MORE AXIS TROUBLES IN THE SOUTH. This morning’s radio bulletins confirm that Tobruk has fallen to the British after a thirty-hour assault that overpowered the 20,000 to 30,000 Italian troops besieged within. This brings the British now eighty miles inside Libya in three weeks of fighting. They’ve killed, wounded, or taken prisoner an estimated 83,500 Fascist troops in that time, almost one-third of Marshal Graziani’s Libyan army, according to the Associated Press. According to one especially ghastly report this morning, a column of thousands of Italian prisoners was raked by Fascist artillery, blasting many of their own men to bits. And significantly, says the A.P., "There was no indication that German planes were aiding the Italians at Tobruk. No German planes have been reported over Libya."
Germany’s got her own problems in the Balkans, as it turns out. Widespread civil disorders in Rumania sparked by the Iron Guard, a nominally pro-Nazi militia, have forced General Antonescu to put the Army in charge of the country’s law enforcement and industry. And the latest rumors say the fighting has brought up to 200,000 German troops streaming into the country, ready to take control. Even timid old Marshal Petain has gotten up some courage as a result of the latest Axis woes -- Allen Raymond writes in the New York Herald Tribune that the Marshal "has stiffened perceptively toward the Germans" and has warned them that unless "greater deference is paid to French public opinion" by the Nazis, Vichy won’t be responsible for any "actions" taken by French forces in Africa now under General Weygand’s command.
Hitler needs a dramatic victory, quickly -- a keen demonstration of his power -- to calm his restive empire. In the meantime, you’ve got to imagine that morale within Italy has sunk about as low as can be. How many more of these dramatic, ignoble defeats can Mussolini’s people take before the braver ones begin talking about getting Italy out of the war?
THE DUCE WORRIES ABOUT U.S. "INTERVENTION." More evidence of the effect America’s lend-lease debate had on the latest Axis summit meeting, as reported from Rome by Camille M. Cianfarra in Wednesday’s New York Times --
"How to defeat Great Britain before what is here regarded as likely American intervention in the European conflict was the main topic of the Mussolini-Hitler conversation, press and officially inspired comment made clear today....‘Since his re-election Roosevelt has assumed a bellicose attitude,’ said the Rome radio.... ‘The possibility of an American intervention cannot have been ignored by Mussolini and Hitler during their meeting.’....[The two dictators know] that in the next few months, the United States could give no appreciable aid to Britain and that the real weight of United States military support would be felt in the latter part of the present year. It is only logical to assume [according to the Italian press] that before United States intervention can make itself felt, the Axis will have to devise means with which to give the United States as few chances as possible of direct participation in the conflict. One way to do this, it is said, is to beat Britain in the Mediterranean. Should Greece and Egypt be conquered, the Axis, it is argued, would remove two battlefields where Americans might fight."
Sounds like more wishful thinking on the part of the Italians, who desperately want Hitler’s troops to bail them out in Africa and Albania. The obvious comeback is that should Britain be conquered by Axis arms, it would prevent large-scale American aid from making the British Isles impregnable to Nazi assault, and a base for wholesale bombing campaigns against German targets on the European continent. This has got to concern Hitler much more right now than anything that happens in Egypt, or even Greece. It lends credence to the continuing rumors that Hitler’s agents are trying to secretly negotiate with the Greek government for an end to the fighting in Albania. And that’s another reason why an "all out" invasion of Britain will almost surely be Hitler’s next move.
KENNEDY VERSUS KENNEDY. Interventionists and isolationists alike find something to admire in Ambassador Kennedy’s public pronouncements on the lend-lease bill. Turner Catledge reports in yesterday’s New York Times that in addressing the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Mr. Kennedy "threw in his lot...with those urging greater executive powers to enable President Roosevelt to aid the foes of the Axis." But according to Willard Edwards in the Chicago Tribune, the Ambassador warned "that American blood would be shed on foreign shores if the United States allies herself with Great Britain." Who’s right? According to Dorothy Thompson in the New York Herald Tribune, they both are! Miss Thompson’s latest column describes Mr. Kennedy’s radio speech last week-end on the subject an "open forum of the air, in which Mr. Kennedy debated Mr. Kennedy." She adds --
"It seemed to me in reading Mr. Kennedy’s speech that he had out-Hamleted Hamlet...Mr. Kennedy spoke in connection with the bill...to give the President power -- to quote Mr. Kennedy -- to decide where the line is to be drawn in sending aid to Britain. Mr. Kennedy said it ought to be ‘determined by the President, acting with our trained experts of the Army and Navy. They know best what we can spare.’ To give the President that power, to unify, that is to say, the command and control of policy vis-a-vis Britain and the rest of the world, is the sole purpose of the bill now being debated....If every move we make is to be subjected to all the cross-currents of Congress, debated before the whole world, and delayed in the debating, we shall not do anything effectively. Furthermore, the very lag in passing the bill is holding up action that might be effective tomorrow and ineffective a week from now. Yet, under the guise of presenting impartially both sides of the question, Mr. Kennedy urged that the bill should not be passed, because the situation was not yet serious enough to call for it, although if Mr. Kennedy’s speech proved anything...it proved that the situation is as serious as it can possibly be! For though he would like peace, he said, categorically, that from his observation peace was impossible...that, although Germany was 3,000 miles away, Hitler wages total war for a new world order; that...he would be in favor of declaring war this moment if he was sure that Germany could be defeated quickly."
I didn’t hear Ambassador Kennedy’s radio speech. But although it’s true his testimony to Congress yesterday was excessively nuanced, the main problem for me was his lack of specific counter-proposals. Amen to those who are wary of the lend-lease bill in its present form, but how should it be amended? Mr. Kennedy hinted that he disagreed with one or two of the seven toughly-worded amendments offered by Representative Fish, but beyond that, and had few concrete recommendations beyond implying that the emergency powers be time-limited and a cap be placed on the funds available for military aid. It’s refreshing to hear someone in the Foreign Affairs Committee hearings take strong issue with the President while praising his patriotism, as Mr. Kennedy did. But more precision would have been welcome on his part. We need a workable bill, specifically amended in a way that can attract the broadest possible support, give the President the authority he needs, and preserve the constitutional separation of powers. And we need it quicky. A rambling analysis doesn’t help much.
THE INAUGURAL PARADE, PLUS ONE. As part of its coverage of President Roosevelt’s inaugural parade, the New York Herald Tribune reported Tuesday on an unplanned marcher who followed a platoon of W.P.A. workers as they strode past the President’s reviewing stand -- "The front ranks evoked smiles and ripples of applause when they abandoned all formal ‘eyes left’ tribute and waved their painters’ caps at the President. The President smiled his broadest smile and waved back. But in the rear rank -- in fact, in a rank all to himself, ten to twenty feet from the others -- came a lone W.P.A. worker who was, frankly, very, very drunk. He took no note of the President and continued his staggering way, with a cigarette between his lips. The President’s smile froze quickly and he shifted his glance down the avenue to the next approaching unit."
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