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ANNEX III.
CYPHER TELEGRAM dated 3rd October, 1940.
From O..A.G., Sierra Leone to Colonial Office.
FRACO.
Secret.
Addressed to Sierra Leone No.556 repeated for information to Governor, Nigeria No.1263, Governor, Gold Coast, No.819. Governor, Gambia No.356.
Following for General de Gaulle from Chiefs of Staff begins. You will recall that the Chiefs of Staff at their meeting held on the 27th August approved in principle the proposal made by you that a unified military command should be set up in Central and West Africa. Since then they have been giving careful consideration to the question of the practical application of this proposal.
They examined in the first place the suggestion that a British Commander-in-Chief should be appointed with authority over the Allied forces in Central and West Africa and that a French Officer should be appointed as his second-in-command. Attractive as this proposal is in many respects they felt that its advantages were outweighed by the following objections:-
(a)
The basis of the suggestion that a British officer should be appointed to the chief command was the fact, which you recognised, that the burden of supplying and maintaining French forces in this theatre of war would have to be borne by His Majesty's Government. In the event of his becoming a casualty precisely the same burden would continue to be borne by His Majesty's Government,
(b) A system under which the British Commander-in-Chief
might be required to issue orders not only to his French second-in-command but probably to local subordinate commanders, both French and British might well become cumbrous and difficult.
The alternative appeared to be for the British Commander-in-Chief to have subordinate to him a French Commander-in-Chief through whom his orders would be issued to the French forces, Such an arrangement would, in the opinion of the Chiefs of Staff, have every chance of working smoothly and efficiently and they therefore ask for your concurrence with the following proposals:-
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