1950-12-01 — Page 7

THE CHINA MAILA FRIDAY, DECEMBER 1, 1950,

MONTY BUILDS

UP THE EIGHTH ARMY

By Winston Churchill

n

or

I inspected my own N August 19 (having cheers.

returned from regimen, the 4th Hussare, or as nany of them as they dared to Moscow to Cairo) bring together-perhaps 50 paid another vist 00-car the field cemetery. In

of number their to the Desert Front. I which

been had

newly drove with Alexander past

Al this was moving, the Pyramids, about 150 but with it all there grow

sense of the reviving ardour of miles through the desert to the Army. Everybody sald what the sea at Abusir. I was a change there was since Mont

gomery had taken command. I cheered by all he told

me. could feel the truth of this with As the shadows lengthened joy and comfort.

we

reached Montgomery's

headquarters at Burgel Freyberg's 'No'

Arab. Here the afterwards famous caravan was drawn up amid the sand-dunes by the sparkling waves.

to lunch were

We

with Bernard Freyberg 1G, D. C. New Zealand Forces]. My mind went back to a similar visit I had paid him in Flanders, at his battle The General gave me his own wagon, tivided between one post in the valley of the Scarpe, of a century before, and bedroom, After our long when he already commanded n drive we all

brigade. Then he had blithely had a delicious offered to Lake me for a walk bathe. "All

the armies are along his outposts. But know- bathing now at this hour all ing him and knowing the line as long the coast," said Montro- I did I declined. Now it was the hery as we stood in our towels, other way round.

his urm to the e waved westwarti. Thurro hundred yards away about of

በኔ

and sultry in Cairo and could not be good for children. "Why not send the baby away to be braced by the cool breezes of the Lebanon?" But she did not take my advice, and none say she did not judge the mill- tary situation rightly.

can

In the fullest accord with Gen. Alexander and the C.1.G.S., 1 of extrems set on foot a series

the defence of mensures for Calro,

and the water-lines run- ning northward to the sen. Rifle. pits and machine-gun posts were bridges mined and constructed,

and their approaches wired Inundations loosed over the whole wide front.

the office All population of Cairo, numbering armed thousands of staff officers and uniformed clerks, were with rifles and ordered to take their stations, if need be, along the fortified water-line

Great strength

The

Division

Nice August 13. Lam. Montgopamy ascunset carmend of the Doan't Ariang (tabilus)

May the

Which works

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Assy. 20. 19182 Lasis heel them with.

FIRST EYES

on

the

TIBET-THEN

ON KHYBER?

By Alwyn Tebbitt

OMANCE walks hand- 51st Highland

in-hand with stark was not yet regarded as "desert- worthy," but these magnificent

military realism at one troops were now ordered to man of the potentially most I certainly hoped to use at the new Nile front. The position explosive points Ionut forward observation post was one of great strength be-

Zea cause of the comparatively few world's political map the ment, after the advent a thousand of these splendid Now

contact causeways who were In

the famous Khyber Pass. which Cross disporting landers. our, men were

ог floodable themselves on the beach. about five miles away. Alexan- canalised flooded

The 1149-feet high der's attitude showed he would area of the Delta.

Pass, a It seemed How fashions change!

low gash through an otherwise When

quite practicable to arrest an

impenetrable mountain I marched to

armoured rush along, the cause-

range, Omdurman 44

has been the scene of some of ways. years before the theary was that

the bitterest battles in history the African sun must at all

for 2,000 years. Every Invader of The defence of Cairo would costs be kept away from the THIS IS THE 27TH

normally have belonged to the India, from Alexander the Great skin. The rules were strict.

CHAPTER OF "THE British general who commanded to the Mogul co.querors, come Special spine-pads were but-

of across the Khyber after march- toned on tho

back of all our HINGE OF FATE," the Egyptian Army, all khaki coats.

whose forces were also arrayed, ing through Afghanistan, It was a military

better, however, to CHURCHILL'S I thought Without MR offence to appear pith helmet. We were

BOOK pen the responsibility, should ativised

to wear

an emergency occur, upon Gen. thick underelothli. FOURTH

who had been appointed to the Persia - Irak Command, but whose

during headquarters these critical weeks were form- ing in Cairo. To him I issued a directive to inform himself fully of the whole defence plan, and to take responsibility from the moment when Gen. Alexan- der told him that Cairo was in danger.

following Arab custom enjoined OF WAR MEMOIRS Maitland-Wilson - "Jumbo

of experience,

by 1,000 years Yet now half-way through the 20th century many of the white soldiers went about their daily toil hatless and naked except for the equal of a loin cloth. Apparently it did them no harm.

