Love: A great day comin’
By Gilbert Love
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Why we lost the peace –
Simms: ‘Unconditional surrender’ was ultimatum in 1918 too
Germans depended on ‘14 Points’ then, now they have Roosevelt’s ‘Four Points’
By William Philip Simms, Scripps-Howard foreign editor
This is the first in a series of articles on the mistakes made by the Allies at the peace table following the German surrender in 1918 – mistakes which laid the groundwork for World War II.
Washington –
The Allies have now reached Compiègne. There, on Nov. 11, 1918, occurred one of the most variously interpreted events in history. Yet a clear understanding of that event is necessary to further peace.
Today a certain magic is attributed to the formula of “unconditional surrender.” The surrender at Compiègne was unconditional. When Erzberger, Count von Oberndorff and the rest of the German mission stood before Marshal Foch in his private car on a siding in the woods, he eyed them coldly and demanded the nature of their visit.
ERZBERGER: “We have come to receive the Allied peace proposition.”
FOCH: (frigidly) “I have no proposition to make.”
OBERNDORFF: (hurriedly to forestall the gruff Erzberger) “We wish to learn what your armistice conditions are.”
FOCH: (icily) “I have no conditions to offer.”
ERZBERGER: (timidly) “But President Wilson–”
FOCH: (impatiently) “Do you or don’t you wish an armistice? If so, I am here to state the terms.”
Germans hear terms
Glumly, the Germans chorused, “Ja,” they wanted an armistice; whereupon Marshal Foch had the terms read off to them. Nor were they “soft.” On the contrary, they set the mission back on its heels. In addition to the occupation of the left bank of the Rhine, with bridgeheads, they called on the Kaiser to give up practically his entire war machine forthwith. When the Germans demurred, Marshal Foch told them they could take it or leave it and he set a time limit within which they were to answer yes or no.
Erzberger’s feeble effort to drag in President Wilson’s “14 Points” was promptly, and rightly, squelched. The 14 Points had nothing to do with the surrender of the Kaiser’s army; that had to be unconditional. The “points” were a concession to the German people and there was a tremendous difference.
Parallel situation
Today as the Allies face an almost parallel situation. Now as then, insofar as the German Army is concerned, the terms are “unconditional surrender.” But now, as then, the American President has offered generous conditions to the German people. Then, President Wilson put forward his “14 Points.” Now, President Roosevelt holds out his “Four Points” – which have something in common with the 14. President Roosevelt said:
We look forward to a world founded upon the four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech… everywhere in the world. The second, is freedom of worship… everywhere in the world. The third, is freedom from want… of economy understanding which will secure it every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants… everywhere in the world. And, the fourth is freedom from fear with sweeping armaments reductions… everywhere in the world.
Patently these apply to the Germans no less than to others since “all nations” and all peoples are to enjoy them “everywhere in the world.”
There is just one difference between the Wilson and the Roosevelt formulas.
Where President Wilson used his 14 points to drive a wedge between the German masses and the Kaiser – and succeeded – President Roosevelt is putting his Four Points to no such effective use against Hitler.
TOMORROW: Why we did not occupy Berlin in 1918.
Yank grabs sub’s periscope and is towed to safety
Flier forced to leap near Jap-held island ‘rides’ underseas craft for two miles
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Truman to speak three times in Detroit
Detroit, Michigan (UP) –
Senator Harry S. Truman, Democratic candidate for Vice President, said today that if private industry fails to make “proper post-war use” of armament plants for peacetime production the government should operate such factories.
The Missouri Senator, bidding for workingmen’s support in President Roosevelt’s fourth-term campaign with three Labor Day speeches in this industrial area, also told a press conference that public works and unemployment insurance programs were the Democratic Party’s answer to the pinch of industrial layoffs during transition from war to peace production.
Stokes: Even conservatives rap House reconversion bill
Roosevelt’s refusal to take part in fight indicates he is playing politics on issue
By Thomas L. Stokes, Scripps-Howard staff writer
Washington –
The interpretation generally read into Senator Harry S. Truman’s speech accepting the vice-presidential nomination – that Democrats will make the war and foreign policy the dominant issue in the campaign – rings painfully accurate to groups in Congress who battled in vain to provide more cushions for unemployment on the home front in the so-called “reconversion” bill.
