1944.09.07 "New Scorched Earth Policy" by Paul R Carmack

1944.09.07 “New Scorched Earth Policy”
by Paul R Carmack (1895-1977)
11.2 x 15 in., crayon and ink on board
Coppola Collection

Paul Carmack was a staff cartoonist for the Christian Science Monitor.

The Nazis are retreating so fast they are burning up the roads. 

By September 5–7, 1944, German forces were retreating at extraordinary speed across France, Belgium, and into the Netherlands. The retreat was so rapid that roads, bridges, and rail lines were being destroyed not defensively, but in panic. German columns were described as “streaming,” “fleeing,” and “burning up the roads” to escape Allied armor and air attack. This language appears verbatim in press dispatches.

Historically, “scorched earth” means destroying infrastructure to deny it to an advancing enemy. Now: “They’re burning up our highways!” in retreat. Germany used scorched earth as a deliberate strategy earlier in the war, but now it has devolved into an unintended consequence of defeat.