1939-04-12 — Page 6

THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 12, 1939,

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Hongkong Telegraph. Wyndham St., Hongkong 'Phone 26615 April 12, 1939

MENACE

By GENERAL NIESSEL.

of the MEDITERRANEAN

The distinguished French solder, who, as 4 former Inspecor- Ceneral of Aviation, is one of the greatest living authorities on the air arm. He was a member of the French Supreme War Council, and has been decorated with the Grand Cruss of the Legion of Honour,

T

HE whole world lives in the hope that Mediterranean lension

will soon find a satisfactory settlement.

It is proper at this moment to

.

FRENCE

NEDITER

YA

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.

no safe base on

The warplanes carried with the British Flect are too inferior 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

war fleets,

whose birth of those two new weapons landplane of war, the acroplane and the technical efficiency is quite equal submarine, fleets of warships to that of their British rivals. could hold the high seas for It is therefore plain that months at a time and could though British naval superiority blockade from a close range an in surface craft would compel enemy coastline. Al the same the Italian surface fleet to be 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 const level, formed safe supported first by its air fleet, harbours for warships. and secondly by its considerable modern number of submarines, would be ships need to return to harbour able to find many extremely very frequently for repairs and favourable occasions for success- for re-fuelling; ports on the actual coastline can be bombard

To-day. however,

ed from a distance by artillery, and all ports are within the field of action of enemy aircraft.

"Mare Nostrum” THE CRISIS pot boils and bubbles

Warships, moving fast, can to along the shores lapped by the placid waters of the Mediterranean, selves from attack by air. But a small extent protect them- heated by the fires of aggrandisc-aeroplanes and submarines work ment on the one side; suspicion anding together make navigation for hostile war fleets in narrow The real quarrel is the lordship sens extremely dangerous. of the inland sen.

fear on the other.

Italy calls it "Mare Nostrum"- "Our Sea."

pore, India.

Strategic Advantages

ANGLO

-EGYPTIAN.

SUDAN

ITALIAN |TERNITORY

ARABIA

ABYSSIN

ROEN

SMELLS AROUND THE WORLD

A famous explorer re- cently followed his nose around the world, and thesc are the points he touched

[upon:-

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

Ceylon In our childhood's days on occasional Sundays We sang about the "spley breezes" that blew from Ceylon's Iste, but I have been to Ceylon dozens. of limes and have never nolleed the scent off shore. But the moment you get on shore you scent the betel nut; you can shut your

and Imagine the naked eyes

working bases for the Italian brown body of the rickshaw ma under-son fleet. The British China.-Chino conjures up in my mind the smell of moth-eaten cen- Fleet, despite

great turies; I think it is due to the length superiority in tonnage and num of thine the country has lived-and bers, could not prevent the the lack of disinfectants. Italian over-sen and under-gen West Coast.-The smell of decaying fleets working in combination.

vegetation recalls the West Coast of Africa, In the Red Sea, however, the

Inpau.-Japan, has the genuine British Fleet would exercise an suley smell. If somebody handed 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 full of Japanese. sending to that region any im- would ranind me of Chili and Peru. Chili-Any hot, dry, hard smell portant units. But here again The Ideal-Mauritius, however, the powerful Air Force that has what I call the ideal smell. You In the mountains with the Italy has built up in East Africa would be able to exercise a police a charm about it that I have never roses, and there is a freshness and control which would be extreme-inet elsewhere in all my wanderings. In the Eastern Mediterranean ly dangerous to any commercial | Berlin Berlin conveys the im- the comparative situation of the

sen.pression that even if there were any navigation in that narrow two hypothetically rival Air I would also be able to effect smells they would be numbered and

under police regulation. Forces would not be so extreme- diversions, conjointly "with the Italian and forces, in the direc- ty unequal.

British Air Forces could, liketion of the Sudan, which would the British Fleet, find bases in be excessively unpleasant. Cyprus, at Haifa, and on northern coast of Egypt, where they have an admirably well- organised refitting station at Aboukir,

ful attack.

Looking Eastwards

the

Nevertheless, even here the

based warplanes Italian

on

This is particularly the case Ordinarily, that would not matter.with the Mediterranean, and it

would be no exaggeration to Rhodes and the Dodecanese But when Mussolini decides that look upon the whole of this sca Islands are only 450 miles from the Mediterranean becomes his sen as a focal area of grave danger Haifa, less than 400 miles from to the exclusion of other nations, where sea movements would be the entry to the Suez Canal, and Britain must act. It may be Italy's most difficult to protect, above only 350 miles from Alexandria. sea. but it is Britain's artery. An all, from air attack. Italian torniquet would stop the

There is no denying the patent Dangerous Possibilities The Italians also have bases life-blood of commerce flowing be- fact that the central position of tween the heart of the Empire and Italy, lying across the middle of available in Libyn, the frontier the Mediterranean, gives her re- of which is but 300 miles from its finger-tips in Hongkong. Singamarkable strategic advantages Alexandria. The coast of Libya, in the western half of that sea. as well as that of Rhodes, would That is why there is stationed in

From the coasts of Sardinia at the same time form admirable the-Mediterranean-tow-a-very-im-to those of North Africa the dis- posing portion of the Brilish fleet.tance is barely one hundred Britain's warships are not there to miles; only seventy miles from the impede the communications of any separate. Sicily

northern cape of Tunisia, with | nation, but to protect her own.

another seventy between Sicily Because of this, the position in and Malta. The triangle of sea the Mediterranean to-day is a very between Sardinia, Sicily, and the Interesting one, vastly different constline of Naples has a base of from 1914-18. We had enemies in only four hundred miles, and

doesn't matter whether you visit Holland when the tulips are in the inland sea then-Austria-Hun- 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 gary and Turkey both had

than three hundred miles distant bleak February morning, the Dutch- respectable-sized fleets.

man Is there on from the nearest point either in Italy or from the coast of Italian Northern Africa.

