THE WAR IN REVIEW

THE WAR IN REVIEW FOR Americans, watching military developments in the two great war theaters tfa-is week, there was cause for both encouragement and alarm. On the Italian front, the only major...

...The Kremlin, meanwhile, was busily engaged in a pressure campaign against Bulgaria in an effort to induce the German satellite to discontinue cooperation with the Nazis...
...Even the most conservative papers were alarmed by his candid praise of the Spanish dictatorship...
...In direct contrast to the Anglo-American bill of particulars leveled against the Spanish government last March which accused the Franco regime of the most flagrant violations of its neutral status, Churchill praised Franco's adherence to neutrality at the time of the North African invasion...
...Fighting desperately to stem the powerful Japanese drive, the ill-equipped troops of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek were engaged on a broad front extending along an arc from the east of Chungking to the north of the capital city...
...German lines below Rome were reported to be crumbling before the slashing offensive tactics of the Allies...
...But of all recent European political developments none has stirred such vigorous and widespread comment as Winston Churchill's frank discussion of Britain's war aims and policies in the House of Commons this week...
...Although the arrival of the monsoon had considerably slowed down the advance of Chinese and American troops in the Burma fighting, they were still slogging ahead and' continued to menace the enemy base at Myitkyina...
...Ripping another hope-inspiring proviso out of the Charter, the Prime Minister declared that the improved League of Nations advocated as the instrument of peace enforcement would bristle with "overwhelming military power...
...It is merely a "guiding sign post," he announced, of which the peoples of nations who happen to be on the other side will not be allowed to avail themselves...
...Most violent reaction, both here and in Britain, came from his friendly references to the fascist government of Spain's dictator Francisco Franco, in which he frankly implied that his government found nothing objectionable in fascism as long as it did not challenge British influence and position...
...At mid-week Moscow warned that relations between the two countries would be severed unless the Balkan country took immediate action...
...In Asia, however, the situation was reversed, as the invasion forces of the Mikado launched their most ambitious offensive in the seven years of warring against the Chinese...
...Many of ihem compared it to Secretary of State Cordell Hull's recent declaration that "free governments and Nazi and Fascist governments cannot exist together in this world...
...Thus, he scrapped the eighth paragraph of the 1941 declaration which asserts that after Germany is disarmed the Allies "will likewise aid and encourage all other practicable measures which will lighten for peace-loving peoples the crushing burden of armaments...
...expression . . . and freedom from terrorism...
...Most heartening news from the Italian front was the prospect that Allied troops may soon be in possession of Rome...
...Elsewhere in the Pacific, developments were not so ominous...
...The announcement was seen as a notice from the Kremlin that it had abandoned hope of reconciliation with the Polish government in exile...
...At mid-week Maj...
...The move surprised officials of the exiled Polish government in London, who said that the Council was unknown to people inside Poland...
...Meanwhile, Gen, Douglas Mac-Arthur's forces struck at another enemy stronghold off the northwest coast of New Guinea, the island of Biak, less than 900 miles from the Philippines...
...On the Italian front, the only major land action in Europe, the Allies were carving out vital gains on the road to Rome...
...At mid-week Japanese resistance was still strong...
...Appeasement Denounced This astounding gesture of appeasement drew fiery denunciation from papers in both this country and England whose policy it has been to vigorously defend the Prime Minister...
...Of the Atlantic Charter, which, in the dark days of the Nazi peril was proclaimed by its co-authors, Churchill and Roosevelt, as the bill of rights for the world, he was all but contemptuous...
...Thousands of prisoners and enormous amounts of German equipment were said to have fallen into Allied hands as the enemy, gouged out of his formidable mountain defenses, was thrown into disorganized retreat...
...In a speech which left many of his liberal admirers in this country gasping at its candor, Churchill let it be known that he regarded the ideological concepts of the war as so much nonsense, tore great sections out of the Atlantic Charter, and served notice that, sp far as he is' concerned, any postwar organization to preserve peace will be made up only of the "great states" whose peace formula will be nothing but sheer force...
...Others pointed to President Roosevelt's statement that "we will accept only a world consecrated to freedom of speech and...
...Claire Chennault, commander of the 14th United States airforce in China, had thrown his avail-able air strength in the battle, but the invaders continued to drive stubbornly ahead...
...There were reports that the Nazis would abandon Rome, establish a new defensive line north of the city...
...Moscow's Surprise Move Moscow's surprise move of the week was an announcement that a pro-Russian Polish National Council had been formed in Poland and that representatives had arrived in the Soviet capital to "establish contact" with Russia, and her allies...
...The Japanese objective, it was apparent, was to seal off all of eastern China—the richest part of the country—thus preventing its use for Allied air bases from which Japan proper could be bombed...
...The smashing offensive launched more than a fortnight ago had overrun the two main lines of enemy resistance and had united American 5th Army forces that have been at stalemate on the Anzio beachhead and the Gustav Line to the south...
...Chinese authorities frankly admitted that their struggle may be entering its most critical period of conflict...
...Still others, including the staid New York Times, wondered if he spoke for all of the United Nations...

Vol. 8 • June 1944 • No. 23


 
Developed by
Kanda Sofware
  Kanda Software, Inc.