For President Roosevelt offered no help whatever in this fight. It was just the sort he would mix into in the days before he asked that the “New Deal” name be dropped in favor of “Win the War.” That was regarded then as a political gesture to hold as many conservatives on his side as possible for the election. Mr. Roosevelt still seems to be playing the same game.
Refuses to join fight
Despite his preoccupation with the war, the President had ample opportunity to step into this situation. When queried at his press conferences, he would reply that he had not followed the bill, or had not examined the amendments, and thus casually pass off the matter. He let the Republican-Southern Democratic coalition have its head without challenge.
What this has all come to is now seen in the bill passed by the House which whittled away at the Senate measure, itself certainly a conservative bill.
Conservatives have now joined critics of this House bill. Bernard M. Baruch, White House consultant on reconversion plans, said he does not feel this measure is adequate. Senator Walter F. George (D-GA), who sponsored the Senate bill as chairman of the Finance Committee, got very much aroused while the bill was before the House and appealed for moderation in the cutting process.
Appeal unheeded
He went unheeded. He is concerned over the House’s refusal to include federal employees in unemployment compensation and the striking out of another Senate bill proviso for travel pay for stranded war workers.
War Mobilization Director James F. Byrnes pleaded with the Ways and Means Committee to provide a nationwide minimum of $20 a week for 26 weeks for unemployment compensation, with the federal government to advance funds for such payments to states where rates are lower. But the committee refused, and the House batted down such an amendment by an overwhelming vote. This would mean meager unemployment aid in some localities, particularly in the South.
These three men are all conservatives which demonstrates how far the House went.
Their influence may be effective in revising the measure in conferences between the two beaches, the next stage. Senator George will be chairman of Senate conferees.
Organized labor tried to get a much more liberal measure. It put up a united front behind the Murray-Kilgore Bill in the Senate and a similar measure in the House. These were hopelessly defeated.
President Roosevelt did not come to their rescue, nor did House Democratic leaders. The fight in the House was directed by second-stringers. The President has taken labor’s support for granted in this campaign, which indicates some of the weakness in labor’s political strategy.
Roosevelt and Churchill may discuss India’s case
Phillips, President’s envoy, wants U.S. to demand voice in that deadlock
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Battleship building program resumed
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Völkischer Beobachter (September 5, 1944)
Die Moral entscheidet
Der Eindruck der deutschen Entschlossenheit Englische Militärkritiker warnen
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Führer HQ (September 5, 1944)
Kommuniqué des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht
In Nordfrankereich behaupten sich unsere Truppen hartnäckig gegen starke feindliche Angriffsgruppen, die gestern tiefere Einbrüche erzielen konnten. Die Kämpfe haben sich in den Raum von Antwerpen und Brüssel verlagert und nehmen ständig an Heftigkeit zu.
London lag in der vergangenen Nacht wieder unter dem Feuer der „V1.“
Schwere Fernkampfgeschütze der Kriegsmarine beschossen erneut südenglische Hafenstädte und Barackenlager sowie feindliche Batteriestellungen mit guter Wirkung.
In den Ardennen wurden Übersetzversuche über die Maas zerschlagen, nördlich Charleville über die Maas übergesetzte Kräfte im Gegenangriff zurückgeworfen.
Im Saônetal verlaufen unsere Bewegungen trotz feindlichen Druckes weiter planmäßig.
Um Brest wurde auch gestern erbittert gekämpft. Unsere Besatzung zerschlug erneut alle von starker Artillerie, Panzern und Luftstreitkräften unterstützten Angriffe des Gegners.
In Italien brachten unsere Truppen im adriatischen Küstenabschnitt alle Angriffe des Gegners zum Erliegen, örtliche Einbrüche wurden im Gegenangriff abgeriegelt. In den letzten fünf Tagen des Großkampfes dort wurden über 200 Panzer vernichtet.
Im Südostteil Siebenbürgens dauern die harten Angriffs- und Abwehrkämpfe an. In den Waldkarpaten haben ungarische Truppen wesentlichen Anteil an der erfolgreichen Abwehr mehrerer sowjetischer Angriffe.
Im Weichselbrückenkopf nordwestlich Baranow führten mehrtägige erfolgreiche Angriffe trotz zähen feindlichen Widerstandes zu einer Frontverkürzung.
Zwischen Bug und Narew warfen die Sowjets weitere Verbände in die Schlacht. Die schweren feindlichen Angriffe wurden unter Abschuß von 74 Panzern durch Gegenangriffe in der Tiefe unserer Stellungen aufgefangen.
