Daily Post - 24.09.1941, Page 2

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BAILY POST
Hitler Is No Second Napoieoo
.« '■ ■
By Robert Maekay
M ANY geographical names of significance in military history are coming into tíie
A news. They have produced a host of commentaries drawing attention to the paraltel
with Napoleon’s campaign in Russia. But, however striking the points of resemblance, the
-British people do not make the mistake of inferring to much from them.
DAILY POST
is published by
Blaðahringurinn.
Editors: S. Benediktsson.
Sgt. J. I. McGhie.
Office: 12, Austurstræti, Tel.
3715, Reykjavík. Printed by
Alþýðuprentsmið j an.
Wednesday, Sept. 24, 1941
fieneral Winter
Our Russian allies have
agaín inflicted some heavy
blows on the Nazi hordes. The
gallant defenders of Leningrad
have beaten back the enemy
and the great German thrust
against Moscow has been tum-
ed into a slow but steady re-
treat. The Nazi threats of mak-
ing Moscow into a second
Rotterdam have been foiled so
successfully by an excellent
anti-aircraft defence that the
lights are going up again in the
capital.
We should indeed rejoice at
these successes; but beware of
drawing from them the fatally
false conclusion that all is well
and that the war is being won
for us. The Russians’ have
proved up to the hilt that they
are more than the equals of the
Nazis in all but machine-pow-
er, and that they really will do
what so many have professed to
do — fight to the last man.'
But Russia will not win the
war alone. The whole weight
of Britain’s armies will be
needed. Russian successes
should spur us to put every
ounce of our weight into the
struggle now, while we have
so powerful an ally. M. Maisky
has just warned us against the
false optimism of arm-chair
strategists who speak of Wint-
er as if it would put a stop to
the Nazi drive on Russia and
give us several months of
breathing space to prepare for
the resumption of War in the
spring. We are not living in
Julius Caesar’s days when sup-
plies were dream by horses. —
Hitler, too, is counting on
General Winter, because he
hopes this general will pers-
uade us to do nothing until
spring.' If winter impedes Hitl-
er, we must take advantage of
his difficulties. We must think
of what we can do now — not
dream of the spring. All over
Europe the gathering misery of
winter is driving the peoples
into revolt. They are working
for us, and waiting for us.
It is only in the sense that
Napoleon never waited for
provocation if he thought it
suited his book to attack a
country that there is a paral-
lel between his tactics and the
Nazi policy of simulating pro-
vocation as a specious justifica-
tion for aggression. In the matt-
er of purely military consid-
erations, it hardly serves any
useful purpose to seek to force
the parallel.
Napoleon had to direct his
attack in 1812 across a series
of German states which se-
parated him from his base in
France, while the peoples of
those states and their rulers
were ill-disposed to him, if not
hostile.
* * *
The inilitary advantages of
the Nazi Reich in its attack on
Russia are so considerable in
other respects that the British
public, while giving the full-
est credit and unstinted praise
to their new allies, are under
no illusions as to the realities
of the situation. They are fully
aware of the immense task
which faces the Russians in
withstanding the terrific on-
slaught of the German war
machine.
They are equally conscious
— here the parallel with the
Napoleonic period holds good
— that it is still the unwaver-
ing determination of the Brit-
ish people which will remain
the rock on which the Nazi war
machine will eventually break
itself.
Hitler’s Gigantic Preparation.
Germany took the field in
1939 with a force which left
nothing to chance. Under the
cover of five years of peace-
ful profession Germany had
silently but incessantly aug-
mented her warlike resources.
Her preparations in the poli-
tical field had been no less
deeply matured than her mili-
tary plans.
Thus, the Nazi machine.
swept forward with irresstible
and overwhelming force, subju-
gating country after country.
* :;< #
The process is not new. It
was familiar to Tacitus, who
remarked in his Agricola that
nothing had been more advan-
tageous to Roman arms than
the fact that powerful nations
had adopted no common mea-
sures of resistance.“It is rare,”
“added the Roman annalist,
“to see an alliance between
two or three states to avert a
common danger: thus, as they
engage singly, they are all
conquered.
Once more the nations of the
world have been learning that
bitter lesson. But not in vain.
Day by day the tide of human
feeling surges 'in growing
volume against the pretensions
of those who would dominate
the world by force.
The normal interplay of
healthy opposition between
rival ' political ideologies is
swallowed up in a flood of
human revolt against barbar-
ous agression. The moral fac-
tor is still the vital spark which
animates the mighty material
resources the free peoples of
the world can match against a
tyrannical war machine, how-
ever powerful.
Classical German Dictiun.
“Success in war is ephemer-
al; but defeat itself contributes
to nourish in a people the prin-
ciples of honour. . . When a
whole people are resolved to
emancipate themselves from
foreign domination they will
never fail to succeed.”
That was what Blucher said
to Bourienne at Hamburg in
1806 about France and her
emperor at a time when Napo-
leon was all-powerful and
seemed likely to remain so.
I look forward without anxi-
ety to the future, because I
foresee that fortune will not
always favour Hitler. —
The time may come when
Europe in a body, humiliated
by his exactions, exhausted by
his depredations, will rise up i*
arms against him. The more he
enchains different nations, the
more terrible will be the e%-
plosion when they burst their
fetters.
* * *
“Who can now dispute the iu-
satiable passion for aggrandise
ment with which he is animat-
ed? If we hold firm, his
country, worn out with con-
quests, will at length suc-
cumb.”
If historical comparisionS
are to be sought, the opinion of
the matter-of-fact but impetu-
ous and war-tired Prussian
soldier furnishes us with th®
best parallel to the situation
to-day.
No misfortunes are irremedi-
able as long as the spirit of th®
people is unbroken.
Writing on Oliver Cromwelh
an eminent English lawyer and
philosopher, Frederic Harrison,
remarked that the Protector
was by general consent a
typical Englishman, having
that union of somewhat incon-
gruous forces which is to be
found in the English people
courage, patience and self'
control, a passion for freedom
and a fierce hold on certam
root ideals.
Britain’s Heritage Of Courage'
Turning to the heroic figure
of another great Englishmai1
— the seaman who more than
any other single individual ^aS
responsible for the overthroW
of Napoleon — we may see anj
other side of the “incongruous
character of the British people-
W,e shall see, too, why it lS
that the twenteth-century G®r
man attempt to be Europe s
dictator and the world’s tyrant
is doomed to failure.
Nelson was not only the r°'
mantic genius who frustrated
Napoleon’s colossal schemes.
He was also the dogged seaman
who scoured the oceans f°r
more than two years without
setting foot on land. In this un
. (Continued on page 3)-