THE DARK BEFORE THE DAWN
THERE is one very familiar sentence which beyond all others expresses our situation today : He that endureth to the end shall be saved. It is true, but it must be rightly understood. It cannot today be spoken of the individual. Individuals by tens and hundreds of thousands, Norwegians and Dutch and Belgians and French and British, have endured to the end and not, in any human sense, been saved. h is to others that their endurance has brought and will bring salvation. Through them the lands they fought for will be restored to freedom and survive. By their sacrifice we are solemnised and humbled. But of France and Britain it is true with no qualification at all that their endurance, the fortitude and tenacity and resolution of their armies and their great civilian popula- tions at home in the days immediately to come, will thwart the will of the men, and of one man above all, who incarnate devilry today as it has never been incarnated within the memory of this or of many generations. We shall have, as the Prime Minister said on Tuesday, hard and heavy tidings to hear. We can imagine what some of them will be. But from across the floor of the House, from the spokesman of an Opposition now whole-heartedly co-operant, came the answer of us all, in the confident de- claration that the fringe of the resolution of this nation has not yet been touched.
The hour is dark indeed. There was none darker, or so dark, in the last great war. We had then to face repeatedly the menace of defeat, but never the elusive, ineluctable assaults of treachery. King Leopold need not be condemned in words. A sufficient verdict on his decision is passed by facts. He was the leader of those Belgian politicians who insisted on a neutrality so strict as to exclude even the most tentative discussions on defence with the Allied countries which were Belgium's only possible protectors against Belgium's only possible assailant. When the inevitable blow fell he appealed forthwith to those countries for their help. It was freely given and given immediately. Their armies left the prepared defensive line on which they had reason to believe they could resist all attack, and committed themselves to the chances of open warfare in Belgium. King Leopold led his armies and charged them to fight till death. Not once, but twice or thrice he signalled to the intrepid defenders of the Liege and Namur fortresses, " Resist to the end for your country. I am proud of you." The achievement he imposed on others he was incapable of himself. The reasons for his surrender are not yet known. The judge- ment on it may be left to his own countrymen. In Paris his Ministers have draped the statue of his father, Albert the Brave, in black, and stood in dejected shame before it. In their name the King who overrode their unanimous decision, and by the issue of his order broke the Belgian constitution, has been declared no more a King. He can be left now to Hitler's patronage and his own reflec- tions. May 28th, 1940, may live for him as the most tragic day of his tragic life.
A Belgian army has surrendered—the decision of its generals to obey the King's unconstitutional order rather than the Government has yet to be explained—but Belgium will fight on. There is the making of another army in France, though it will take time to constitute and train it. Meanwhile the thoughts of every man and woman in these islands is with the British Expeditionary Force, which, in the face of a mechanised panoply that has revolutionised the practice of warfare, stood unwavering, men against metal, till the time came for a disciplined, unfaltering re- tirement. In the comradeship of the three armies. Belgian, British, French, holding the coast sector after th. German thrust had cut them from the main French forces. there was something inspiringly symbolic. The inspira- tion is not less, if the symbolism has grown terrible, nov. that the defection of the Belgians has left the French anc British forces in an isolation from which no clear way of rescue or escape lies open. They are not defeated. General Weygand and Lord Gort are the superiors of any German commander in experience and skill. The severed forces seem to be left with the choice of getting away if they can by sea, or cutting their path through if they can to the main French armies on the Somme. The hazards and perils attending either course are too plain to talk of. Losses on either assumption must be grave. We can only await the decision of the generals, and the ultimate issue. There are relatives at home who need as great fortitude in their racking anxiety as the men they care for beleaguered today in Flanders.
And now this country soberly and unflinchingly faces invasion. Its spirit is higher and its unity more real than at any time since war broke out. It is under no illusions. The Channel ports in the narrow straits are all, or soon will be, in German hands. German artillery at Calais can reach the coast of Kent. The straits, it is therefore argued, will be impassable. There is quite sufficient answer to that. In the first place, now that there is no commerce with Holland or Belgium, Norway, or any country in the Baltic, the importance of the straits, except for British coastal traffic, is enormously reduced. In the second place, guns can do little execution against invisible targets, and there are not two days a month, and not one night, when vessels hugging the Kent coast are visible from France. There can be no question of anything resembling a constant barrage from such artillery as is capable of shelling Kent from France. The value of the French coast to enemy aeroplanes and of the French Channel ports to enemy submarines is not to be disguised. The problem of the defence of Britain is sensibly aggravated thereby. But the proved power of the British and French navies, reinforced now by several useful Dutch units, to deal with the submarine menace is not diminished, and the increasing and astonishing ascendancy of the Royal Air Force will do something, perhaps very much, to counteract the advantage conferred on the Germans by contiguity. Our danger at home is the greater for King Leopold's defection, but the picture need not be painted darker than it is.
None the less home defence is now a matter of supreme urgency. The appointment of a soldier of the distinction of Sir Edmund Ironside as Commander-in-Chief, Home Forces, has not come an hour too soon. Not the life of individuals at home, but the maintenance of the great machine on which the forces in the field depend, is vital to our existence. The task of providing for home security is immense, but one aspect of it dominates all others. German technique has been dramatically demon- strated in Holland. Our vulnerable points are our aero- dromes. On any one of them at any moment the Germans may attempt to land from the air a fully-equipped field force of anything up to four or five hundred meri. To make complete provision against the danger everywhere may be impossible. Temporary, if short-lived seizures may be inevitable, and even a score of Germans well pro- vided with explosives could achieve immense destruction in certain areas if they could elude capture for only a couple of hours. But first things must come imperatively first. There are vital points in this country's defensive system, every one of which should be guarded permanently by at least a full battalion equipped against all emergencies. Are we sure that is the case today ? Peril will come today or tomorrow not from the sea but from the sky. The occu- pation of an aerodrome long enough to enable troop- carriers to land might have incalculable consequences. The denial of the use of an aerodrome to the fighter squadrons on which we depend for our defences would be a supreme disaster. If there is any remissness in this vital field it should be repaired within not days but hours. The where- withal for resistance to invasion must be amply adequate. Time is with us. The vast resources, not merely of France and Britain, but of the great free countries of the Commonwealth are being mobilised with accelerating momentum. Beyond the dark we can see the dawn. But we have still to survive the dark—and we shall survive it.
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