THE WAR IN REVIEW
THE WAR IN REVIEW BLAZING their way across Europe, headed for the heart of Nazi Germany, the beacons of triumphant Allied fire this week marked the end of the fifth year of World War II. As Allied...
...Omar Bradley to a full field commander, putting him on an equal rank with Britain's Gen...
...A call for an investigation into alleged British interference in American internal affairs growing out of the activities of William Phillips, the President's former special ambassador to India, was made on the floor of the Senate by Sen...
...He asked for investigation of "the entire American rank status in the field...
...Chandler charged that Phillips had been recalled from London, where up until recently he had served on Gen...
...The British attitude grew out of his report to President Roosevelt in which British policy in India was severely criticized...
...At present," he wrote in his report, "the Indian people are at war only in a legal sense, as for various reasons the British Government declared India in the conflict without the formality of consulting Indian leaders or even the Indian legislature...
...A Citadel Crumbles At mid-week, the remnants of the French occupation troops, robbed of organization and command, were scrambling frantically to get back into Germany to seek at least temporary safety in the fixed defenses of the famed Siegfried Line...
...The Problem Of Rank Pointing out that America will carry the brunt of the war against Japan and that Britain will give only "token assistance," he urged that the British make a specific offer of independence to the Indian people so that our military position in that critical area will not be imperiled by a restless and unfriendly India...
...Charging that this move was in line with the typical British policy of outranking Americans in all "diplomatic and military" theaters, Sen...
...The effects of the spectacular Allied victories were seen in the sharp increase of reports concerning Nazi peace feelers...
...The Black Sea was cleared of enemy shipping and Constanta, main German sea base, was seized...
...Dwight Eisenhower reiterated his prediction of eight months ago that the war would end in 1944 if Allied civilian and armed forces would do their full duty...
...Bitter dissension within the Polish government-in-exile had broken out with Socialists and extreme right wing elements lined up against others who favored conciliation with Moscow...
...In a remarkable statement to the press Premier Mikolajczyk disclosed that he offered a proposal to Moscow for the formation of a Polish government made up of representatives from Poland's five leading political parties...
...Driving into Rumania, the Soviet forces overran the rioesti oil fields, the largest in Europe, and took the capital city of Bucharest...
...The tensest political situation to arise this week was between Great Britain and the United States...
...Poland, he asserted, could no longer conduct its "policy in the seclusion of diplomatic conferences...
...In it Phillips emphasized the importance of the President taking a strong position regarding the problem of Indian independence...
...Secretary of State Cordell Hull this week bluntly rebuffed all overtures for a negotiated peace and told newsmen that Unconditional Surrender was the only terms Germany could expect...
...Finland seemed to have reached a peace agreement with Russia and reports told of the withdrawal of German armies from that country...
...Bulgaria was on the verge of joining the Allies and Hungary shook under the shattering blows...
...Meanwhile, Gault MacGowan, war correspondent of the Chicago Sun, who was captured by the Germans in France several weeks ago and recently escaped, cabled his paper that the enemy's military situation is so bad that only the Unconditional Surrender terms are preventing the military from demanding an armistice...
...A few hours after it was announced that Gen...
...Eisenhower had elevated America's Lt...
...The Indian army, he declared, is "purely mercenary" while "lassitude, indifference, and bitterness" have increased among the people...
...British and Canadian troops were driving northward into Belgium at a furious pace and crushing enemy positions along the "robot bomb coast...
...As Allied armor plunged deep into Belgium and the Balkans and stood at the borders of the Reich, there was hope that the European phase of the war would end in the early months of its sixth year...
...The British refusal- to do anything about this has weakened the Allied position through the entire Pacific area, he asserted...
...It was apparent that he spoke against a background of collapsed enemy resistance in France and the Lowlands...
...Hardly had the charge been made that this report had resulted in British efforts to get Phillips out of London, than another very curious development occurred, arousing widespread anti-British sentiment in this country...
...The Polish problem was more aggravated than ever...
...The controversial report was made after Phillips had made an exhaustive investigation into Indian affairs last year and was recently made public in the "Washington Merry-Go-Round," a syndicated political column conducted by Drew Pearson...
...All signs pointed to such an early end...
...Anglo-American Relations Erupt The Polish leader declared that he was submitting these terms to the public because "the ideological principles of the war, comprised in the Atlantic Charter and our freedoms, have somehow depreciated in value in favor of power politics...
...Racing east from Paris American armor had overrun many of the historic battlegrounds of World War I, pierced the Maginot Line, and driven to the Reich's own borderlands...
...Chandler declared that on his tour of battlefronts last year he "could not help but note that the British always outranked our fellows...
...A. B. Chandler, Kentucky Democrat...
...Declaring that forces under his command in France were well ahead of schedule, the Allied commander told newsmen that the cream of Germany's armies had been knocked out...
...Eisenhower's diplomatic staff, at the insistence of the British who considered him "persona non grata...
...Sir Bernard Montgomery, the British elevated Montgomery to a full field marshal—a rank higher than that held by Eisenhower himself...
...Many of them, it was obvious, would reach the borders of their homeland behind the fast-moving American tank columns...
Vol. 8 • September 1944 • No. 37