To-day, Britain's warships are still so superior that they could bottle up any possible combination

In the whole of this area, of enemies in the Mediterranean. which cuts the Mediterranean in But a new factor has entered into two, the greater part of Italy's consideration. Were there no Airland flying forces could co- Force, the British fleet would do-operate in Italy's offensive naval minate the Mediterraneun ns in former times.

operations and could render even ordinary navigation extremely dangerous, if not impossible, to

It is in the air that Italy is so an enemy.

the superior in

Mediterranean.; The story of Abyssinia would have been a vastly different one but for these italian planes.

Malta, with its harbour, re- stricted in size, could no longer afford protection to the British Fleet.

You heard of what they did in

The far western part of the Albania, of how they destroyed Western Mediterranean as far as Spanish towns. In both those coun- Gibraltar becomes less exposed tries, however, only a few hundred to such terrible danger as the planes were used. Of Italy's 4,000 distance from Sardinia increnses. planes only 400 went to Spain-an Nevertheless, even in this part

the equal number was used in Albania. of

Mediterranean, the Against this number Britain has Italian seaplanes and Italian air- no more than a thousand planes men who accomplished the flight within reach of the Mediterranean. across the Atlantic would be Malta, Gibraltar, Cyprus, the Suez capable of undertaking the jour- Canal are all within reach of Mus-ney of 1,500 miles (there and solini's bombers.

back) which separates Sardinia

If there is ever trouble between from Gibraltar. Italy and Britain, wo may be lem- porarily forced from the Mediter Britain's Peril ranean. Hongkang's trade with Europo will have to be diverted vin the Cape or Panama,

Will that help Italy?

It is necessary to emphasise the fact that Itallan aviation would in these seas have the Not Britain need only withdraw enormous advantage of being her warships to Gibraltar in the based on its national territory, west, to Aden in the East. Italy close to its reserve depots and to will be ng effectually strangled as the factories which ensure its wha Germany in 1918.

repincement, its spare parts, its For is not the Mediterranean tresses, which are the key to "Mare plane fleets, on the other hand, would have to be entirely re

4

THE WING ON CO., LTD. itself, but these two British for stores and arms. British war-

www Nostrum."

Despite the distance that separates the South-east of Libya from Eritrea, it would not be impossible, cither, for Italian warplanes to cross the distance and fly right over the Sudan. The Aeroplane's Influence

up

Paris. The Frenchi capitol has a careless smell about it.

On the Decan.--The deep blue sea has no smell of its own, but that very fact strengthens the smell of the old saileg ship the smell of the tar on the ropes that brings with it a senar of heart yearning.

Other places which have distinc--

tive smells in his recollection are:-

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

Oregon (U.S.A.} and Sutherland- shire.-pine trees..

San Francisco-a really fruity smcil,"

Hungary and

Rumania, enttle

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

To sum up, in the event of a

in the Mediterranean sheds and stablea,

Arabla rancid butter. Burmalt."the

whacking white

have a marked influence on the cheroot" and the "brown smell of

the Irrawaddy..

progress of operations. In par- ticular, it would compel the greater part of merchant ship- BOMBAY, Apr. 11-About £100,- ping to avoid the Mediterranean 000 worth of gold left Bombay to-day, and thus cause in economic up-half of which is optionally being sent

henval.

HOLLAND IS

to New York, Paris, and "Amsterdam. -Reuter,

READY

But Dutchmen Will Mind Own Business

calm, unruffled. the quay-pulite,

And while you realise that Holland is not yet awake, you are aware, even so, that the peace around you is not due entirely to the carliness of the hour-for you have already noted the serenity in the people's faces.

is great little country, it must be remembered, has been at peace for over a hundred years.

I was partly to discover If the Dutchman's calm had been ruffled by recent events that I visited Holland agalu.

What had the Dutchman sald-or done-when he heard rumours that his great possessions might be in the melting pot of Hitler's dreams to be purcelled out as he thought fit?

GRIN AND BEAR IT

By Lichty

TRUST !DEPT.

"More" labour, trouble, Snodgrass the vice presidents have or vonized and gone on strike?"

Says Barnaby Cobb

What would the Dutchman have done had Hitler decided to put` such. fanciful dreams thto action?

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

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

As though to humour me he said, nally: War is not won by nero- planes or bombs any more, my friend. We have already seen that. The next war, they say, will be with gas. Well, our prevalling wind is from the west-from the sen. Only for sixty days in the year does it blow the other way. So you see," he added, with

gesture conveying the futility of further discussion, "the gas would blow towards Germany, not to us."" "But war." I said, "hos niwnys been won on land with armies and: artillery.

Humouring me once more he said: "It is so simple. If war should come with Germany we concentrate our army on the N.E. frontier. We can hold that long enough for our civil- Jinn population in that area to be avacuated. Then we fall back to a linc 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.”

T The Hague, where our train stopped for a moment. I Inter- rupted his discourse on tulip-growing to ask if the Queen didn't live there. His solemn, expressionless face Ughted up. "Yes," he said,. and

Like

she's a fine woman, aur Queen. my mother. She wears four petti- coats."

now.

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

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