THE WAR IN REVIEW
THE WAR IN REVIEW THE American people, as news editors discovered long ago, have a weakness for New Year predictions even in normal, peacetime years. In a time of great world conflict, such as the...
...A rash of predictions about the 1944 course of the war broke out on the front pages of the nation's newspapers...
...The Pope, it is said, favors the House of Savoy because he fears that a republican form of government would move in the direction of communism, but he is said to regard the King's cause as lost...
...Bitterly criticizing the American attitude that "it's almost over" and the impression that Japanese soldiers are "little monkeys," Peyton declared that "this country is in for a shock" and called the Japanese soldiers "the finest fighting men I ever saw...
...Tom Connally, Texas Democrat, agreed that Germany would be crushed in '44 and then added that the Pacific war would be victoriously concluded for the Allies in 1945...
...Proclaiming the end of the traditional policy of neutrality followed by the Dutch government, van Kleffens advocated a combine of western European powers for the organization of strategic, political, and economic security...
...More Sobering Predictions A more conservative and carefully grounded prediction came from Admiral Ernest J. King, Commander in Chief of the United States Fleet...
...Both wars would be won this year, he said...
...The speech contained an undertone of resignation to ultimate military defeat.Well it might, for as he spoke the pressure against his European Fortress continued to mount...
...Adolf Hitler contributed his own in a New Year message to the German people...
...Western European Bloc...
...Predicting that Allied invasion forces would "meet with an appropriate welcome wherever they land" on the European continent, he warned that "in this war there will be no victors and losers, but merely survivors and annihilated...
...Peyton March, Army Chief of Staff in the last World War, declared that the war "hasn't even started...
...Japan, on the other hand, the report stated, can expand to a point where it will reach first rank among industrial nations if left undisturbed in the possession of its recent conquests...
...Meanwhile, across the world in the Pacific, American forces under Gen...
...All predictions, however, did not emanate from Allied spokesmen...
...Germany, the FEA said, can supply its military forces for a prolonged war, but cannot expand to meet the blows that will fall this year...
...Some came from experts, others from would-be strategists...
...Warning that such a policy would create a "festering wound," Grew, now a special assistant in the State Department, declared that the proper attitude should be one of a "helpful, cooperative, common-sense spirit, devoid of browbeating or vindictiveness, with emphasis laid upon what the Japanese would have to gain by playing the game with the rest of the world...
...King disclosed that plans had already been drawn for an all-out naval drive in the Pacific that might result in a showdown with the Japanese fleet...
...Joseph C. O'Mahoney, Wyoming Democrat, went Connally one better...
...Hitler Makes A Prophecy Another sobering prediction came from the Foreign Economic Administration, the organization entrusted with the conduct of American economic operations in foreign countries...
...Joseph C. Grew, former Ambassador to Japan, denounced in a speech in Chicago the "folly" of considering Japan a permanent outcast in the family of nations...
...In the European theater observers were paying particular attention to an address of E. N. van Kleffens, Foreign Minister of the exiled Netherlands government...
...Another expression favoring enlightened treatment of the Japanese came this week from Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek in a New Year message to his people...
...He cautiously refrained from divulging the assassin's name, however...
...In a time of great world conflict, such as the present, the weakness becomes a craving...
...The barrage was set off by Gen...
...Exploiting to the full the short-sighted "unconditional surrender" terms laid down by the Allies, Hitler sought to steel the German will to resist by painting a picture of the horrors to be faced by the German people should they lay down their arms and accept Allied terms...
...Circulation-wise editors last week were satisfying that craving as never before...
...In the east the Russian Winter offensive had rolled Red Army units across the borders of old Poland...
...others were flamboyantly reckless...
...He said that preparations have been made to shift Allied power into the Pacific, and that such a shift might not await the final defeat of the Germans, but would be carried out when Germany's defeat "seems near...
...Only massive military blows can bring the Axis to its knees, the FEA declared in a statement, adding that there is no sign the internal economies of Germany and Japan are nearing collapse...
...The week also brought some interesting and significant political developments which may have a bearing on the future course of the war and the peace to follow...
...Asserting that America has men "scattered around in 52 different places, and nowhere enough to fight a finish war," Peyton warned: "Wait until Germany and Japan begin fighting on their own soil...
...Chiang declared that if the Japanese people rid themselves of their militarist rulers, the Allies "should respect their spontaneous will and allow them to choose their own form of government...
...Dwight Eisenhower, who forecast the end of the war in Europe in 1944...
...Grew Sounds A Warning Political developments bearing on the war and peace in the Pacific also made news...
...The old defiance which marked the Hitler harangue in the past was more noticeably lacking than ever...
...His suggestion, which he said would provide a bloc finding its "eastern counterpart in Russia," followed the lines of the recent proposal of Jan Christian Smuts, Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa, who advocated it as a measure to insure Great Britain's power in a postwar world otherwise dominated by the United States and Russia...
...Not to be outdone by any of the Capitol Hill oracles, New York's publicity-loving Mayor Fiorello La Guardia not only predicted a German crack-up this year, but added that Hitler would be assassinated this Easter by "one of his own staff...
...In contrast to the cheerful tone of most predictions, Gen...
...His optimistic note was taken up in Washington...
...The new drive, according to reports, will be under the command of Admiral William F. Halsey, naval cooamander in the Southwest Pacific, who, remembering his prediction of last New Year that the Axis would be beaten in 1943, declined to make any predictions this year, saying that "Only God knows...
...All of them, however, served their intended purpose: they got their sponsor's name into the papers...
...The skies over the Reich thundered with the noise of Allied bombers...
...Douglas MacArthur carried out another surprise landing on enemy-held territory...
...The third such landing within a three week period sent American troops storming ashore on the north coast of New Guinea to capture a harbor and airfield and pinch off Japanese troops with whom Australians have been struggling for several weeks to win domination of Huon Peninsula...
...Some of them were cautious and restrained...
...From Europe also came the report that King Victor Emanuel's effort to keep his throne in postwar Italy would not have the support of the Vatican...
...In the south the American and British forces were pushing steadily towards Rome, while the menace of invasion hung over the restive Balkans...
...Berlin was a shambles after a week of the most devastating raids of the war...
Vol. 8 • January 1944 • No. 2
