Evening star. [volume], July 07, 1940, Image 23

About Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972

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. PART TWO —EDITORIAL SECTION
Editorial Page—Features pje Jhmtimj Pte Organizations—Civics
TEX PAGES. WASHINGTON, D. C., JULY 7, 1940. " ' -
~ ” ' ——-■———-----------------— _»
War's Strangest Chapter Features Battle Between Fleets of Britain and France
-. ^, • ;
Review of Forty-Fourth Week of War
By Blair Bolles.
Near the scenes of two sea fights glorious in the English memory,
Aboukir Bay and Trafalgar, the modern English Navy this week sank or
seized most of the ships in the French battle fleet. Thus, in an “unnatural”
way, Great Britain went to war against her recent ally, now the subject of
Germany (perhaps soon the ally of Germany). France broke diplomatic
relations with England, whose Prime Minister, Churchill, wept in telling
the House of Commons the sad but stirring story of the action against
France taken by his majesty’s ships. Tears, however, were not the week’s
symbols in Britain. The English showed an ever-increasing sternness.
The menace of their island’s invasion grew daily closer. Much of the old
bulldog grit so long associated in the popular conception with the English
character has shown itself unmistakably in recent days. Only time will
tell whether England has more than grit.
Today actually but three countries are at war in Europe—Germany and
Italy against England, aided by her dominions and Egypt. However, the
whole world watches them and feels their influence. The American Gov
ernment, through its President and its Secretary of State, denounced both
the German political philosophy and the German pretensions to authority
in the Western Hemisphere. The Balkans heaved and Japan and Britain
brushed each other diplomatically in the Far East.
Fighting Fronts
The war proper between Germany and
England and Italy and England has been
comparatively tame. But out of this
restrained belligerency recently has come
a series of paradoxical and contradictory
events fittingly capped by battle between
two nations less than a month ago fight
ing side by side. The week presented the
strange case of Balbo's death and the
strange case of the torpedoed ship.
Italo Balbo, Italian air marshal, was
a casualty of the previous week, dying
In an air crash over the Libya whose
colonial governor Mussolini had made
him. Italy mourned him as a hero
killed in action against the enemy, and
now has named Marshal Rodolfo Graz
lana to his Libyan post. "The only fact
which can be established is that Marshal
Balbo did not perish in combat with
the Royal Air Force,” the
Balbo British Foreign Office an
Mystery nounced. “A careful investi
1 gation shows that no British
aircraft wrere concerned in the crash
of Balbo's machine and there is thus
no truth in the statement that he fell
in battle.”
Was this famous Italian a victim of
Italians? "The truth probably never
will be known.” It is known, however,
that almost 1,000 Germans and Italians
were victims of a German torpedo. They
were aboard the S. S. Arandora Star,
15,501 tons, ploughing westward across
the Atlantic toward Canada off the
coast of Ireland. At 6 a.m. Wed
nesday morning her unhappy pas
senger*, principally interned Germans
and Italians, were roughly awakened by
a violent lurch of their vesseL
A German submarine had sent a Ger
man torpedo into the ship, not knowing
.that it was carrying fellow nationals to
Canada “for the duration,” following a
similar ship that reached Canada Mon
day. The interned men, thrown into
panic, fought with each other and with
the 500 soldiers and crew members on
the ship for the right to be first in
the life boats. One German, to calm
his colleagues, clubbed them with a
rifle in order to pnng order in the de
parture from the ship. There were but
three dozen lifeboats. In
Arandora Star them 1.000 of the men
Sinking from the Arandora Star
reached Western Scot
land's shore and safety. It was the
greatest passenger ship disaster of this
war. In Berlin, the German high com
mand issued a communique announcing
the ship's torpedoing.
Later on that same July 3 the British
met the French in the Mediterranean.
The strange triumph at sea registered
by the one remaining foe to Hitler will
stand forever as among the oddest of all
naval engagements in the world’s history.
The political repercussions may be great
enough to preclude British and French
co-operation for years to come. They
had not been on opposite sides since
the end of Napoleon's wars in 1815.
The background of the extraordinary
meeting is this: On paper the French
government of peace headed by Marshal
Petain delivered the French fleet into
the German hands through the truce of
Compiegne. The British, staking their
defense chiefly on their control of the
seas, exclaimed in anguish at this clause
In the compact. They resolved that what
Hitler was promised Hitler would not
have. They went after the fleet, truce
or no truce, and got it, or most of it.
The battle between the British and
French was divided into three parts.
