1939-04-12 — Page 18

THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPII WEDNESDAY, April 12, 1989.

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BIRTH

STANESBY-At the War Memorial Nursing Home, on 11th April, 1939, to Constance Mary, wife of S. J. C. Stanesby, daughter,

The

NIESSEL

of the MEDITERRANEAN

The distinguished French solder, who, as a former Inspecor- General of Aviation, is one of the greatest living authorities on the air arm. He was a member of the French Supreme War Connell, and has been decorated with the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour.

TH

HE whole world lives in the hope that Mediterranean lension will soon find a satisfactory settlement.

It is proper at this moment to

RENO

no safe base

on

study the strategic situation in plenished from England, and the Mediterranean, with special would have reference to the changes which land. the use of warplanes has brought to the normal conditions of naval

warfare.

ANGLO

EGYPTIAN

SUDAN

ABYS

FTALIAN TERRITORY

ARABIA

SMELLS AROUND THE WORLD

A famous explorer re- cently followed his nose · around the world, and these are the points he touched upon:--

Siralla of Malacca-You meet r. warm, fruity smell, especially when a fruit known as the dourfan is ripe. A. dourian always reminds me of Singapore.

Ceylon-In our childhood's days. on occasional Sundays We song about the "spley breezes" that blew from

Ceylon's Isle, but I have been to Ceylon dozens of times and have never noticed the scent oft But the moment you get on shore.

shore you scent the betel nut; you can shut your eyes and imagine the naked working bases for the Italian brown body of the rickshaw man under-sen fleet. The British China China conjures up in my Fleet, despite its

the smell of moth-eaten cen- great turies; I think it is due to the length

mind

the British Fleet are too inferior The warplanes carried with

in number ever to hope to be Before the development of the able to gain supremacy in the age of machinery and before the air over the Italian seaplane and birth of those two new weapons landplane war fleets, whose of war, the aeroplane and the technical efficiency is quite equal submarine, flects of warships to that of their British rivals. could hold the high sens for It is therefore plain that months at a time and could though British naval superiority superiority in tonnage and num-of time the country has lived--and blockade.from a close range an in surface craft would compel bers, could not prevent the the lack of disinfectants. enemy coastline. At the same the Italian surface ficet to be fleets working in combination.

and under-sea West Coast. The smell of decaying time, with the artillery of that extremely careful, the Italian pre-aviation period, well defend Navy, aided by its proximity to ed ports, even if they were right its own bases and powerfully on the coast level, formed safe supported first by its air fleet, harbours for warships.

and secondly by its considerable To-day, however, modern number of submarines, would be very frequently for repairs and favourable occasions for success- for re-fuelling: ports on the ful attack.

Italian over-gea

ships need to return to harbour able to find many extremely sending to that region any im- would remind me of Chill and Peru.

Hongkong Telegraph. actual coastline can be bombard-

Wyndham St., Hongkong 'Phone. 26615

April 12, 1939

"Mare Nostrum”

VIE CRISIS pot boils and bubbles THE

along the shores lapped by the placid waters of the Mediterranean,

1.

Berlin Berlin conveys the im- sea. pression that even if there were any smells they would be numbered and under police regulation,

careless smell about it.

Paris The French capital has a

vegetation recalls the West Const of In the Red Sea, however, the

Africa. British Fleet would exercise an spicy smell. If somebody handed Japan-Japan has the genuine undoubted superiority, for it you a Japanese article and your eyes can be taken that Italy would were closed you would know it was not commit the grievous fault of

Jupanese.

