Mexborough & Swinton Times – Saturday 27 September 1941
The Ripeness
M. Maisky, Russian Ambassador to this country, has visited our tank factories and reinforced the appeal of Lord Beaverbrook to make Russian Tank Week a powerful contribution to our ally’s diminished resources. M. Maisky is good enough to avoid the sentimental note and to put the case on the plane of practical necessity and enlightened self-interest.
It is true that Russia is to-day fighting the battle of the democracies, and that is enough; sufficient for to-morrow Is the history of yesterday. The focal point of the German struggle for mastery of the world has shifted from the fiords of Norway, the canals of the Low Countries, the fields of France, the sands of Libya, and the skies of Britain to the steppes of Russia, and it may be that for some months the war will blaze with fierce intensity along the eastern marches of Europe.
One need not accept the claims and computations of either side to realise that the slaughter is prodigious beyond all precedent and that human loss has far transcended material, grave as is the devastation. Ironic fate has carried the flame of war to Russia, whose leaders can have had no illusions about Hitler’s real intentions toward Bolshevism but hoped to see him rendered impotent by exhaustion, if not defeat, before he could turn his armies against them. Hitler has shied and swerved from Britain in order to eliminate Russia as a factor in the new-ordering of Europe, and to present to Britain and the United States a conquest so formidable and an economy so fortified that we may be “brought to reason” by one more peace offer. If he had found Russia easier prey he might by now have been flinging into a super- Cretan expedition the life-force that is oozing by a thousand rivulets into the scorched earth of Russia. Not for the first time in our island story has the shadow of conquest fallen across it and mysteriously passed away. “He blew with his winds, and they were scattered.” Britain has benefited enormously from Hitler’s strange levity. ”
It is the Lord’s doing,” another Queen Elizabeth might have exclaimed, “and it is marvellous in our eyes!” Let us not prematurely rejoice—after all, we have still little cause for rejoicing though much for thankfulness but let us at least realise how profound is the effect of this strange volteface upon our own chances of victory. If Hitler had not turned against Russia he must have undertaken a frontal attack on Britain instead, for he could not stand still and watch us grow, with a mighty and incalculable political force like Russia in his rear. If he had faced invasion of Britain he would probably have had less success than he has had in Russia, but he would have done us grievous hurt, and he could hardly have suffered more severely in the process than he is suffering in Russia. He has chosen a course which has left us free to develop our war potential almost undisturbed; the advantage of long preparation which he has hitherto enjoyed is now beginning to be overshadowed by his long lead in casualties and exhaustion of war material.
However long, hard, bitter and costly the ultimate struggle, at least we come into the “contest relatively strong and fresh. “The ripeness is all.” And the hour of “ripeness” must very near low.