogaisk steppes, the shattering of von Mannstein’s army, the drive past Kiev, the northern smash toward the Polish border, all verify the worst fears of the Nazi High Command. They must know the war is being lost.

Russia feints and hammers to keep the fagged Wehrmacht off balance from the Baltic to the Black Sea, while making ready to throw a fresh winter army (estimated at nearly 2,000,000 men) into the coming winter assault. For the first time since the Wehrmacht clanked into Poland to begin this war, many of its finest divisions are experiencing rout. Losses of equipment in the Southern Ukraine have stripped the fugitive remnants of half their machinery and weapons.

What German reserves?

When the tides of war turned against the Germans in the East, the High Command decided to widen a belt of utter devastation between the German armies and their Russian foe, and to dump a crushing burden on Russia’s meager food supply by turning millions of destitute back into her hands in a region rendered incapable of sheltering or supporting them. This plan is attested by the record of the Germans themselves as well as by the appalling reports of ruin and atrocity witnessed by the advancing Red armies.

Germany made every effort to prepare the defense line of the Pripet marshes, the Dnieper, and the Crimea. The Todt organization had half a million labor slaves at work on this “unshatterable defense” system in early August. By this means the Nazis expected to create a new strategic reserve of some fifty divisions, which could be thrown to the defense of the Italian approaches to the Reich. Such forces would outnumber heavily the entire Allied Mediterranean expeditionary army. These calculations lie in wreckage on the Nogaisk steppes and the marshes of the Dnieper. The unfolding consequences of Italian collapse, the speed with which the Russians reconstruct communications, and the disruption of the Dnieper line compel frantic demands for reserves from the rest of Europe.

Mile by mile the armies of General Eisenhower continue to blast their way through Italy, flailing Rommel’s veterans with the scourges of air superiority, pounding his coastal flanks with sea armadas, pulverizing his elaborate upland defenses with artillery.

In the Balkans, disintegration of German plans forces the Axis to wage three campaigns simultaneously against Greek, Partisan, Albanian, Chetnik, and Montenegrin guerrillas. Meanwhile a new invasion front, forecast by Marshal Jan Smuts in his speech at London, is being developed by the Allies.

The southern battle line in Europe lengthens from Italy eastward toward Thrace. Will the timetable for invasion of the West from Britain be advanced, to synchronize with developments in the East and the Mediterranean? What other implication can we draw from the pledge of the Allies at Moscow, to “take steps to shorten the war”?

The victory of Moscow

If the impact of military reverses on the Nazis is tremendous, the weight of the blow delivered at Germany’s political position by the Moscow Conference is equally staggering. The agreements reached at that meeting of minds are as important for the Allies in this war as victory in half a dozen battles. The spirit of accommodation and realism shown by their decisions strengthens the continuity of their war alliance and carries their association powerfully forward toward the peace.

The Conference undermines the Nazi political position in Europe. It slams the door on Germany’s hope for Allied schism, a separate peace, or a negotiated settlement begotten by stalemate. The pledge of a new, democratic Italy, whose rebirth is to be supervised by Greece, Yugoslavia, and France as well as by the major Allies, cancels the fiction of the Italian “Fascist Republic” instituted by the Germans in the valley of the Po, and banishes uncertainties as to Allied policy toward the remnants of Italian reaction in the South. General Badoglio’s prompt steps toward a housecleaning of the Savoy dynasty follow naturally.

By promising a Free Austria, the Conference stokes the fires of rebellion in the first of Hitler’s victims, inviting revolt also in neighboring Hungary. By reaffirming a demand for Germany’s unconditional surrender it proclaims the uselessness of protracting German resistance. By stipulating punishment of perpetrators of war atrocities, the Allies at last take cognizance of the most barbarous features of Germany’s program for the ruin of Europe.

The political effects of the Moscow Conference on neutral states and Axis satellites are already unfolding. Finland moves hastily for peace; Sweden’s relations with the Reich deteriorate; Turkey scrambles to participate in deals involving the Eastern Balkans; Bulgaria veers sharply toward civil war; Rumania slips; and pressures mount sharply in Spain for overthrow of the Franco-Falangist dictatorship and restoration of the monarchy.

Is revolution possible?

The Nazis can fight on for many months, in spite of their increasingly hopeless position. But will they? Germany today faces internal upheaval. What are the prospects for a revolution? Can it succeed?

1. The German Home Front. The recent creation of eighteen new generals by Heinrich Himmler for service in Germany shows that the Nazi hierarchy continues preparations against domestic revolt. These new commanders are all reliable Party leaders. Their tasks are connected with the domestic terror conducted by Himmler through his Gestapo, the Elite Guard, and the German municipal police, all now under his control. The Party front is being tightened tremendously.

Despite all precautions, the German underground movement is gathering power. Uneasiness among Party leaders is in piain evidence. Himmler’s terror grows as this worry increases. The demands of Fritz Sauckel, Labor Commissioner, for new drafts of labor slaves from occupied territories — especially in Holland, France, and Belgium—suggest that what is going on is not merely a search for more workmen, but a hunt for more hostages to carry to the Reich as pawns for the Nazi Party’s grand final demand for compromise peace terms.

This policy accumulates dynamite in the Reich while it strips prospective invasion areas of possible Allied collaborators. Weighed alongside the policy of total military destruction being practiced in Russia, the Balkans, and Italy, it suggests an even more sinister idea. Is it Hitler’s plan to reduce the remainder of Europe to a rubble heap in the hope that Germany, even if vanquished, may yet retain enough of her industrial power and strength to assume ascendency over a continent in ruins when reconstruction begins?

