NEWS OF THE WEEK
AS we go to press the danger that Hitler may be able to make good his threat that Paris will be occupied by June 15th is grave. German outposts, not in themselves of great importance, were less than twenty miles from the city on the 12th. But it seems certain that Paris would be fought for street by street and house by house, a form of warfare in which the advantage is with the defenders unless the assailants decide on wholesale destruction by aeroplanes and artillery. There is nothing to suggest that these particular assailants would stop at that. But the battle for Paris is still being fought on the Marne and Seine, and it is a tribute to the incomparable fighting qualities of the French armies that their line, after a retreat contested yard by yard for a week, is still unbroken. That may in the end be the decisive factor. The capture of Paris would be a spectacular triumph for Herr Hitler, but victory only comes from the defeat of the opposing armies in the field. If the French can only hold on somehow, even if they have to fall back far south of Paris, the resources of Britain and the United States will still turn the tide. The essential is to rob Hitler of a quick victory. What help the Italians will be to him is still problematic. So far they have taken blows in Libya and Eritrea, at Turin and Genoa, and instead of invading France by the Riviera road have blown up the bridge by which France might have invaded Italy. On their side they have raided Malta. But it is rumoured, and is quite possible, that they are relieving Germans behind the front in France.
