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From Socialist Appeal, Vol. IV No. 32, 10 August 1940, p. 1.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
The fact that Hitler has delayed the invasion of England has given rise to widespread speculation over whether the delay does not mean an indefinite postponement. Both the German and Italian press have in the last few weeks given strong indications of a postponement or at least have seemingly tried to encourage that idea. This may simply be their way of trying to disorient the British and create the kind of confusion which has turned out really to be Hitler’s “secret weapon”.
However this may be, the very fact that the invasion did not, as expected, follow right on the collapse of France, has had a number of important objective results.
<>PI>First of all, the time factor has become infinitely more important. Had Hitler struck in mid-June, he would have had two and a half months’ time before the fogs and bad weather set in over the English Channel. This time has now been cut by more than. half. Unless Hitler has reason to think he can do the trick in less than a month or unless he believes his war machine can be indifferent to the coming weather change, the’ strategic moment for the invasion has seemingly all but passed.
Secondly, it has given the British up to now nine additional weeks to prepare for the blow. In June their army had just come back reeling from Flanders, was without equipment and no doubt totally without organization. These weeks have assuredly pot been enough for the British to close any appreciable part of the gap between their armed strength and Germany’s, but they have been enough, possibly, for the British to marshal to best effect such means of defense as they have.
Thirdly, the delay in the invasion has had effects of prime importance in this country. When France collapsed the administration in Washington, like virtually everybody else, wrote Britain off. The plans in mid-June to send planes and destroyers to England were abandoned. The government embarked instead upon a program based wholly on the promise of complete German victory in Europe.
Now the picture has apparently changed. The chorus of those demanding return to the destroyer-plane idea is swelling. Leading newspapers like the N.Y. Times and Herald-Tribune, and such figures as General Pershing, are insisting with increasing volume that American aid to Britain now is feasible and should be extended at once. The feeling has revived that Britain has a good chance to survive the summer and by that token, perhaps, to survive the war itself by outlasting the Germans.
Should the Nazi invasion of England fail to eventuate this summer the perspective of a long war is automatically restored. In that event, the main theater of operations is certain to shift to the Mediterranean and Africa with an important sideshow going on in the Far East. In all three of those areas no quick decision is possible.
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