Chill-Any hot, dry, hard smek portant units. But here again) The Ideal-Mauritius, however, the powerful Air Force that what call the ideal smell. You Italy has built up in East Africa are up in the mountains with the would be able to exercise a police a charm about it that I have never roses, and there is a freshness and ed from a distance by artillery, Looking Eastwards

control which would be extreme-met elsewhere in all my wanderings. and all ports are within the field In the Eastern Mediterranean ly dangerous to any commercial of action of enemy aircraft. the comparative situation of the navigation in that narrow two hypothetically rival Warships, moving fast, can to Forces would not be so extreme diversions, conjointly with the Air It would also be able to effect a small extent protect them-

Italian land forces, in the direc- selves from attack by air. But ly unequal. aeroplanes and submarines work- British Air Forces could, like tion of the Sudan, which would

On the Ocean-The deep blue sea the British Fleet, find bases in be excessively unpleasant. ing together make navigation Cyprus, at Haifa, and on

bas no smell of its own, but that for hostile war fcets in narrow northern coast of Egypt, where separates the

the

Despite the distance that old sailing ship the smell of the tar very fact strengthens the smell of the seas extremely dangerous.

South-cast of on the ropes that brings with It A they have

an admirably well- Libya from Eritrea, it would not sense of heart yearning. organised refitting station at be impossible, either, for Italian Aboukir. This is particularly the case

warplanes to cross the distance Nevertheless, even here the and fly right over the Sudan. with the Mediterranean, and it Italian warplanes based on The real quarrel is the lordship look upon the whole of this sea Islands are only 450 miles from

would be no exaggeration to Rhodes and the Dodecanese The Aeroplane's ·

Influence Italy calls it "Mare Nostrum"-.

as a focal area of grave danger Haifa, less than 400 miles from where sen movements would be the entry to the Suez Canal, and **** | “Our Sen,"

most difficult to protect, above only 350 miles from Alexandria. Ordinarily, that would not matter.all, from air attack. But when Mussolini decides that There is no denying the patent Dangerous Possibilities the Mediterranean becomes his sea

The Italians also have bases to the exclusion of other nations, Italy, lying across the middle of available in Libya, the frontier Britain must act. It may be Italy's the Mediterranean, gives her re- of which is but 300 miles from sea, but it is Britain's artery. Anmarkable strategic advantages Alexandria. The coast of Libya, Italian torniquet would stop the

in the western half of that sea. as well as that of Rhodes, would life-blood of commeree flowing be-

From the coasts of Sardinia at the same time form admirable tween the heart of the Empire and to those of North Africa the dis- Its finger-tips in Hongkong, Singa-miles;

tance is barely one hundred

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conflict in the Mediterranean To sum up, in the event of a

and in the Red Sea, the entrance into action of the air fleets would

have a marked influence on the progress of operations. In par- ticular, it would compel the greater part of merchant, ship- ping to avoid the Mediterranean and thus cause in economic up heaval.

Other places which have distinc- ve smells in his recollection are:-

Aden.-hides and heat. Leningrad.-wood Ares.

Oregon (8.A.) and Sutherland- shire-pine trees.

San Francisco" really fruity smell,"

sheds and stables.

Hungary and Kurania - catile

Arabla-raneld butter, Burmah, "the. whacking white

the Irrawaddy.

cheroot" and the "brown smell" of

900 worth of geld left Bombay to-day, half of which is optionally being sent to New York, Paris, and Amsterdam, -Reuter,

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HOLLAND IS READY

But Dutchmen Will

Mind Own Business

THIS great little country, it must peace for over a hundred years. Iolland when the tulips are in be remembered, has been at

only seventy miles separate- Sicily-from- -the northern capo of Tunisia, with another seventy between Sicily and Malta. The triangle of sea coastline of Naples has a base of between Sardinia, Sicily, and the only four hundred miles, and IT doesn't matter whether you visit there is not a point in the bloom or whether you arrive at the Tyrrhenian Sea which is more Hook of Holland before dawn on a than three hundred miles distant bleak February morning, the Dutch- from the nearest point either in man is there on the quay-polite,

calm, unruffled. Italy or from the coast of Italian

And while you realise that Holland Northern Africa.

Is not yet awake, you are aware, even 50, that the peace around you is not due entirely to the earliness of the hour-for you have already noted

the serenity in the people's faces.

That is why there is stationed in the Mediterranean now a very im- posing portion of the British fleet. Britain's warships are not there to impede the communications of any nation, but to protect her own.