In Estland wurden zwischen dem Wirzsee und Dorpat sowjetische Kampfgruppen, die über den Embach übergesetzt waren, vernichtet. Bei Dorpat warfen unsere Truppen die Bolschewisten in schweren Waldkämpfen nach Süden zurück.
Schlachtflieger schossen bei einem Angriffsversuch sowjetischer Torpedoflugzeuge auf ein deutsches Geleit im Seegebiet westlich Libau neun feindliche Flugzeuge ab.
In der vergangenen Nacht warfen einzelne feindliche Flugzeuge Bomben auf Karlsruhe.
Supreme HQ Allied Expeditionary Force (September 5, 1944)
Communiqué No. 150
ANTWERP has been liberated. After a two-day drive across BELGIUM, Allied armor entered the city yesterday and by evening was clearing the dock area.
Earlier in the day, our troops to the south captured LOUVAIN, MECHLIN and ALOST.
Other forces operating near the FRANCO-BELGIAN frontier took LILLE.
North of the SOMME, steady progress is being made. Our troops reached HESDIN, MONTREUIL and ÉTAPLES.
Allied forces in the MONS area of BELGIUM have eliminated a large German pocket southwest of the city. An estimated 9,000 prisoners were taken. Some 40 tanks and 1,500 motor vehicles were captured or destroyed by ground and air forces.
Local enemy pockets were mopped up south of TOURNAI and in the areas of MARCHIENNES, northwest of VALENCIENNES, and VILLEROT, northwest of MONS.
Gains were made south of CHARLEROI as far as FLORENNES and BEAUMONT. In the upper MEUSE Valley, our forces have advanced northeast of SAINT-MIHIEL.
Further south, there are no changes to report.
Weather restricted air operations yesterday.
U.S. State Department (September 5, 1944)
Lot 60–D 224, Box 55: DO/PR/13
Memorandum by the Under Secretary of State to the Secretary of State
Washington, September 5, 1944
Subject: PROGRESS REPORT ON DUMBARTON OAKS CONVERSATIONS – FOURTEENTH DAY
Meetings of the Formulation Group on Security
In meetings yesterday afternoon and this morning the group considered further the questions relating to the determination of threats to or breaches of the peace and action with regard thereto, and began consideration of the question of the regulation of armaments. In regard to the first of these matters, the following points were dealt with:
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At the request of the Soviet group there was inserted an enumeration of the possible types of measures involving and not involving the use of force to which the council might resort in the maintenance of peace and security.
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The Soviet representatives took the position that there should be inserted a provision that member states not having sufficient armed forces for carrying out enforcement action undertaken by the council should make available territory for bases for this purpose. The United States and British groups felt that this matter was adequately covered by the paragraph already agreed to in regard to the provision of facilities and furthermore objected to the phrasing of the Soviet proposal. Both the United States and British representatives submitted alternative drafts for this provision which will be considered by the Formulation Group and the Joint Steering Committee.
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There was approved a paragraph providing that the council is to determine whether all or some members of the organization should participate in any particular enforcement action.
In regard to the regulation of armaments the group reached agreement that member states should undertake to negotiate a general agreement on this subject and that the international organization should be responsible for initiating these negotiations. Both the British and the Soviet representatives objected to the United States proposal that regulation cover “armed forces” as well as armaments. The Soviet representatives were also desirous of mentioning the regulation of armaments specifically among the questions concerning which the general assembly should be authorized to make recommendations, but the British and United States representatives saw no reason for singling out this one among the many subjects which the assembly might discuss.
Discussion of the regulation of armaments will be continued in the Formulation Group and in the Joint Steering Committee.
The Pittsburgh Press (September 5, 1944)
100,000 Nazis trapped; Yanks sweep on Rhine
Americans reported in Saarbrücken; Allies race through Holland
By Virgil Pinkley, United Press staff writer
Sweep into Low Countries found the British forces (1) well beyond the border as the U.S. 1st Army to the southeast was reported at Liège, only 25 miles from Aachen, in Germany. The Canadians (2) were driving up the Channel coast, where a large German force was trapped, as the U.S. 3rd Army (3) was reported unofficially at Strasbourg, on the Rhine, and to be fighting on German soil at Saarbrücken.
