CAB38-17 — Page 189

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Defence. Paragraphs 4, 5, and 13, and the reference to the " remoteness of the contingency of war with the United States" in paragraph 9 to be omitted. An indication of the defensive value of submarine mines to be added to paragraph 15.

5. HONG KONG: STANDARD OF DEFENCES.

THE PRIME MINISTER read the conclusions below which he understood had been accepted by the Admiralty and the War Office.

These were agreed to.

(Conclusion.)

(a.) Provided that, before the termination of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, care is taken sufficiently to reinforce the fleet in the Far East to deter the Japanese from bringing transports to the neighbourhood of Hong Kong with a view to effecting a landing in force, there is no need to maintain the defences of Hong Kong on a scale sufficient to enable the fortress to hold out against attack by an expeditionary force for a period of one month.

(b.) Advantage should be taken of any favourable opportunity that may be offered by the reduction of the infantry at stations abroad to strengthen the garrison of Hong Kong by the addition of one battalion of British infantry.

(c.) The additions to the fixed armament recommended by the Colonial Defence Committee in their Memorandum (C.I.D. Paper No. 66-C), and the strengthening of the local naval defence flotilla proposed by the Admiralty, should be carried out.

6. EGYPT: DEFENCE OF EASTERN FRONTIER. (C.I.D. Paper 123-B.)

THE PRIME MINISTER said that perhaps Sir Ian Hamilton, who had just come back from Egypt, would give the Committee his views on the question.

SIR IAN HAMILTON said that he had wished to go himself to the Sinai Peninsula to study the question of the defence of this frontier on the spot, but that Sir Eldon Gorst had objected to his going there on political grounds, and that he had therefore relinquished this intention. He could perhaps explain his views best by reading an extract from his report to the War Office on the scheme prepared by the General Officer Commanding the Army of Occupation :

"It is unnecessary for me to point out how the great advance made in recent years in the construction of railways in Syria has improved the strategic condition of Turkey with regard to a possible advance against Egypt. Nature, however, still places between the Turks and Egypt a barrier which is as formidable now as in the days of Napoleon—the Sinai Peninsula—but if we are to take full advantage of this gift of nature we must not, in my opinion, calmly sit down on the Canal bank as proposed and leave the enemy free and undisturbed to cross this great military obstacle in his own time. The Sinai Peninsula might still be very easily made into a very effective buffer; the Suez Canal, in my opinion, is but little more a military obstacle than the Basingstoke Canal at Aldershot.

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'General Maxwell recognises three lines by which an enemy may advance overland for the attack of Egypt in general, the Canal in particular :-

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(1.) El Arish-Katia-Kantara, on the Suez Canal.

(2.) El Arish, viâ Moghara Hills, on to Ismailia. (3.) Akaba, viâ Nahkl, to the vicinity of Chalouf.

I believe that I am correct in saying that in the dry season no force could advance by these routes without making use of the oases at El Arish in the case of (1) and (2); the wells of Nahkl in the case of (3). In the wet season, if El Arish and Nahkl were occupied, and as there would be many other sources of water available for use, it may be said that an invader might with a small force contain the garrisons at these points and with the main body march on. Our only imaginable enemy here is, however, an Oriental, [439]

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