Because of this, the position is the Mediterranean to-day is a very interesting one, vastly different from 1914-18. We had enemies in the inland sen then-Austria-Hun--|

In the and

whole of this gary

Turkey both

area, which cuts the Mediterranean in respectable-sized fleets,

two, the greater part of Italy's To-day, Britain's warships are land flying forces could still so superior that they could operate in Italy's offensive naval bottle up any possible combination operations and could render even of enemies in the Mediterranean. ordinary navigation extremely | But a new factor has entered into dangerous, if not impossible, to consideration. Were there no Air an enemy. Force, the British fleet would do- minate the Mediterranean ay in former times.

had

CO

Malta, with its harbour, re- stricted in size, could no longer It is in the air that Italy is so afford protection to the British superior in the Mediterranean, Fleet.

planes were used." Of Italy's 4,000

The story of Abyssinia would have been a vastly different one but for The far western part of the these Italian planes.

Western Mediterrancan as far as You heard of what they did in Gibraltar becomes less exposed Albania, of how they destroyed to such terrible danger as the Spanish towns. In both those coun-distance from Sardinia increases. trics, however, only a few hundred Novertheless, even in this part planes only 400 went to Spain-an of the Mediterranean, the cqual number was used in Albanin. Italian seaplanes and Italian air- Against this number Britain has men who accomplished the flight no more than a thousand planes across the Atlantic would be within reach of the Mediterranean. capable of undertaking the jour- Malta, Gibraltar, Cyprus, the Suez ney of 1,500 miles (there and Canal are all within reach of Mus-back) which separates Sardinia solini's bombers.

If there is over trouble between from Gibraltar.

Italy and Britain, we may be tem-

porarily forced from the Mediter Britain's Peril

ranean. Hongkong's trade with

to emphasise

It is necessary Europe will have to be diverted via the fact that Italian aviation the Cape or Panama,

would in those sens have the

Will that help Italy?

No Britain need only withdraw enormous advantage of being her warships to Gibraltar in the based on ita national territory, west, to Aden in the East. Italy close to its reserve depots and to will be as effectually strangled as the factoris which ensure its was Germany in 1918.

replacement, its spare parts, its For it is not the Mediterranean stores and arms. British war- LTD. tact, but these two British for-

tresses, which are the key to "Mare plane fleets, on the other hand, Nostrum."

would have to be entirely re-

Says Barnaby Cobb

It was partly to discover if the Dutchman's calm had been ruffled by recent events that I visited Helland. What would the Dutchman have again.

done had Hitler decided to put such What had the Dutchman said-or fanciful dreams into action? done when he heard rumours that his great possessions might be in the melting pot of Hitler's dreams to be parcelled out as he thought t7

GRIN AND BEAR IT

By Lichty

"More labour, trouble, Snodgrass-the vice presidents have or

ganized and go ne on strikel":

1

PUT the question to the man sit- ting opposite to me in the car- riage after we had exchanged cigar- eltes..

"We have a warlike neighbour." he said. "Why talk of him.

Au though to humour me he said, finally: "War is not won by aero- planes or bombs any more, my friend. We have already seen that. The next war, they say, will be with gas. Well, our prevailing wind is from the west-from the sea. Only for sixty days In the year does it blow the other way. So you see," he added, with a gesture conveying the futility of further discusslen, "the gas would blow towards Germany, not to us.

"But war," I said, "has always been won on land with armies and artillery.

"

Our

Humouring me once more he said: "It is so simple. If war should come with Germany, we concentrate army on the N.E. frontier. We can hold that long enough for our civil- lian population in that area to be evacuated. Then we fall back to Hine east of Utrecht and open the dykes from the Zuyder Zee. That will save Rotterdam, Amsterdam, The Hague and Utrecht. No army can cross that water."

AT

T The Hague, where our train stopped for a moment. I Inter- rupted his discourse on tullp-growing to ask if the Queen didn't live there. His solemn, expressionless face Ughted up. "Yes," he said "and she's a fine woman, our Queen. Liko my mother. She wears four petti- coats"

now.

His wife didn't wear four petticoats he explained, for it wasn't the custom

The Queen rode a bicycle, too, like all people in Holland. His mother (Continued on Page 5.)