World War: What Winter Won’t Do

This week German civilians went to their cinemas and saw newsreels of winter on the Russian Front. They saw carloads of woolen socks and greatcoats rolling to the front through snow-covered countryside. They saw German sappers building wooden camps frankly labeled Winter Quarters, German tailors fitting fur jackets to tank crews, German kitchen police getting water by chopping holes in ice, German greaseballs sweeping snow off the wings of fighter planes.

Winter had come. In the far north it had come with sub-zero weather that made gun barrels so cold they burned flesh.

Around Leningrad it had come in great fogs, sleet and cold which fed on human bone-marrow. Near Moscow it came in snow and wind howling in the forests and on the plains. In the south it came in torrents of rain and in snow as wet and heavy as soaked cotton.

What would winter do to the war?

It would not, as readers of Napoleonic history might think, stop the Germans short. The Finnish war and the Norwegian campaign had demonstrated that tanks can operate in snow three feet deep, that guns can fire no matter how cold it is.

It would not, as readers of technical military journals might suppose, make no difference at all. Men would catch cold. They would waste energy just keeping warm. Supply problems would increase, since men must be heated as well as fed. Machines would function with a little more difficulty, but life would be harder for the men who had to make the machines fight.

Winter would not, as many might wish, discriminate in favor of the Russians. It would hamper both sides. Perhaps the Russians might be a little better acclimated. Perhaps the Germans might be a little more efficient in coping with weather difficulties. But both sides would suffer. A small difference might arise from one fact: Russians seem not to care how much they suffer.