Days That Are Dark

The world trembled at the travail of Russia, at the ghastly consequences that would burst upon it if her resistance collapsed.

New Fronts for the Axis? In Siberia, a Russian army under General Grigory Stern stood on its arms, waiting for the Japanese under General Seishiro Itagaki to strike east from Manchukuo against Vladivostok, north toward Lake Baikal to cut the Trans-Siberian Railroad. If the slashes struck deep, Russia's wounds might be mortal. If Russia parried the blow, her defense would call for a new U.S. aerial front based in Siberia, with Japan the target of its attack. But thousands of Japs in the Aleutians barred the way.

The Jap front in Burma had grown relatively static. Any day the Jap might burst into action, lance north into China to cut the rudimentary land supply lines from the west, now under development, or burst west into febrile, ill-prepared India. On the sea the Jap's teeth had been well drawn. Until he could work out another attack that might win by surprise, he could well devote his first attention to land drives.

In Egypt Rommel was stopped for the time being, but it was no stalemate. Both sides were bringing up reinforcements and the forces accumulating were growing too big for any equilibrium in the narrow position they fought for. Something had to give. If Rommel gave, he might have to run all the way back to Libya to prepare another assault. But if Britain's General Auchinleck gave, it would be downhill for Rommel to Alexandria. The shadow still hung heavy over the Middle East.

If the German succeeded north of Rostov, he might still have the power to crash down through the Caucasus into the Allies' last local source of oil, the fields of Iraq, Persia, Bahrein.

The threat was still not imminent in days, or possibly even in weeks. But there was another threat. On Crete, held out of the great Rommel circus in the desert, were 250,000 German airborne troops, carefully trained by the parachute-glider expert, Lieut. General Kurt Student, for a swift thrust. Egypt, the Levant, the fat oil fields of Iraq were within their range. The United Nations, recognizing the threat, poured planes and men up from Suez and Basra. The U.S. pulled its crack airman, Major General Lewis Hyde Brereton, out of India, put him in command of its Middle East Air Force. Thus India was further weakened and General Brereton was in a spot that could get hotter than anything he had seen since he and his Flying Fortresses were ordered out of Luzon.

New Allied Fronts? All these threats called for defensive moves, for containing forces. Adolf Hitler and his allies were still calling the tunes and the United Nations had to dance to his music. They could take the offensive, change the step, only by going into action in the fullness of preparation.

From Africa's midst came reports that the Fighting French were preparing a drive up through the desert to get in behind Rommel. It might have been only hopeful talk. The men were there, but equipment was short, and in the Vichy territory, to the left of any line of march they could take, the Germans reportedly had taken over airdromes from which they could strike at the U.S. aerial supply line across the African continent.

The Allies' one substantial hope of taking the offensive was the second front in Europe. Editorial writers cried for it now. Military men said it could not be now, that if the attack were made now it might prove to be a fatal disaster. But the aerial offensive from Britain would be stepped up as the U.S. Air Forces under Major General Carl ("Tooey") Spaatz joined the R.A.F..

Nevertheless, if Russia's position became desperate, the Allies would have to strike at once, with what they had on hand. It would be a desperate venture, for, with 200 divisions in Russia, the German is known to have 100 more in Germany and the occupied countries.

But darker even than the prospect of an ill-prepared second front was the prospect of Russia's elimination as a fighting ally. Her reduction to a limited defense--which might still annoy the Germans and save Russia as a nation--would no longer keep Hitler's main armies tied to the Soviet front. If ever those armies are untied, World War II will be over in Europe.

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