World War: MORALE: The Great Debate

The pressing question of whether or not Britain should invade the Continent to relieve pressure on Russia was mooted last week, quite unconsciously, by two of the world’s great mooters: H. G. Wells and Winston Churchill.

These two were the most thunderous writers and talkers about the art of warfare in the years of peace. Both saw that war would come again, both dared to shout warnings when such shouting was unpopular. Wells, the dreamer, seeing how bad the war would be, was for avoiding it by organizing a new and better world. Churchill, the doer, urged military action.

Last week, as Winston Churchill addressed Parliament and H. G. Wells wrote an article for the Washington Star, their tunes were exactly reversed. Their words could be fitted into a synthetic dialogue:

The Moot. Wells: “I have always insisted that Germany cannot win this war. Today we have command of the sea, we have the submarine problem well in hand and we have mastery of the air.”

Churchill: “I deprecate premature rejoicings. I indulge in no sanguine predictions about the future. We must expect that the U-boat warfare, now being conducted by larger numbers of U-boats than ever before, supported by scores of ‘Focke-Wolves,’ will be intensified.”

Wells: “The Germans may be running short of oil and war material; . . . still more rapidly must they be running short of trained men. This war, as war, is becoming a war of exhaustion, and the Germans are being exhausted.”

Churchill: “The enemy’s only shortage is in the air. That is a very serious shortage, but for the rest he still retains the initiative. We have not had the force to take it from him. He has divisions, he has weapons, and on the mainland of Europe he has ample means of transport.”

Wells: “The German conqueror today . . . is in an almost precisely parallel position to Napoleon at his culmination. He has spread himself out on an immense frontage exposed to our attack and he cannot tell from hour to hour where he may not be attacked.”

Churchill: “If he does not tell us his plans, I do not see why we should tell him ours.”

Wells: “Germany now enters upon a new phase in her final war. She will, I guess, try to dig in on the Russian front. Will the Russians let her?”

Churchill: “We do not know how far Hitler will attempt to penetrate … or whether he will decide to stand on the defensive. . . . Should he choose this last, we do not know whether he will turn a portion of his vast army southward toward the Valley of the Nile, or whether he will attempt to make his way through Spain into Northwest Africa, or whether he will attempt an invasion of the British Isles. It would certainly be in his power, while standing on the defensive in the East, to undertake all three of these hazardous enterprises on a great scale, together at one time.”

Wells: “I do not think that much-talked-of invasion of Britain can happen now. There may be a raid, but I doubt if it will be much of a raid.”

Churchill: “We must not, I repeat, relax for an instant.”

Wells: “I cannot believe that all these invasion maneuvers which are going on over here do not prelude an invasion of the Continent. . . . Manifestly, we ought to have everything planned and prepared, including a local revolt at every point from the White Sea . . . down to Dakar. We ought to have three or four expeditionary forces hovering ready for separate or collective action, embarked, ready for a descent at any one of the 30 or 40 possible weak points. … If this hovering counterattack is ready for the enemy, what will he be obliged to do in reply? He must detach how many men, how much material, to be ready to meet the coming blow? Far more than we shall need. We can select our point of attack calmly, easily, and we can strike, land and establish ourselves—at one place or at several places. Jerry must scurry from one point to another along his immense front to meet these inquiring thrusts. . . . Get your map and see the job he will have in hand. See the straits, sounds, seas, rivers and deserts that lie athwart his communications. We can hold more than half the dwindling German armies here in the west if we strike now.”

Churchill: “When I learned about the absolutely frightful, indescribable atrocities which German police and troops are committing upon the Russian population in the rear of the advance of their armored vehicles, the responsibility of His Majesty’s Government to maintain here at home an ample, high-class force to beat down and annihilate any invading lodgments from the sea or descents from the air comes home to me in significantly ugly and impressive form. I could not reconcile such responsibilities with the breaking up or allowing to melt away of the seasoned, disciplined fighting units which we have now, at last, laboriously created.”

The Vote. The jury for this debate is the British people. Their decision is registered in votes. During the early months of the Churchill Coalition Government, independent candidates at by-elections made absurd showings. But the issue of invasion of the Continent has made a difference. Last week, in Scarborough, Independent W. R. Hipwell polled 8,000 votes against the Government candidate’s 12,500. In Wrekin, Independent Noel Pemberton Billing came within 3,000 votes of defeating his Government opponent. General tenor of independent opinion on the war: fight it harder.