Mediterranean Balance Sheet

The citizens and editors of London grew petulant last week over what seemed to them a gross blunder in British strategy: denuding Libya to undertake a hopeless campaign in Greece. The apparent threat to the Suez Canal had them scared. "This is no diversion," said the London Evening News. "Glossing it over with vague, official words of comfort--words which long since have lost all their par value on the public market--is mere futility. The blunt truth is that while we were sitting back easily congratulating ourselves on our triumphs over the Italians, the Germans got to work."

But the brave people of London were half-informed, and their nerves were worn down by many things. They were wrong about the blunder.

The original British strategy in the Mediterranean was based upon, and for many months has been daringly pursued in accordance with, a fundamental theory of Winston Churchill's. He propounded it not at his present age of 66, but at the age of 40, during World War I. "Surely it is time to consider," he said then, "whether the downfall of your strongest foe cannot be accomplished through the ruin of his weakest ally; and in this connection, a host of political, economic and geographical advantages may arise and play their part in the argument."

So the British went to work on Italy. Far ahead of schedule they brought about the weak ally's ruin in North Africa--so far ahead and so brilliantly that the strongest foe was obliged to pay attention and to plan Balkan and African campaigns. Germany's appearance on the scene revised the fundamental British strategy.

The new strategy in the Mediterranean was hinged on the premise that Britain could not even dream of going on to the offense against Germany until 1942. The aim meanwhile was to use Britain's in adequate forces in as many places as possible to delay, hamper, bother and hurt the Nazi machine as much as possible. In the colorful language of Colonel William Joseph Donovan, who talked with General Sir Archibald Percival Wavell not long ago, the British "had a toe hold and wanted to make it a foothold."

The gamble of Greece was taken in full knowledge of the odds--made with forces which the British hoped would be strong enough to hold the Germans, but knew were not sufficient to defeat the Army against them. The extreme hope in the Balkans was that Italy might be knocked out. The minimum hope was that a heavy cost might be inflicted on the Germans. By last week it was certain that the minimum rather than the maximum hope would be realized. The Germans had already counterattacked across Libya and developed a threat to the Suez Canal (see p. 23). They accomplished this, in spite of the British Fleet, by flying some troops to Tripoli. The British suspected that the French had helped the Germans supply their Libyan Army.

Whether or not this was so, over 53 French ships or nearly 240,000 tons were requisitioned by the Germans to transport troops to North Africa. There was no question that the French in Africa would henceforth lean closer to the Germans. General Charles Huntziger, French Minister of War who handled the original Armistice negotiations with the Germans, flew last week to Algiers to have a talk with General Maxime Weygand. Weygand chose not to notice the strong new German garrison at Marrakech.

Spanish newspapers began shouting up the Axis, warning Portugal to play ball. Spain and Portugal between them own some extremely strategic islands--the Azores, Madeira, the Canaries, the Cape Verdes (see map)--lying athwart the British supply route around Africa, and not so far from the Americas. Dakar looked more vital than ever; in German hands it would be a dangerous raiding base.

The net result of Britain's grand strategy, therefore, might be the loss of even the toe hold in the whole Mediterranean and northwest African area, from Suez to Gibraltar, from Salonika to Dakar. But the small, inadequate forces were still at work. The British now have East Africa and the whole Red Sea pretty well sewed up. Last week British troops landed at Basra, Iraq, to protect the Mosul oil fields and keep the threatened back door to Turkey open (see p. 37). What the British effort had cost the Nazi machine in men and machines was so far impossible to weigh; the cost in time was certainly disappointing. Meantime the Battle of the Atlantic (see p. 24) was far more vital to Britain, but her experiment in the Mediterranean although not successful was not a total loss.

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