Battle plans

not forbid but rather necompany the excursion. But Bernard Freyberg flatly refused to take the responsibility, and this was not a matter about which orders are usually given, even by the highest authority.

more

Now, in the same arca, the situation between Pakistan and Afghanistan is so terse that any

although maybe less fiercely day there may be a clash which, fought than the battles of by- gone days, might have much more serious consequences for the rest of the world.

F

Keeping the gate

21

sion," and be allowed to form an independent" state, allied to Afghanistan, called "Pakhtoonistan."

It is claimed that the word an- "Pathan"

Just itself is

аго

of the other name for Afghan, and that the

tribesmen motor car, was to lle hidden on therefore the mountain slopes and first really Afghans. Significantly, shoot the dag off the radiator part of the area to be "liberated" of the Commanding Officer's would put the Khyber Poss in- car, and then, if successful, have side Afghan-controlled territory. a crack at the C.. himself,

Despite the would

propaganda and that time they Before shoot the cockades of the Bri- border forays by Afghan troops, to the letter tish soldiers' helmets as they Pakistan has kept rode by on their horses, before to the policy laid down by the soldiers them- British before they left, know- shooting at the

ing full well It is essential for selves.

the safety of the Common- and particularly for an and India that

a mem- ber of the Commonwealth should control the Khyber. British in- and British diplomacy THESE engagements between fluence

tail, can still be seen behind the un- and the the British

handsome Pathan usual forbearance practised by bearded,

emotional were fought with the normally highly tribesmen much understanding and very Pakistanis. little hatred on either side.

Kabul propaganda

the

Deep confidence clans and the cream of her any Khyber to Peshawar,

and

were

and the tribesmen

long

de-

Access to sea

Kabul.

of

of ports, even to the

running special trains to the frontier.

extent

over

Wea

battles the Between caravans of pack mules, coming from as far away as Teheran,

FGHANISTAN has no outlet) FOR over hundred years bringing carpets from Persin

Britain's engineering ex- and Bokhara, wound their way to the sea of her own, and perts, her road and rail techni- acrosa

closely guarded all her imports and exports have for wo hall dressed

Instead After

weat We

into his

Rawal to pass through Karachi, Pakis this concentrated on keeping aip hardly takes a

sweltering mess tent, and were dinner-my

Delhi. pindi, Lahore

In tan's capital and chief port, and luncheon, far

Rudyard Kipling minute to put on we gathered offered a

the nearest port to gateway to India closed to the "Kim"" known Russian

and the Pakistan has expansionist scribes these caravans

to special gone in Montgomery's map wagon, magnificent than the one I had

I had now to go home on the idens, while Russia equally con- intrigues that were always a trouble to see that there is no and he explained in great detail ent n on the Scarpe. This was

eve of battle and return to far centrated on keeping the gate part of the warfare between the hold-up of Afghanistan's im- his plans for the offensive an August noonday in the desert.

wider but by no means less de- GERAN

least partially open. British way at battle. He must, however, have The set piece of the meal was a

broth of Unned New cisive affairs. I had already ob- During the last war large num- sixty years ago. six weeks to get the Eighth Army realling

to which I tained the Cabinet's oysters,

approval

berg

troops of British into order. He would reform Zealand

In 1947, with the partition of than was to the directive to be given to stationed at Quetta, one of the no more

When Britain made her con- the tivisions as integral tactical could do

the elvil.

Gen. Alexander. He was

great military establishments the Indian sub-continent, newly-

took whom units.

cessions for the formed Pakistan supreme authority with

of the world, waiting

to Afghanistan in a treaty signed in 1923, it Britain's responsibilities in the Presently Montgomery, who I now dealt in the Middle East. Germans to come the same way

and the

Eighth

the and from

moment designed to encourage Afghands- time before, Montgomery

all the other invaders if they area, as had left us some

beating the in

Pakistan came into being a tan to keep her independence drove up. Fryberg went out to Army were under him. So also, succeeded

both and not turn to Russia's ever became necessary. Russions.

of propaganda, spate written and broadcast, has come open arms. salute him, and told him his it

For the same hundred years. from Kabul, the place had been kept and that he Maitland-Wilson and the de-

capital of was expected to luncheon. But frace of Cairo. "Alex," as I had

Britain waged a ceaseless war

Pakistan can never give way Afghanistan.