Unfounded report broadcast that Germany has quit
London, England (UP) –
The Brussels radio broadcast a wholly unsupported rumor today that Germany had capitulated to the Allies, and retracted it less than two hours later, adding that “the fight goes on.”Allied Supreme Headquarters said the broadcast rumor was untrue.
The capitulation report, heavily qualified even at the outset, apparently originated from the gambling of a description of the capture of 10,000 Germans near Mons.
The second broadcast on the subject said:
Dear listeners: We are obliged to tell you to our deep regret that a rumor, according to which Germany was alleged to have capitulated and which was this morning broadcast by a foreign station, has not been confirmed. The fight goes on.
SHAEF, London, England –
Lt. Gen. George S. Patton’s 3rd Army has reached the Moselle River in force between Metz and Nancy, a front dispatch revealed today, and an unconfirmed report was published here that U.S. tanks had reached Strasbourg on the German border and fighting was in progress on German soil around Saarbrücken.
British armored forces plunged deeper into the Netherlands more than 30 miles beyond Antwerp, strengthening a trap closed on some 100,000 Germans pinned against the Channel coast.
The lower side of the Channel pocket was collapsing. Canadian troops speared within three miles of Boulogne on the Strait of Dover. The Evening News said the German garrisons of Boulogne, Calais, Gravelines and Dunkerque were trying to escape by sea in a reversal of the Allied Dunkerque evacuation in 1940.
Robert C. Richards, United Press writer with Gen. Patton’s army, said the U.S. vanguard came to grips with the Germans in the village of Pont-à-Mousson, astride the Moselle roughly midway between Metz and Nancy.
In the first word from the 3rd Army front in several days, Mr. Richards said the Yanks held the part of Pont-à-Mousson on the west bank of the river, beyond which the Germans had retreated after a brisk skirmish and the demolition of the bridges across the 80-foot stream.
A big force of U.S. Flying Fortresses and Liberators with a Mustang escort struck on ahead of the land armies at the Rhineland cities of Karlsruhe, Stuttgart and Ludwigshafen, keystones of the first defenses of Germany proper.
U.S. advances on the center of the front were indicated by the announcement of Premier Pierre Dupong of Luxembourg that Allied forces had marched into the Grand Duchy and its hour of liberation was at hand. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower made a like statement yesterday in a message broadcast to the Luxembourgers.
Skimpy information at Allied headquarters late today suggested the possibility of a slowdown to some extent from the sensational pace maintained by the Allied armies in carrying the war to Germany’s doorstep.
The only specific word at headquarters was that Canadian troops had pushed near Boulogne, indicating that the south side of the pocket enclosing tens of thousands of Germans was caving in. The barrier penning the Nazis to the coast was about 140 miles long, lying between the Boulogne area and Antwerp.
The Nazis, apparently doomed to death or capture, were reported surrendering by the thousands to the Canadians.
An official spokesman said the Antwerp port facilities, some of the best in Western Europe, were in “quite good condition,” since the Germans had little time to carry out their demolitions before yielding the great port to onrushing British forces.
Mr. Richards’ dispatch and meager word at headquarters opened a mere chink in the “security veil” hanging over the American operations for three days.
A spokesman said Gen. Patton’s troops were advancing eastward from the Verdun area against stiffening resistance, and the U.S. 1st Army was still mopping up nests of resistance ion the Compiègne–Saint-Quentin area.
Mr. Richards said:
Although patrols previously had stabbed across the vital waterway guarding the last Nazi defenses in northeastern France, this was the only point at which American troops were standing on the Moselle in substantial strength.
The London Evening News, however, published a dispatch credited to French frontier sources which said U.S. armor had plunged to the Rhine and the German border at the outskirts of Strasbourg, 75 miles east of Nancy.
To the northwest, the dispatch, which lacked confirmation in any other quarter, said U.S. and German troops were locked in battle on Nazi homeland soil around the border city of Saarbrücken.
U.S. 1st Army columns on the British right flank were reported, however, within 25 miles of the Nazi border beyond Liège, 60 miles southeast of Antwerp.
The Germans defense of the Low Countries appeared to have collapsed under the slashing thrusts of the British tanks and motorized infantrymen, advancing through feeble opposition and liberating town after town as fast as their supply trains could follow.
Most of Belgium was in the hands of the British and their U.S. 1st Army comrades driving eastward through the Meuse Valley, and the speed of the Allied offensive indicated that the battle of the Netherlands would be over as swiftly as in 1940, when the German hordes conquered the country in five days.