In English and Scottish
Anglo-French ports, the battle was al
Sea Battle most bloodless. At
Plymouth, Portsmouth
end Sheerness, armed British sailors
took possession of two battleships, two
light cruisers, the world's largest sub
marine, the Surcouf, and 200 small
mine - sweeping and anti-submarine
craft. A British seaman and a French
officer were killed and a French officer,
two British officers and a British en
listed man were wounded during a scuffle
aboard the Surcouf. The battle reached
Its bizarre heights at Oran, Algeria, near
the western end of the Mediterranean,
and at Alexandria, in the inland sea's
eastern sector.
The French at Alexandria were trapped
and considering giving themselves in
to the British hands, as together the
British and the French warships turned
against an Italian attack from the air.
the British trap at Alexandria ensnared
a French battleship, four French
cruisers and a number of smaller ships.
The French resisted at Oran, and the
battle raged for an hour and 27 minutes.
The anxious story of the fight at Oran
Prime Minister Churchill, a prose artist
and master at military depiction, de
scribed in the House of Commons on
July .4:
"Yesterday morning an officer asked
to interview the French admiral (Gen
soul) and after being refused, presented
a document demanding that the French
fleet should act in accordance with one
of the following alternatives: a. To con
tinue the fight against the Germans
GEN. JOHN J. PERSHING.
He urged Congress to enact a
military conscription laro for de
fense. . —A. P. Photo.
and the Italians, b. To sail with a re
duced crew to a British port.
“ ‘If conditions are refused,’ the request
continued, ‘we must require you to sink
your ships within six hours.’
Churchill s The anguish which this
Anguish process has caused to the
. British Admiralty can be
imagined.<, When finally th#'#*Uich
admiral refused to comply (Admiral Sir
James) Somerville was ordered to com
plete- the operation before darkness. He
opened fire at 5:58 on the powerful
French fleet, protected by shore bat
teries (in the Mers El-Kebir fortress).
‘‘The British attack was accompanied
by heavy attacks from aircraft from the
Ark Royal. By 7:20 a battle cruiser of
the Strasbourg class was damaged and
ashore. A battleship of the Bretagne
class was sunk and another heavily dam
aged. Two French destroyers and an
airplane carrier were sunk or burning.
One battle cruiser, either the Strasbourg
or the Dunkerque, succeeded in sailing
out of the harbor pursued by aircraft,
She was hit by one torpedo, but was
joined by other French vessels, all of
which reached Toulon (French European
naval base) before they could be over
taken.
“The Dunkerque will, at any rate, be
out of action for many months to come.”
Even if the Ally had become enemy,
Mr. Churchill spoke well of their valor.
“The French ships fought with the char
acteristic courage of the French Navy.”
As for Britain’s enemy in the Mediter
ranean, the Prime Minister said: “The
Italian fleet kept prudently out of the
way.”
So the French suffered the greatest
defeat at sea since Lord Nelson beat them
at Trafalgar in 1805. The British had
found a way of insisting that the French
uphold the pre-truce agreement Eng
land says the nation had to keep the
fleet out of German hands.
Within 36 hours after the battle of
Oran, the Petain government, a German
. , puppet, seated at Vichy,
retain s broke off relations with Eng
Protest land in the name of France,
denouncing the naval en
gagement, carried out by Admiral Som
erville and directed by radio from the
Admiralty in London, as “treachery.”
What the future relations between France
and England could be, none foresaw.
Foreign Minister Baudoin, at Vichy, pub
licly blamed Britain for France’s sur
render to Germany, asked the press to
assure the United States of France’s con
tinued friendship, and denounced the
warfare at Oran: “Mr. Churchill is guilty
of an act of aggression which is without
precedent in the history of the world,
because the French warships at Oran
were demobilized and without steam to
maneuver for battle.” Next day French
planes bombed the British port of Gib
raltar and two British cruisers blockaded
French West Indian island of Martinique.
For the British, the naval battle in
triplicate represented but one phase of
the effort to confound the Germans in
their plans for invasion. The Germans,
for their part, steadily pushed these plans
forward. On Monday, for the first time,
the German Army set foot on British
soil by occupying two of the British
Channel Islands, close to the French
coast, Guernsey and Jersey. Guernsey
is 90 miles from the British port of Plym
outh. The Germans claimed they tor
pedoed a British cruiser of the Orion
class and shot down 18 British planes
attacking “non-military targets in North
ern, Western and Southern Germany.”
