Germans Cornered?

Logical French minds reacted swiftly to invasion of Scandinavia by pouncing on all sorts of precise political, economic and military points seen in Paris as adding up to a handsome total favoring the Allies:

> The French Cabinet crisis--new Premier Paul Reynaud was just about to face risky test votes in Senate and Chamber--was postponed in spontaneous French agreement that now was no time to vote on whether France should again swap Premiers in midwar. Glad that Adolf Hitler had given it the excuse, Parliament went home for a week without voting.

> The whole French press agreed with Premier Reynaud (and Winston Churchill--see p. 19) that Germany handicapped rather than helped herself economically by seizing Denmark and invading Norway. As M. Reynaud put it to the unanimously applauding Senate: "Once it has devoured its ephemeral booty, Germany can no longer be replenished by way of Denmark and Norway; those two windows looking on to the North are henceforth closed."

> The French believed the nerves of Nazi statesmen had cracked, plunging the Reich into a course of naval and military recklessness. "They reverse their policy of not extending the conflict and extend it precisely into the field where we are immensely superior--into the sea--because they know they are cornered," exulted Premier Reynaud.

> Everywhere in France people showed they understood that the so-called phony war now belonged to the past, with the grim, clipped exclamation: "It has started!" Interviewed by New York Times-woman Anne O'Hare McCormick, Premier Reynaud warned: "I think the tendency in the United States has been to underestimate German strength. . . .

Otherwise you would not proceed so comfortably on the assumption that we are sure to win. You would be more alarmed at the prospect of your own danger if we fell." After injecting this shot of alarm into Mrs. McCormick and waiting a few seconds, optimistic M. Reynaud added he is "confident" the Allies can win without U. S. help.

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