Minuet

The armies of France and Germany last week executed two more steps in their slow, solemn, martial minuet between the Moselle and the Rhine, the Westwall and the Maginot Line. Germany stepped forward the distance that the French had advanced since Sept. 3. The French, in perfect rhythm, stepped back, slaughtering the Germans as they came, as befitted accomplished war dancers.

The French high command made known that on Sept. 29, seeing that Poland was prostrate and that pressure at the West-wall could not possibly revive her, they decided to alter their basic war plan from offensive to defensive. Unknown to the Germans they prepared a line of resistance behind a line of surveillance. When the German advance came last week, only French outposts remained. These withdrew slowly, leading the waves of German troops into a zone of red-hot cross-fire from machine guns and artillery. Of some 100,000 Germans involved, the French guessed they killed five to seven thousand.

But the German advance was no bull-headed onslaught. The actual attack elements were not large bodies of men although heavy reserves followed them. When the French counterattacked once or twice to inflict heavier punishment, the German secondaries stood fast, and their retreating firsts laid "tank asparagus" (sharpened steel rails set at an angle in triangular base plates) which halted French juggernauts. Where the French retreat was continuous, the Germans actually lost contact with them since, so polite was this party, Nazi orders were not to cross the French border. By week's end the French had yielded, the Germans retaken virtually all German territory except a few ridges which the French retained as better strategic ground for defense than their own border hills. French heavy artillery busied itself dropping shells into a 20-square-mile area north of Sierck in the hope of landing one on Nazi field headquarters, believed to be somewhere near Castle Thorn. The French withdrawal from the Warndt Forest was effected four days before the Germans learned of it and was performed chiefly to escape flood waters.

Rains continued, the rivers rose and though evidence of continued German concentration was reported by reconnaissance, the Western Front appeared due for another long lull while the war of blockades was intensified over the North Sea.

> French politeness matched German when, before dynamiting a steel footbridge across the Rhine to the French powerhouse at Kembs (in front of Mulhouse), due warning was given to the German side. Evacuation of 300,000 civilians from Mulhouse to Biarritz on the Bay of Biscay was begun by the French this week. This hinted that the French may expect a real German push at her Belfort Gate, south end of the Maginot-Westwall stalemate, or through the Swiss side door. > Machine gunners on the forefront of the German advance wore steel armor covering them from neck to crotch. Weighing 30 Ibs. but only 1/20 in. thick, this gear was more psychological than practical. It would deflect only spent rifle or pistol bullets, was useless against aimed fire or grenades.

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