The Germans announced the cost of
the western war against the Nether
lands, Belgium, Luxembourg
Losses on and France was 27,074
West Front killed, 111,034 wounded and
18,384 missing. An estimate
of the French losses were 1,500,000.
The extent of the German under-sea
warfare widened, and London reported
the loss of 884259 tons of shipping to
German and Italian torpedoes during
the week ending June 33. Berlin claimed
Britain, final citadel of the Allied cause, is feeling the force of Germany’s iron fist through the Nazi air
fleets which raid the beleaguered island night after night. In the above sketch Artist William Heaslip depicts
aerial and land actions which mark bombing assaults on British areas.
The air over the quiet English village is filled with the sight and sound of death. Searchlights stab the
skies seeking the invaders as an anti-aircraft battery rakes the clouds, bringing down a Messerschmitt in
flames. A Royal Air Force Spitfire sweeps upward to engage in another duel as its first victim, a Heinkel bomber
(rashes on a house near the placid stream. '
a submarine put a torpedo in the British
ship Illustrious. The day the Arandora
Star went down and the French fleet lost
at Oran. German bombing planes raided
England all day, killing two, wounding
22. The next day the droning bombers
returned to their work over England,
and the British government took a great
step toward preparation for the arrival
of Germans at the English shore, issuing
an order excluding the public from the
entire east coast. With previous orders,
this meant that from Berwick-on-Tweed
in Scotland down the east coast and
around to Dorset on the south coast Eng
HITLER CUNNING SEEN IN ALLIES' BATTLE
Lloyd George Charges Petain Duped on Disposal of French Fleet
By David Lloyd George.
LONDON.—The only serious battle last
week was fought between the British and
French ships. Of all the wars ever waged,
this surely is the most amazing. Every
turn in its fortunes is a startling surprise
to all the prophets and experts. None
of them foresaw its most astounding
developments—unless it be the astound
ing man who has been responsible for
them all.
Those who on either side of the At
lantic foresee for themselves safe limits
to his destructive powers may,live to
rue their confidence.
In the Machiavellian terms of peace
he dictated to an aged French soldier,
Hitler never asked for the surrender
of the French fleet. Oh, no, that would
be too obvious a device for handing it
over as a formidable weapon for in
vasion of an Allied country. Even Petain
might not stand for that. Petain's
honor must be saved. It was stipulated
that the French fleet was not to be used
to attack Britain. It was simply to be
interned in French ports under German
and Italian control.
Petain Signed in Good Faith.
Petain was taken in by Hitler's
pledge—countersigned by Mussolini—and
signed on the dotted line the insidious
conditions of armistice in the genuine
belief that he had faithfully discharged
his obligations to his ally. The British
government, in what was a matter of
life or death to their country, could
not place the same dependence on the
promise given by a wily enemy who
could easily And any number of ex
cuses for evading it. If Britain shrank
from capturing or otherwise rendering
innocuous the Prench fleet, and its
ships were consequently added to the
powerful Italian fleet and the small
but effective German fleet, an armada
might be assembled against Britain
which, with the aid of aerial supremacy,
might overwhelm British resistance to
invasion.
In that contingency, the dictators
would achieve their purpose. If, on
the other hand, the British should sus
pect Hitler's design and demand the
surrender of the Prench fleet to them
selves, then there woiild arise a pretty
quarrel between the old confederates.
Either way Hitler scored.
Hitler’s Craft and Cunning.
If the grand democratic alliance
should provoke misunderstanding be
tween Prance and Britain, their fleets
would end in destroying each other.
That also would serve his purpose well.
His (energy is demoniacal, but it is noth
ing to his craft and cunning. He has ,
partially—but only partially—succeeded
in his design. It is true he has forced
a sea fight between the navies of Prance
and Britain, but a substantial part of
the French fleet is under British con
trol. Some of its ships have also been
put out of action.
The Hitler artifice will no doubt have
the effect of strengthening the Laval
intrigue to convert France into a Fascist
state, more or less on the model of the
victorious authoritarian constitutions.
That is the next move of the Petainists
—or rather the Lavalists. It is their
chance to suppress the democratic in
stitutions in France.
There will be an attenuated, intimi
dated assembly of senators and deputies
at Clermont Ferrand, from which the
democratic leaders will have been elim
inated.
Laval, who is not devoid of subtlety,
in appealing to his rump parliament will
use to the utmost the argument that
better peace terms will be conceded to
a state whose constitution approximates
to that of the victors. When the Laval
constitution becomes the governing docu
ment the real conquest of Prance by
Nazi Germany will be a fait accompli. It
will be an authoritarian state robbed of
all the compensating ingredients to be
found in Germany and Italy.
