1940-11-14 — Page 39

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THE CHINA MAIL, NOVEMBER 14, 1940.

Page:

CHINA MAIL The United States And

WINDSOR HOUSE

ALLY OF VIOLENCE

In these terrible days the Bri- on in the United States: cannotĮ be far from the new editions that

It is not the new allies the Axis may advertise, nearly every hour and but the old ones Reichs-taxi-cabs and offices,

the evening press pours out and

the wireless news that comes fan be heard in most private cars and

Britain

unsevered from their isolationist past. Again, Senator Hiram Johnson, who is senior Republican and so, if Willkie won might have been head of the Senate Commit- tee on Foreign Affairs, and Hamil- ton Fish, who on party precedents would have become head of the

fuehrer Hitler does not "London Bombed, "Milton's there will probably soon be some now. "We thought you'd go like House Committee on Foreign Af-

́now talk so much about, headlines, but the

Church Destroyed" scream the expression of the swelling popular the Dutch and the Frenchies," fairs, are arch-isolationists..

The British visitor now finds fewer commiserating glances from new acquaintances. The average American after the fall of France

biggest type sentiment for our fight.. that are still the most im-was reserved for "Berlin Bomb- ed." There is no neutrality in portant allies of violence, the faces as they read the war news, and when you turn to the the most formidable ene-

punctilious correctness the mies of order and free-leaders in most of the papers ex- pressing surprise, even indigna- dom.

tion, because the British an- nouncements and German an-

is

of

losses do not square it seems very

muniques usually come out before

A reminder of this nouncements of air victories and afforded by a letter writ-odd indeed. The German com- ten by a French officer to the British, so the day usually

begins badly here with the Ger-

-By-

but

Το

they say, "but we got it wrong, queries how Willkie could possi- and so did Hitler. Maybe you'll beat him." It is only here and bly carry out the "aid for Britain". there you hear someone say that policy of his acceptance' speech "it's time we helped you,"

when there were few signs of the when that is said it is said with characteristic American emphasis. Republican party's coming into It was a tremendous relief to those line with him, his friends replied of the Republican party who were rather cynically that these leaders all for aid to England when, in'

of bosses and party are swinging in the popular cur- selected as the Republican candi- would accept Willkie's full pro- date for President, as he took the same stand as Roosevelt on that gramme, Issue.

JAMES BONE heads, Willitie was so surprisingly rent and responding to events and

an American, and print-man stories and claims holding did not think we had a 'dog's-

in this letter explain the strange behaviour of the French Government in the days just before its armistice with the Third Reich, and indeed, ever since. Why was the French Navy not kept be- yond the reach of the

of

Any picture of the United the front page, but as the day certainly not a bulldog's chance. But they had to face the ap- States would not be complete that ed in the "New York goes on and the British reports In the delectable city of Baltimore parition behind Willkle of McNary, did not include some instances of arrive with the British achieve- people are very polite and take the Republican candidate for the Times." A very few words ments and corrections of the Ger- some questioning before they will Vice-Presidency, who succeeded discouragement.

usually the most heartening. So and mechanics I have had man stories the last edition is talk, but from shopmen and clerks in leaving people in doubt whe-

thether he supported Willkie or not At a luncheon in Detroit, where far I have not seen any buttons same answer: that we were in on this issue, and other leaders, I found many warm friends with "Up England" on them, but pretty bad case, but it is different Dewey, Taft and Vanderberg, still | Britain, some of them working incessantly for active intervention, I was placed next to one of its leading journalists. I was an- xious at the time to clear up the constitutional position about the and asked over-age destroyers help on the point. Very deliber- ately came a reply to the effect that never since the Atlantic Ocean met the Pacific Ocean had there been a man like That Man at the White House. Anything more despicable, more dishonest, received. Also within this fringe more disruptive of all that was are found the farming colonists

Nazis? Why was the naval

Desert As A Factor

of

As the campaign in the inhos~! pitable region North East Africa develops the environmental advantages are, for the time be

battle of Oran necessary ing at least, on the side of the between erstwhile friends? defending forces. Egypt and Why has France shown a Ethiopia, strongholds of British

and Italian power respectively, are

willingness to capitulate each enclosed and largely isolated to the enemies of freedom from the continental interior by

In

in Berlin and in Tokyo, great stretches of desert or poor Walter

scrubland where

an invading and yet mustered a bit-army would find it impossible to ter capacity for resistance live on the country. So far each has proved to the just claims of the of these strongholds

to be easily defensible, if we ex- defender of its own free- cept sporadic air-raiding on both dom, Great Britain?

sides.

