Initiative

Fresh German troops were reported moving last week toward the Russian front, where Adolf Hitler was trying desperately to regain the initiative. The fact that Hitler had lost the initiative in Russia led many a cozy armchair strategist to forget that on most other actual or potential fronts the initiative was Hitler's or Japan's.

Germany's Field Marshal Erwin Rommel was advancing in Libya. Fresh German troops were reported on the borders of Turkey and in southern Italy, across the narrowest expanse of Mediterranean from North Africa. On the diplomatic front Vichy moved closer to Germany. On the propaganda front Berlin proclaimed India independent. On the political front Egypt got a nationalistic Government. Despite these signs, strategists said that Germany had no time to launch an offensive against Suez before June brought the need for a fresh assault on Russia.

But if the Japanese take Singapore and Burma and advance on India, the obvious Axis strategy will be for Hitler to descend on India from the west. Between Germany and India lie Suez, Turkey and the Middle East with its oil. For such prizes Hitler might sacrifice more ground in Russia.

Only one nation could keep the initiative from Hitler's grasp: the U.S., painfully ill-equipped, could seize it only in the Pacific.

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