to the Afghan demands without "Monty," as he was already call- jong called him, had ed, had, it appeared, made it a moved himself and his personal against the marauding tribesmen

The main theme of the pro- endangering her own safety and district-a wur rule not to accept hospitality headquarters into the desert by of the Khyber

produced some of which

the

neighbour, India, paganda, modelled so perfectly that of her from any of his subordinate the Pyramids. Cool, gay, com-

adventure stories the on the Moscow pattern that the and unless pressure is put on all, commanders. So he sat outside prchending

he inspired finest

has "coincidence" known, stories by

been the Afghans from outside in his car cating an austere sand- quiet, deep confidence in every world has

Kipling and Yeais-Brown which missed by the world's strategists, cease agitating, a clash is almost wich and drinking his lemonade quarter.

have now almost become legends is that the 8,000,000 Pushtu Inevitable.

the English-speaking speaking Pathan tribesmen who

This is the more so now that with all formalities.

among

the live in the Northwest Frontier peoples of the world.

be Afghanistan has enlisted These

show the cynical but Province and Baluchistan

tho border and help of the Fakir of Ipi, which the tween the Afghan friendly respect in

firebrand Pathan agitator who Britain British garrisons held the tribes- the River Indus. must be "libera-

for many years gave amuse ted" from Pakistani "oppres whose favourite

more trouble than the whole of the rest of the tribesmen.

dream from earliest Tsarist days has

new We must wait till the

their place divisions had taken

until the at the front and. Sherman tanks were broken in Then there would be three Army Corps, each under an experienced Meer, whom he and Alexander

Above artillery would be used as a never been possible before in the Desert.

new well.

all,

the

He spoke of the end of Sep- tember. I was disappointed us the date, but even this was de- pendent upon Rommel. Our in- formation showed that a blow from him was

imminent.

fully in- was myself already formed, and was well content that he should try a wide turn ing movement round our desen flank in order to reach Cairu, and that a manoeuvre battle should be fought on his com- munications.

Uplifted

Napoleon also might have of stood aloof in the interests

'scipline, "Dur aux grands”, was one of his maxims. But he would certainly have had an excell:nt roast chicken, served him from his own fourgon. At this time I thought much Marlborough would have enter- defeat in 1814, td and quaffed the gcod wine of Napoleon's

have

He, too, was poised to strike with his officers-Cromwell, I in the communications, but the think, too. The technique varies, allies marched straight on into and the results seem to an almost open Paris. I thought been good in all these cases. It of the highest importance that Cairo should be defended by overy able-bodied man uniform not required for the Eighth Army. Thus alone would the field army be able to take risks in letting its Bank bu turned before striking.

Gallant troops

already

World Copyright reserved. Reproduction, even partially, in any language, strictly prohibited

(MORE TOMORROW)

men.

not

HELLO-NO PAY RISE

By C. V. R. THOMPSON

should have more about women's clothes**

PROTEST:

The

to

A Russian

to

the

been Persia, Indian

annex China, Afghanistan and the sub-continent, and that ambi- tion has not changed with the

coming of the Communist regime. Every month Russia Is AI- creeping nearer har goal. ready her borders, or the bor- ders of her satellites, have NEW YORK.

Bay reached India on the northeast. feeling of insecurity because of men

Only Tibet and Nepal stand in We spent all the afternoon HE big phone strike Koren

THERE is trouble ahead for

the north, and which was supposed to General

Rev. John the way on Eisenhower when ho

"Uberation" nation

of Tibet are now taking place. back to his New York Darr and a group of nearly 100 operations for the

Leftists decided upon a new University of Columbia.

way of convincing UNO It is side in Columbia gives a prize for backing the wrong

They are planning to the best play of the year, and Korca.

£35,000 it has just made send messages to all of UNO'S deal to give its name to a members on cards attached to

playhouse which will fea- bouquets of Bowers, "Bouquets place to "liberate" it, when a

among the Army, and it was past seven when we got back to the caravan and the pleasant wav:s cripple the of its beach, I was po uplifted by ni I had seen that I was not at all fired and sat up late talk- ing. Before Montgomery went

was a gets

flop.