Strategy

By

Fitzgerald

from Southern Italy, who, to the best, &c. It was like a page from number of about 50,000, have Dickens's caricature of a remote been planted, at tremendous ex-America. Twice again I sought to pense, in the last few years.

Routes Across The

Libyan Desert

get from my professional col- leagues the destroyer question straightened out, but each time-it was the same--what was the good The narrow but comparatively of discussing any international fertile northern margin of Libya question or to expect anything Italian rule over Ethiopia has not provides the obvious route, with right to be done so long auch affected the strategical the most abundant supplies of situation because of the enemy's water, for an army moving on as the government of the United complete dependence on the home Egypt, but its maritime position States was in the hands of the In this war, as in those of the and all war material. No part of opportunity of hammering its and bunglers who ever disgraced, country for reinforcements of men would give the British fleet full most unparalleled lot of crooks Because some French-

past which have involved the Italian Africa produces, even in lines of communication. Conse- men were more ready to Mediterranean Basin, the Lower time of peace, sufficient food and quently the enemy's strategy does &c., &c. It is a not negligible.

other commodities for the re- not rule out. Nile Valley offers the richest

one or two alter-part of the well-to-do Middle take whatever comfort

sident European population; vir-native routes farther south, in the West and the East which thinks territorial prize, A victoriaus tually everything must be brought desert proper and outside the the Nazis would allow Power would not merely gain across the Mediterranean, and range of naval guns.

like that although most. would not express it so naively. Every- them, even at the price of control of the only land in North particularly is this true of petrol,

coal, and manufactured goods of All routes to the Nile are de- thing That Man does, they say, is tainted; there is a double motive liberty and self-respect, East Africa capable because of all types. The Italian Empire was pendent upon the aases which

adequate water supplies-of in-until 1930 an empire of desert occur but rarely throughout the behind what seem his most sen- than to continue to stand tense cultivation

throughout the only, and

of sandy and waterless Libyan De-sible acts. Many senators Ethiopia has been too recent to sert. Between the oases stretch said openly, that the President's with whatever remaining entire year, but would also do- permit of any important vast areas of sand-dune a terrain approval of the course charted for power they had against a'minate the canal-and-sea route Fagricultural or industrial develop-which provides the hardest pos-i

the refuge ship American Legion predatory and tyrannical to the Indian Ocean, thereby ment.

sible going for an army, and, be it turned out that the American cause the going would be slow, naval experts had approved, the foe. This is the answer to strangling the British sea-way to Italy finds that her air fleet water would have to be carried, course--was deliberately done by cannot solve her geographical In the cases of the two main the President so that the ship be found in the French the Far East.

problem. Transport 'planes are routes the distances between the should be sink and the re officer's letter.

Italy's Weak Points of little use for the carriage of oases are excessive for a large, fugees killed and that, as a result, heavy military equipment in view heavily equipped army. The northe United States would enter the

and most feasible. way Fortunately the enemy's posi-of the enormous distances invol-thern

ved. From the main Italian would be from Jaghbub to Siwa,

To quote directly from

tion is weakened

the published version:

The italics explain so much. This is a letter re-

.

moral

the annexation

a

Another route,

war!

have

by the wide bases on the coast of Libya to just inside the desert frontier of It must be realised that there is separation from each other of the Addis Ababa, capital of Italian Egypt, and then on by various nothing in British politics in mo- The two thoughts that might two groups of Italian colonies,

