NEWS OF THE WEEK
THE Germans have entered with unexpected speed on the second stage of their war of annihilation. The launching of the great 20-mile offensive on the Somme on Wednesday morning may have been due to a desire to strike before General Weygand had time to perfect his defences, or to Hitler's own necessity to pursue a lightning war before his own resources are exhausted, or, more probably, to both. There are grounds for both apprehension and confidence. It is clear that again the Germans are throwing their full strength into the assault and showing characteristic disregard for the sacrifice of their infantry. The danger of a break-through by their mechanised forces is considerable, but the French will have learned their lesson and realised the imperative necessity of closing imme- diately any gaps so made, and leaving the tanks that have broken through to be cleaned up in the back-areas. This is the first time General Weygand has had a free hand, for he took supreme command too late to have any real chance of restoring the situation in Flanders. He has fresh armies to rely on, and even the first reports of the battle now developing show that new devices for checking tank-attack are proving successful. If the Germans can be held approximately on the present line the tide will already have begun to turn against them, for the one thing Herr Hitler cannot do is to stand still. But the inferiority of the Allies in men and material is a grave dis- ability. The hard-tried divisions back from Dunkirk will have to take their places in the line as soon as equipment is avail- able for them, and the Military Service Act will be producing a steady flow of reinforcements as long as they may be needed. But guns and tanks and aeroplanes are the determining factors. The decision of the United States Government to release 2,000 field-guns with ammunition is of equal moral and material im- portance. For the rest the fate of the British Army, as Lord Beaverbrook said on Wednesday, is in the hands of British factories and munition-works.
