(7 of 9)
Britain. Like the U. S., Britain puts her military trust in a small professional army that keeps out of sight, lives apart from the nation as a whole. Tommy Atkins still does great work for Britain in the colonies, but Tommy Atkins is seldom seen on the streets of London, Birmingham or Manchester. Heretofore Britain has always reckoned on her seapower to give the nation time to muster, drill and equip a force for Marlborough-Wellington offensive fighting on the Continent after war has been declared. The recent passage of a half-hearted conscription law points to a possible reorientation of British military policy.
Actually, Britain is boss of the waves to a greater extent than in 1914, when the German Navy was second in the world, not sixth. But air menace makes the value of England's navy a conundrum, the tradition of Nelson a question mark. London, nerve-centre of the Empire, is 330 miles closer to German airports than Berlin is to English airports. British aircraft and munitions factories are easy targets in the open. And in another war Britain's food supply from overseas may be threatened by air raiders as well as submarine raiders.
Meanwhile Britain is organizing to meet the air threat. Her air armada—pursuit planes, fast Handley Page Hampden bombers—is rapidly being increased as her manufacturing program begins to hit a good stride. The Royal Air Force is equal in morale to the German, its older pilots have had longer training. The British Army's mechanized units (tanks, armored cars), although too few for war strength, are the most advanced in the world. And its officers—neither scholars like the French nor technicians like the Germans—are excellent leaders of men, if only rule-of-thumb strategists.
The Neutrals. In World War II it is possible that even nations who do not take sides may play a vital military part, for they may be invaded. Britain and France count on three neutrals in particular to hold off the Germans for a time. The Swiss have besides a strong mountainous position a small but tough civilian army, probably strong enough to keep Nazis from trying to outflank the Maginot Line to the south. The Belgians are armed to teeth, and their country is well fortified. The Dutch can flood part of their country to keep Germans out of Rotterdam, Amsterdam, The Hague. Each of these three is apparently strong enough to fight a delaying action that would enable the Allies to come to their assistance.
Free Lances v. Professionals. All these estimates of the quality of Europe's military machines are subject to debate. In the debate there are in general two sides. Free-lance authorities such as bulky, unruffled Major Eliot, earnest, deep-eyed Hanson Baldwin of the New York Times,
London Telegraph's L. G. S. Payne, or London Times's Liddell Hart, are more inclined than the military "professionals" of the war departments to weigh intangible factors—and to be skeptical of physical achievements such as Germany's vaunted rearmament. Free lances argue that the men in the profession are partly interested in the propaganda value of releasing juicy figures regarding the strength of presumed enemies, partly taken in by the tremendous enthusiasm which attachés in various foreign nations develop for the particular military machines that come under their eyes.