East Africa, nearly 2,000 miles possible tracks to reach the Nile dern times that helps us to un- have made it possible to resign and the

have to be traversed. Add to this downstream from Assiut. The derstand the bitterness and sus→ Anglo-Egyptian Sudan the ourselves to the catastrophe,

dimculties of transporting distance from the Libyan frontier picion among the majority of the good will of the Germans interposes A wedge nearly 900 supplies from Italy to Libya in to the Nile by this route is ap-business Americans against Pre- and their rapid victory over the miles wide between the Libyan the teeth of relentless naval proximately 500 miles.

sident Roosevelt. But some of English, bath seem to be with- and Ethiopian frontiers.

blockade by Britain, and the

Detroit these critics, unlike my More-

reinforcement of armies in Italian out foundation.

at the outset friend, put the fight against Hitler over, the recent extension of East Africa is seen to be a vir- more difficult because less ac and the protection of democracy tual impossibility. Ethiopia is cossible than the first from the first. An anti-New Dealer in besieged, and its Italian garrison maritime bases of Libya, is pre-Cleveland, for instance, wrote to will be starved out unless Mus-vided with fewer oases, so that me before the Republican Con- the waterless stretches are longer.vention to say that if his party cording French disap-to-day The French offi-sollai is able to conquer Egypt.

If it were used by an Italian put up a candidate with the slight- pointment with the way cer's letter discloses the Meanwhile the attack on the army, as seems rather unlikely, est suspicion of isolationism he things have gone since

bankruptcy to Nile Valley hangs fire, and the the great Kufura group of oases, and thousands of Republicans the German occupation which this temptation can delay is attributable to the diffi- formerly the headquarters of the would hold their noses and vote.

culties which geography imposes. powerful Senussi confederation for Roosevelt." of France. It speaks of bring one not only to Given the British Navy's supre- and 500 miles from the Libyan A Another body of opinion that is current "systematic pill-the surrender of one's own macy in the Eastern Mediter-coast, would provide the starting-

ranean which is now assured point. From there the nearest equally unsatisfactory to us is a age and the reviving rights but to a willing- the Italian army in Libya, cer- Egyptian oasis within Egypt is quickly decreasing group which hope of most of the now ness, no, an eagerness, to tainly not less than a quarter of a Dakhla, over 400 miles away, and thinks that aid to Britain may be million strong, cannot be regularly this distance would be virtually throwing away good weapons, for disillusioned French pea- see other defenders of supplied from Italy. Its very size impossible except for a lightly we may not be able to hold out

de- is a burden. Being intended armed raiding force.

* lang. This argument has been' ple that they will "be lib. those rights quickly

Teated. The Axis may too large for garrison purposes mainly for offensive action, it is

used about the destroyers. "Show erated."

Our argument. has considered us you can hold Hitler," they say. boast a new ally, but the only, yet as soon as it moves only the physical difficulties: con-JIt is being tämitted by some of The French are not bunst holds no such dan-blems of supply are multiplied.

eastwards towards Egypt Its pro-fronting an Italian offensive ad-them now that Britain is holding venture. We have not taken into him, but the slogan suggested for alome in having harbour-gers as those voiced by a

account the strength of the Anglo- this group is "It's too early to help. ed moral enemies within. friend of free men in is irreclaimable desert, and its that strength is Ukely to grow Britain." It is still too soon to Much the greater part of Libya Egyptian defending forces. Yet Britain if it's too late to help Individuals everywhere France who has seen an- vast size on the map must not de- until by its very counter offensive say whether the swing of public ceive us as to its small economie power the Italian attempt would opinton" which one seems to dis- have to face the tempta- other sort of ally take value. Italian military power be doomed, even if the enemy's cern everywhere towards the tion to escape the trial over his own country for there is concentrated within the overseas and trans-desert com- United States taking some little harrow Mediterrancan fringe munications were more secure risk in her aid to Britain has yet that confronts free men aggressors.

where a small winter rainfall is than they actually are,

reached a

stickine

+