"We know, however, from experience in France," be continues, "that Hitler is capable of acting with lightning speed, that his panzer corps are ready and organized for quick operations and that they will cheerfully attempt what would appear to be impossible. The quality of audacity has been a great factor in the war so far so a possibility of surprise movements should not be overlooked.
"Marshal Graziani's army in libya has on the other hand been ready for some time. Tt outnumbers the British and should now be in a position to attack even without a pincer movement on the left so well beloved by arm chair strategists. Grotesque maps recently published showing black pincer lines in south-east Europe and North Africa with no re-Jation whatever to the mountains and seas and rivers are misleading in the extreme and have often little relation to military possibilities.
"Here are some of the distances involved in a much discussed Nazi left wing pincer. From the Bulgarian frontier to Aleppo in Syria is 650 miles. From Aleppo to Haifa in Palestine is over 300 miles. All roads are of doubtful quality, The question that one asks therefore is why should Hitler: march a thousand miles through such country when Marshal Graziani's army of Italians is already within 250 miles of Alexandria?
"There is no answer that would make sense unless he hopes to subjugate Turkey as easily and bloodlessly as he did Rumania. But Turkey is the largest and strongest of all the states of soüth-east, Europe and there is no reason to suppose she would submit to invasion, She was the leader of the Balkan entente and occupied a position of immense strategic value, as the straits were the gateway between the Black Sea and the, Mediterranean and also formed a bridge between Europe and Asia.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.