Official spokesmen admitted that the terrain between the north bank of the Somme and Antwerp was held only loosely at many points and some of the 100,000 hemmed-in Germans probably could break through. The pocketed Nazis were known to have lost most of their armor and transport, however, and it was believed that the great majority almost certainly faced death or capture.
British troops stormed into Antwerp yesterday after a 24-mile dash north from Brussels and by evening had cleared isolated Nazi rearguards from the dock area and were driving on across the Dutch frontier.
Antwerp was the first big, modern port taken by the western invasion armies since the capture of Cherbourg.
Unconfirmed reports said the British captured Waterloo, nine miles south of Brussels, where Napoleon’s armies were defeated in 1815.
Advanced columns pushed seven miles over the Netherlands border to occupy Breda and were reported rolling across flat, almost undefendable terrain toward Eindhoven, 32 miles to the east-southeast. The thrust outflanked Rotterdam, 27 miles north-northwest of Breda.
Louvain, 13 miles east of Brussels; Mechelen, 12 miles north of the capital, and Alost, 13 miles to the northwest, were also taken.
The French industrial city of Lille, bypassed in the first rush of the British drive into Belgium, was also occupied.
Nazi broadcasts made it clear that the greater Battle of Germany itself was approaching swiftly, if it had not already begun.
Appeals to people
An official Berlin spokesman broadcast an appeal to the German people last night to rise against the allied invader and to put the torch to everything in the path of Gen. Eisenhower’s armies.
The spokesman declared in a grim warning to possible fifth columnists inside the Reich:
Not one grain of German crops shall fall into the enemy’s hands, no German shall guide him, no German hand shall help him.
Nothing but death and destruction shell meet him. He shall bleed horribly for every meter of German soil which belongs to us and which he wants to rob us of.
Warn of stand
Other Berlin propagandists boasted that their armies, on the run everywhere from the Channel to Alsace-Lorraine, would stand and fight on their Siegfried Line.
The U.S. 1st Army in the valley of the Meuse, meanwhile, was reported at Liège, barely 25 miles from Aachen, and unconfirmed reports said U.S. artillery was shelling the German city.
West of Liège, U.S. 1st Army units were mopping up isolated pockets of German resistance near Mons and south of Tournai, and United Press writer Henry T. Gorrell reported that 10,000 thoroughly-beaten Germans surrendered in the Mons area yesterday.
The bag of captives was still mounting last night, and Mr. Gorrell said it might reach 30,000 when the final count is in – one of the biggest roundups since D-Day.
5,000 surrender
Five thousand of the Germans surrendered to one American battalion yesterday, including crack paratroops, Nazi elite guards and well-equipped panzer units, Mr. Gorrell said, indicating that the Nazis were demoralized completely and unable to offer a cohesive defense.
Canadian 1st Army troops continued their swift advance up the Channel coast north of the Somme.
Latest official reports said the Canadians had reached Étaples, about 13 miles south of Boulogne; Montreuil, 9½ miles southeast of Étaples, and Hesdin, 13 miles southeast of Montreuil.
German demolition squads were believed blowing up port installations at Boulogne and Calais, and London morning newspapers said great fires were raging in Dunkerque as the Nazis prepared to quit the robot coast. The bypassed German garrison in Le Havre, however, was still holding out determinedly after rejecting a Canadian ultimatum to surrender.
McMillan: Starved Belgians carve up horses killed by U.S. tanks
People rush on still smoking battlefields to get meat their conquerors denied them
By Richard D. McMillan, United Press staff writer
Brussels, Belgium – (Sept. 4, delayed)
The Belgian people were so starved by the Nazis that they hardly can wait to rush on the still-smoking battlefields, carve up freshly-killed horses and take the meat home to cook.
At one village outside Brussels, American tanks mowed down a German horse-drawn convoy. I arrived a few minutes later to see the villagers hacking great hunks of flesh from the animals.
“We haven’t seen any meat at all for so long this makes a really juicy steak for us,” one woman told me.
We witnessed similar scenes at almost every place where German horse-drawn transports had been slaughtered. Many of the animals had already become skeletons, their edible meat had been removed so swiftly by the hungry.
As we approached Brussels last night, the sky become lurid from the explosions of ammunition dumps being blown up by the Germans before they withdrew from the city.
The Allied vanguards then moved so fast that residents of Brussels awoke to find the main body of our army already through the city and rumbling on to the east.