THE BATTLE OF FRANCE
'You're quite right/ he said, 'but manoeuvres of
that sort would ruin the crops. I should never be
allowed to hold them/
As late as the beginning of May, a few days before
the dam broke and the torrent of metal and fire burst
through, the parliamentarians were complaining that
agricultural leave was insufficient, and the High
Command increased it. The great fear of the High
Command seemed to be not so much an attack by
the enemy as boredom among the troops. There
was endless talk in France and England of schemes
to make the soldiers forget the war. There were
shows for the troops, radio programmes for the
troops, recreation for the troops, sport for the
troops, books, papers, and magazines for the troops.
A thoughtful woman asked anxiously whether it
might not be possible to initiate some sort of scheme
of war for the troops. But remarks like that got a
cold reception.
The experts said the Germans would do nothing
this summer, that they would never be able to attack
the Maginot Line, impregnable as it was, that they
would never dare to take on an additional twenty
divisions by invading Belgium, that their only
possible fields of operation were Holland and
Roumania, but that, in any case, these were unlikely
inasmuch as Rotterdam was 'the lungs of Germany*
and Roumania already submissive. Only General
MacFarlane, the Director of Military Intelligence,
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