In Three Capitals

The brown leaves that drifted to earth in London's parks and along the arbored avenues of Washington fell more slowly than the hopes of men in those capitals last week. As if Moscow were the last fortress in the path of Hitler's armies, millions of men who are Moscow's allies surrendered to despair.

They forgot that they had half expected Hitler to be in Moscow three months ago, that many of them had more than half hoped he would be. They forgot that their rising optimism throughout the summer had been caused in part by Hitler's failure to realize their expectations, in part by their foolish hope that Germany and Russia would do the impossible and destroy each other. They forgot that Moscow was not all of Russia.

They read of rumored peace offers, heard them denied--and wondered. They wondered why Hitler had not appointed Gauleiters to administer the many square miles of Russia he has already conquered; they wondered whether Stalin would make peace, whether Stalin would be deposed, whether Russia would collapse into chaos when the Government left Moscow--and they forgot.

They forgot that, whatever it was to the rest of the world, the Communist experiment was the beginning of freedom and of hope for 170,000,000 Russians. They forgot that, whatever they were to the rest of the world, Russia's leaders had staked their own lives and souls on building a great state in Russia. They forgot that beyond Moscow lay 7,500,000 square miles of the Soviet Union for those who had hope of ultimate victory.

In Britain men still talked wishfully of invading the Continent (see p. 25). They did little but grumble that U.S. production was too slow, that any Cabinet but Winston Churchill's would fall if Moscow went down. In the U.S. men still talked of avoiding war. They did little to apply the lessons that the war should have taught them long ago.

In Austria in 1938 Adolf Hitler had gambled with all he had, and won. In Czecho-Slovakia, in Poland, in the Low Countries and France he had gambled with all he had; each time he had won. He was gambling with all he had in Russia, and again he seemed to be winning. But if Hitler had lost a single one of these gambles, that would have meant the end of Hitler.

He had won each time through two weaknesses of his foes: 1) those who bore the brunt of his attack had been forced or persuaded to quit; 2) those who stood farther away had hoped someone else would win their war for them. Last week Hitler was still gambling on those weaknesses, and in three capitals men were tempted again to yield to them. Unless they sternly put down their weaknesses, Adolf Hitler had a good chance of winning again.

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