On the German home front there is little prospect of successful revolt. The wrong people have the weapons; they are too thoroughly organized, and too well led. The guard is too strict and its forces are too many. In the occupied countries, revolt can succeed only if it is assured military collaboration by an invading army. In Germany, revolt cannot triumph without the backing of at least a sizable portion of the Wehrmacht.

2. Revolt in the Army. Revolt against the Nazis by the Army becomes increasingly probable now that all hope of staving off defeat or winning an acceptable political exit has vanished. The Nazis have few genuine Party members in positions of high command in the armed forces on the battle fronts. General Rommel, commander in Italy, is the only one of these who has achieved conspicuous success. Himmler’s generals, in the Elite Guard or in home service, are not generals at all, but political placemen.

The real masters of warfare are still Germany’s professional soldiers in the officers corps; and these hold command of large bodies of troops, particularly in the East. Their adherence to the Party is purely nominal and was based originally on their belief that a Nazi-led Germany could achieve glory and power through war. That illusion is now vanished.

The Party leaders understand this danger clearly. That is why Himmler continues his purge of “unreliable” elements in the Army. That is why Kesselring was replaced by Rommel in Italy and why several notable commanders have been executed. The same alarm is indicated by complaints in the provinces against von Keitel, Chief of Staff, who is accused of meditating treachery toward the Führer.

But while Himmler can control professional officers in Germany, or n garrison posts in occupied territory, the field commanders of the fighting army are beyond his reach. If and when army revolt brews, it will be among these latter; and the prospect is that there will then ensue a bloody civil war in Germany. In any such situation Germany’s 11,000,000 imported slaves are certain to be heard from,

France revives

Re-emergence of France is one of the most important phenomena today in Europe. Though the “invasion of deliverance” remains poised, its imminence coincides with vigorous action by the French Committee of National Liberation, looking toward creation of the Fourth Republic. The convening of the Consultative Assembly at Algiers, with representatives of the Empire, metropolitan France, and France-in-Exile, paves the way toward the rebuilding of the political institutions of the nation.

Portents attending this event suggest that some difficult moments lie ahead for those who have elected to shape American and British policy along lines conspicuously lacking in sympathy — and sometimes good manners — toward General Charles de Gaulle and his now dominant following. The diplomatic fiction which insisted on the advantages of dalliance with Vichy, and later with opportunistic penitents from the Fascist fold, is now bankrupt.

Disintegration at Vichy coincides with intensification of the punitive ferocity of the regime, while Germany discards all pretenses in an orgy of looting, executions, and slave raids. Inferior police courts send men and women alike to their deaths daily, for crimes ranging from sabotage and “the suspicion of sabotage” to “suspicion of opposition to the New Order.”

Meanwhile the French underground, with a waiting army of upwards of 200,000 men well equipped with small arms and machine guns and field artillery, is busy with preparations for the invasion. Liaison between it and the French Committee of National Liberation was completed, at the time General Giraud stepped down, by the naming to the Committee of several leaders of the underground movement.

Russian support aids the growing strength of the French Committee. At the suggestion of Russia, the French Committee belongs to the Mediterranean Commission and to the committee (consisting of France, Greece, and Yugoslavia, and the great Allies) born at the Moscow Conference, which has the job of supervising Italian questions. The proposed “Latin Bloc” (France, Spain, Portugal, and Italy), backed by Allied supporters of French reaction and Spanish appeasement, is thus quietly buried.

General de Gaulle’s announcement that the closest ties will be established between the new France and Russia implies important diplomatic affiliations in post-war Europe. How important these will be is indicated by the French Committee’s decision to send General de Gaulle to Moscow to negotiate an agreement with the Soviet Union regarding post-war air bases in Russia and the French Empire. This move seems to have jolted both London and Washington awake to the prospective consequences of the grudging policy pursued hitherto toward the French.

Civil war in the Balkans

But not so easily untangled is the bitter civil war which divides Yugoslavia into two factions even as Germany’s armies battle them both. The issue there, too, is drawn between representatives of yesterday and champions of tomorrow. It is akin to the quarrel which splits the Greek patriots, which troubles Italy, which continues to rumble in Spain.

Shall the government which rules Yugoslavia after victory be, essentially, the same that held power when Hitler struck, or shall Yugoslavia seek democracy through a genuine effort at federation? King Peter and the Yugoslav government-in-exile at Cairo represent a return of the Serbian ascendency under the monarchical tradition. General Draja Mihailovich and his Chetniks symbolize this monarchist-Serbian side of the dispute.

The legendary “Tito,” General Josip Broz, and his redoubtable Partisans symbolize the aspiration for a change. Their aim is to give full autonomy to Serbia, Croatia, Montenegro, and Slovenia, and to join these autonomous states, after the model of the Swiss cantons, the American states, and the Russian republics, in a federated whole which would possess a bill of rights, including freedom of speech, press, assembly, and religion. The foundation of the new state they envisage would be the village coöperative.

Where the Serbian monarchists seek to reimpose government from the top, the Partisans seek to reconstruct government from the bottom. This difference explains why “Tito’s” following has gathered in the peasantry of the nation regardless of religious or national inheritances.

Here is a division of opinion which cuts to the root of affairs throughout most of Europe. Any mistake in dealing with it may produce grave consequences.

WHAT TO WATCH

1. Turkey — whose political position has become acute since the Moscow Conference produced hints of a shuffle in Bulgaria.

2. Finland — whose exit from the war draws nearer as Germany retreats.

3. Sweden — whose relations with Germany are again deteriorating rapidly in a spate of quarrels.

4. The lightly defended Baltic gateway to Germany.