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Show Washington, D. C. 1941's 'GREATEST TRAGEDY' You don't have to wait for historians his-torians to record the fact that the greatest tragedy of the year 1941 as far as this war is concerned is the way the British have -twiddled their thumbs, watched the Russians, and done almost nothing except cheer. Over three months have passed since Hitler sent his mechanized masses hurtling across the Russian border, and in that time the British sent only a trickle of help. Yet the British knew that prolonged pro-longed Russian resistance was the biggest chance they had of defeating defeat-ing Hitler. They also knew that Hitler's tactic always has been to pick his victims one by one. Yet realizing this, the British have done virtually the same thing Poland did when Czechoslovakia was invaded, in-vaded, what Jugoslavia did when Bulgaria was invaded, and what Turkey did when Jugoslavia was invaded. They have merely sat on the sidelines, sent 200 airplanes, plus a mission to Moscow, taken a good long rest and cheered. Second Front? Meanwhile, the general staff advisers ad-visers of both the British and American Amer-ican armies have bluntly warned that the Russians were sure to be defeated unless a second front was created against Hitler. This second front against Hitler meant, of course, a British expeditionary expedi-tionary force landing in France, Holland, or Spain. This question has been discussed carefully behind the scenes, but the British have wanted two things: one was tanks, most of theirs having been demolished de-molished at Dunkirk; the second has been an American Expeditionary Expedi-tionary force to help them. The British did not really push this idea of an A.E.F., for they knew politically it was impossible for Roosevelt. But nevertheless they did want company in attempting to land troops on the Continent They had plenty of troops in England in fact so many that there has been restlessness and bad morale because be-cause of inactivity. It is true that these troops are not completely equipped and are sadly lacking in tanks. But there is considerable belief that they were equipped sufficiently to make a landing land-ing in Spain from Gibraltar; and that in France the local people would have risen up to welcome them. However, all summer long the British have maintained an "after you, Alphonse" attitude. Meanwhile the situation in Russia has become darker and darker as every military mili-tary expert knew was inevitable. All of which brings up the vital question of exactly who is the dominating dom-inating factor in the now virtual Anglo-American alliance. We have thrown a very large pile of chips into the gamble on a British victory; vic-tory; yet no one seems to know whether the British are taking advice ad-vice from us or whether we are taking tak-ing orders from the British. President Presi-dent Roosevelt and Harry Hopkins may know, but if so they have not informed in-formed those closest to them. HITLER'S OIL PROBLEM Most of the reports from Russia look black; and to U. S. army observers ob-servers they have been that way for some time. However, one encouraging en-couraging factor stands out. This is the question of oil. Without oil no army or navy can move. And despite the tremendous areas taken by Hitler in all Europe, he still faces, two years after starting start-ing the war, almost the same oil shortage as before. Rumania, seized chiefly for her oil fields, has a capacity of 8,000,000 tons annually. However, the Russians Rus-sians bombed the Rumanian oil fields so badly that production is now down to about 4,000,000 tons or , less. Germany itself has a synthetic gasoline production of about 3,000,-000 3,000,-000 tons, making a total annual production pro-duction today of about 7,000,000 tons. On the other hand, Germany is using us-ing oil and gas to operate its army at the rate of about 25,000,000 tons a year, most of which has come from reserves. It is estimated that Germany still has reserves on hand of 10 or perhaps 15 million tons. All of which means that the real pinch will come next spring. In other words, Hitler has enough oil and gas to last through the winter, win-ter, but by the end of the winter he absolutely must take the Russian oil fields of the Caucasus. In fact, he is sure to stage a terrific drive to take them even earlier. The tremendous tre-mendous Nazi sacrifices to take Kiev and Odessa all were because those two cities are the path of the Nazi march to the Caucasus. Russian Chances. During the coming winter, hower-er, hower-er, the Russians should be able to hold out. The Caucasian mountains are high and rugged. The Russians have a huge force in this area. The British also have rushed troops through Iran to the border of the Caucasus. However, if Hitler's gasoline situation situ-ation is even more desperate than indicated above which may be quite possible then he is almost sure to put the pincers on T.irkey harder than ever before in ."nei tc drive on the Caucasus |