Qualified Hope

The hope of early victory stirred the Allied world last week. Discussed, if not wholly shared, in high Allied councils was the brightest hope of all: that Germany could be defeated in 1943, that Japan could be crushed in 1944.

These speculations were noteworthy because: 1) they existed; 2) they had spread from street corners and hamlets to the capitals of the U.S. and Great Britain. But they were only roseate possibilities in the minds of the war planners in Washington and London. Sterner prospects and realities underlay the actual calculations of victory:

> Short of a final German defeat in Russia, the safe assumption for the Allies is that the Wehrmacht will survive its winter losses, that nothing less than a continental invasion by the U.S. and Great Britain will bring Hitler down.

> On the southern side of the triangular front now closing about the Germans and Occupied Europe, the Axis must be driven from North Africa and the Allies must regain real control of the Mediterranean before even the first step toward Europe is completed. At best, ejecting the Axis from Tunisia will probably take two months. The job may take longer--too long for victory in 1943--if the Germans continue to reinforce their North African armies and to do as well in the fighting as they did last week, or if they suddenly move against Gibraltar.

> More and bigger bombers will undoubtedly multiply the force of air assault from Britain. But, within its limitations to date, the air offensive on German Europe has not been decisive. Rightly or wrongly, the men directing Allied strategy assume that air attack never can be conclusive, that the telling blow from Britain, as well as from Africa, must be delivered by land & sea.

> All the signs of Japanese stress & strain add up to a choice of difficult routes to Tokyo: 1) by overwhelming naval forces, bypassing the Japs' outer chains of islands and striking straight at Japan itself; 2) by air from China's waiting bases--still waiting because they cannot now be supplied; 3) island-by-island up the long ladder from the Solomons and New Guinea.

"When This War Will End." The U.S. and Britain, hoping to defeat Hitler in 1943, must plan to defeat him in 1944, with air, land & sea forces prepared for at least two years of war in Europe. If the Axis goes down in 1943 through Italy's collapse, Russia's blows, air offensives or internal rupture, then the Allies will have a real chance to end the war completely within two years.

Even this qualified hope was more than any U.S. war leader was willing to express publicly last week.

Said President Roosevelt in his message to the 78th Congress: "I do not prophesy when this war will end". Said Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson: "On all fronts the outlook is favorable, but the situation does not justify extreme optimism. The German and Japanese forces have suffered relatively few major reverses. We would do very well not to overlook the offensive capabilities that still are theirs."

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