Perhaps it took

"Long

for

to bed at 10 o'clocis, in accord-Distance" a little more than

now

Central

position

Afghanistan would be an ideal they alrect request came, she decided

fox peace with China," will be called.

is STRIKE ANTI-TV

Ave entertain-du threatened by

from

not to co-operate with enormous neighbour. She

and she is But extremely

her

has

ance with his routine, he asked the usual 50 seconds to put ma to write something in his through a call from Now ture all those plays. personal diary. did so On August 20 we sallied forth and on several other occasions York to Los Angeles (3,000

But the sponsor is a brewer Here is the early to s00

prospective during the long war.

miles).

of beer, and Mrs Leigh Colvin, battlefield

the And

gallant what I wrote this time:

America's most militant "dry,

an And "Long Distance" was wants

explanation troops who were to hold it. I

"May the anniversary of Bien- was taken to the key onine of the south-cost

Ruwelsat helm which marks to opening probably a harassed male voice General Elsenhower. Ridge flere, amid the hard, of the new Command bring to instead of the much-advertised rolling curves and creases of the Commander-in-Chief of the "voice with a smile." the desert, lay the mass of our armour, camouftsgol, concealed yet tactically and dispersed, concentrated. Here I mot the young Brig. Roberts, who com- manded the whole of our armoured force in this vital position. All our best tankes wero under him. He certainly had a great part to play should Tommol come.

Eighth Army and his troops the fame and fortune they will sure ly deserve"

All was calm

But

Lu

an autocratie kinard. ment untons. It thele better strategically, from Russia's point

pay demands are not met big-of view, she is one of the most

in timers earning £3,000 a week franc

countries

the Important She noised his university of will have to strike on behalf of world. Her western border runs taking part in a schema which extras and small-part players.with Persia, and in the south is now co

classics the service is

American

the Pakistan State of Baluchis mechanised that scratch crews promote drinking in the Ameri- ORDE: After taking evidence tan-which is part of the terri- were able to maintain all lines can home."

In America's top tory for which the Afgbans are without limiting calls to emer

Estes Kelauver, demanding "freedom." Congressional in- gencies only.

Actually the bello

four

secret

make

Russia has long been attemp-

and with the control of Western

in cities, Senator BACK from an inspection boss of the

Britain Colorado'r

quiry Into organised crime,uing to wean Perala to her side, girls aro Senator Ed Johnson reported made thle interim report: not involved in this strike. The that he always ren Into the "Organised crime in the coun-Baluchistan she would have an During these last days of my strikers are the 33,000 men who came topic of conversation. try today would visit all my thoughts rested upon make the telephones.

Nearly the impending battle, At any

held, kindergarten everyone,

operations moment Rommel might attack They want more money than complained of lineulles In 2. Montgomery explained to me with devastating surge of the company has offered them, meeting the family budget be- boys." Who d'eposition of our artillery

to sign an cause of living comm, of all natures. Every crevice of armour. He could come in by and they refusa

the Pyramide with hardly a Gyremnant.to accept that riku the desert was packed with check except a single conal tuli for longer than one year. camouflaged concealed but- baries. Three or four hundred he reached the Nile, which flow- guns would are at the German ed serenely by at the bottom of armour before wo hurled in the Residency lawn.

-Qur'awn.

•

Lady Lampoon's baby daug Although of courro, na gishta-: fer smiled from her pram amid inge of troops could be allowed the palm trees. I looked out :: under”: thò tenemy's continuous merves the river at the fat ox- In a pantes beyond; "All was calm "that day" and "precutul, bisk. I surme fad to

To

play out the

SHOW - DUBINESS.

outlet to the Arabian Sea which of the could make Britain's control of Capone the Sucz Canal and Aden

almost valueless,

The war in Korea has prob- Erondably mado Russo think twice The women did the talking, ways ocstatic over Christopher before planning her next move. the moment the Johnson rald, and the in the Lady's Not For Although

Burning and John Glaigud's Afghon,

against propaganda molto their strike more just nodded.

neting in it, Sald the Herald Pakistan in Just as abusive and effective the union ordered

Steelworkers HOME

in Tribunst Howard Barnes: pickets around all telephona

"A provocative as ever, it Moscow Allentown, Pennsylvania, will bootle fantasy of rare splend-ir behind it, as many bellave, it exchanges.

be given regular fashion shows our and delights ALİBİ DÜĄ“ Up by Jack Kroll, during their lánch, - hơi pelikal Varier-mind this (the alother ther big union bosses, for the deicht decide to buy? $40 at most of his "dection cana-keeper la dóin" i for

le possible that Afghan demands xelax a little while Russia

Hope Chapman, or (tha" Daily News: voracious appelites for "libera

A lovely " production n tion Cat the Commpantat hordan

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