NEWS OF THE WEEK N his speech at Guildhall on
Wednesday the Prime Minister I presented the Germans with an addition to their growing list of invasion-dates. There will be heavy fighting, he predicts, before the leaves of autumn fall. Lest that should seem a disappointing postponement, it is well CO realise that Mr. Churchill's words mean, and were obviously meant to mean, approximately nothing. He emphatically did not say that there would be no heavy fighting till autumn, and the implication that the crisis will not be later than that date is news to no one. So the Germans are left with the when and where as vague as ever. As has been his wont of late, the Prime Minister was soberly confident, and for the confidence there appears to 'be ample justification. The Germans are beaten in the air, and the balance there is tilting swiftly and inexorably against them. They appear—though here a note of caution is necessary— to be beaten under the sea by the new protective devices of the Allies. They were beaten on the sea before the war was a day old. And Russia and Africa have shown how capable the United Nations are of beating them on land. But if Mr. Churchill's confidence was justified, the customary note of warning was justified no less. German propaganda has no doubt exaggerated the extent and strength of the fortifications with which Hitler has ringed the coasts of Europe, and therein it takes no account of the possibilities of air-attack. But the fortifications are formidable and the assault on them will inevitably be costly. There will no doubt be attacks at several points, and not all of them will be intended to succeed. But some of those that are intended to succeed may fail, and both success and failure may mean heavy cost in men and ships and aircraft. For that we must be prepared as the inevitable price of victory. The price may be high, but the result seems more sure than ever.
