THE WAR IN REVIEW
THE WAR IN REVIEW THE RAPID SPREAD of a dangerously complacent attitude toward the war in Europe was checked momentarily this week by reports from the battle fronts and a warning delivered by Prime...
...At several points the doughboys were thrown back from strategic positions and were forced to bring up fresh troops to regain them...
...Greatest Sacrifices' In '44 In his warning that Germans can be expected to fight on, the British Prime Minister stressed the fact that Hitler still has 400 divisions under his command...
...Most significant news to come out of the Pacific this week, however, was the report of Murlin Spencer of the Associated Press that despite the widely accepted view in the United States, Gen...
...Now that the Lebanese seek to collect on those promises, it appears that the French and British, although both agreed that the move for freedom should be smashed, are competing over who is to assert control...
...One of the many unsolved problems of rampant imperialism that followed the last World War when France was granted a mandate over the eastern Mediterranean country, Lebanon has been in a state of growing unrest for the past two years...
...The announcement of Giraud's resignation was followed by news that the Committee was facing serious trouble in Lebanon, the eastern Mediterranean strip between Turkey and Palestine, where French authorities had arrested local government officials in an effort to quell a rapidly growing move for Lebanese independence...
...Hull sprang a surprise with his announcement this week that the Moscow conferences resulted in agreement on the doctrine of giving occupied nations the right of self-determination of their form of government after the war...
...In exchange for support from Lebanese nationalists, both British and French officials promised to grant independence not only to Lebanon but to Syria, which was also invaded...
...In Italy this week American Fifth Army units ran into sharp counter-offensive thrusts from German troops guarding the roads to Rome...
...That Aid To MacArthur In the Pacific this week the military picture changed but little...
...THE WAR IN REVIEW THE RAPID SPREAD of a dangerously complacent attitude toward the war in Europe was checked momentarily this week by reports from the battle fronts and a warning delivered by Prime Minister Winston Churchill in a London address...
...In his boldest declaration of the war Nimitz declared that "we see the beginnings of a new victory...
...In 1941, Free French and British forces invaded the country to break the domination of the Vichy government...
...There was no explanation of why the conference participants had been so bashful about announcing this accord and why the principle of self-determination was left out of the formal declarations...
...I have lost everything...
...Responding to questions from newspaper men, Hull said that this policy applied to the Baltic states, as well as the Balkan and other European nations...
...Giraud, who will remain as the director of military activities of the French provisional government, replied this week to de Gaullist charges that he had not properly renounced his alleged Vichy affiliations...
...Returning from the Moscow Conference Secretary of State Hull and Foreign Secretary Eden were warmly acclaimed in their respective capitals...
...In an enthusiastic review of the conference's accomplishments Eden declared that the three power meeting had reassured the world and had wrecked "completely" a German attempt to create disunity among the Allies...
...Now we are getting the ships, the men, and the planes...
...Despite Spencer's revealing report, Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, commander-in-chief of the Pacific fleet, told America that "our time has come to attack...
...Henri Giraud had resigned his position as co-chairman of the Committee, leaving Gen...
...My wife and children are in prison...
...Underscoring the words of the British leader that hard battles are ahead and that many British and American lives will be lost before final victory is won, battle front dispatches served sobering notice that the Nazi Wehr-macht still retains much of its deadly striking power...
...Clashes between French troops and nationalists brought a sharp hint from British officials that unless order was restored British troops would take over...
...They (his critics) should let me win the war...
...Predicting that battles far larger and more costly than Waterloo and Gettysburg lie ahead, Churchill declared that "unless the hand of Providence is stretched forth by some crowning mercy, 1944 will see the greatest sacrifices by the American and British Armies...
...Even in Russia, where the Red Army has been thundering ahead at a sensational rate, there was a noticeable slowing down, although Russian units fanning out from Kiev struck a hard blow at German positions when they cut the last Nazi-dominated north-south rail line in East-Central Russia...
...While it is true," Spencer wrote, "that since June 30 MacArthur has had available for his campaigns in the Solomons much of the force already assembled and acting independently in the South Pacific, it doesn't mean that the total strength of the two areas has been increased greatly...
...Charles de Gaulle as its sole head...
...Meanwhile, that turbulent storm center of political controversy, the French Committee for National Liberation, was again up to its ears in political trouble...
...Significant as these reports were in presenting a realistic appraisal of future military developments, they were, for the most part, crowded off the front pages by political news, some of which seriously threatened to disturb the Allied unity promised in the declarations of Moscow...
...Elsewhere on the front Allied progress was extremely slow...
...For two years we faced the necessity of containing the enemy while gathering the strength necessary to drive through the vitals of his defense system...
...Declaring that he had no affiliations with Vichy to renounce, the French general asserted, "When one has done what I have done acts are sufficient...
...We feel the victory is sure...
...Douglas Mac-Arthur's command is getting no more materials of war now than it was several months ago when a wave of resentment at the official neglect of the Southwest Pacific area swept the country...
...First big news was made by the Committee this week when it was announced that Gen...
...New air blows were struck at Rabaul and fighting on Bougainville increased in intensity as the enemy successfully ran the American naval blockade to land reinforcements...
Vol. 7 • November 1943 • No. 47