Britain Prepares for Invasion.
Here on this island, we are preparing
with feverish energy to defend our homes
against the invaders. There is no doubt
in my mind that invasion is impending.
Neither is there any doubt that it must
be and will be resisted with every re
source at our disposal. I have not wit
nessed any sign or symptom of quailing
or submission herer The only questions
asked are: “When will it come? Where
will they land? What are we expected
to do to resist?”
(Copyright, 1940.)
I France.
land haa a line 20 miles deep entirely
given over to military operations.
In the air the British gave the Ger
mans tit for tat. Twice the flyers in the
Royal Air Force bombed the German
26,000-ton battleship Schamhorst, lying
in a floating dock at the
Schornhorst Kiel Canal. The British
Bombed warriors of the sky set
fire to oil storage tanks in
Hamburg, and, according to Berlin, who
called the action "unscrupulous,” killed
11 children, 3 women and 1 man in Ham
burg and Barmbeck.
For Britain the war during the week
meant a good deal more than the prob
lem of Germany. There was Italy, a
bona fide enemy, and Japan, for London
an annoyance.
Italy meant battle in air and on water
and menace in the Near East. A British
authority ia Cairo said that during
June the British air force shot down 60
Italian planes in the Near East. A Cairo
naval communique reported that between
June 27 and June 29 British naval air
forced sank four Italian submarines and
the destroyer Espero in the Eastern Med
iterranean. The Italians in turn said
WINSTON CHURCHILL.
The Prime Minister of Great
Britain wept as he told Parlia
ment of the Anglo-French naval
battle. —A. P. Photo.
their airplanes dispersed British tank
columns during fighting along the
Egyptian-Libyan border.
Saturday, Count Ciano. Italian foreign
minister, left for Berlin to talk with
his ally.
Italy also meant a problem in regard J
to Syria, French mandated territory lying
at the Mediterranean’s eastern end.
Theta Gen. Mittelhauser commands
French troops. Britain, the London
Foreign Office said, "could not allow
Syria or Lebanon (adjacent to Syria), to
be occupied by any hostile power.” A
statement said that the British gdvern
ment assumed that the action of Gen.
Mittelhauser in ceasing hostilities did not
mean that if Germany or Italy sought to
occupy Syria or Lebanon, the French
forces would not oppose them. Week end
rumblings along the Syria-Palestine bor
der indicated perhaps the French in
Syria will fight the British.
The Japanese problem arose from
threats toward the English colony of
Hong Kong, Chinese coastal island. The
military authorities speeded the civilian
evacuation of Hong Kong,
Far East hoping for the removal of
Upheaval women and children by
today, preparatory to per
haps a military defense operation. In
Tokio it was reliably reported that the
British were holding firm to their posi
tion in one of the chief points of irrita
tion between England and Japan. Eng
land, it was said, refused the Japanese
demand that she close to arms traffic the
road from Burma, English possession, to
the Chinese forces of Chiang Kai-shek,
with whom the Japanese are waging
unadmitted war. The Burma road is
the Chinese generalissimo's last remain-,
ing artery of communication to the outer
world.
While England pursued a policy of
aggressive sternness, another country in
stress, Rumania, followed its customary
policy of agility. When Russia carved
away her top provinces of Bessarabia
and Northern Bucovina, Rumania looked
for help from Germany. Germany, oc
cupied in the west, this week disclaimed
any pledges of assistance to King Carol.
Hungary, classically desirous of taking
her lost province of Transylvania from
Rumania, went ahead with mobilization
on a large scale.
Sofia, capital of Rumania’s southern
neighbor, Bulgaria, heard report that
Germany had promised her backing in
taking the province of Dobrudja, once
Bulgarian, from Rumania. In that dis
tressful circumstance, King Carol, know
ing he had no friend in Russia, Hungary
or Bulgaria, with agility sought again to
Impress Germany by appointing a new
staunchly pro - German government
headed by Ion Girgitu, friend of the
Nazis In Berlin. Any moment Balkan
explosions are expected.
* * * •
The Americas
The United States had a cosmopolitan
week. The Par East was a problem. In
London R. A. Butler, undersecretary of
foreign affairs, intimated that the
British Eastern attitude, expressed in
the stand for Hong Kong and the re
fusal to accede to Japanese desires about
the Burma road, was adopted to please
the United States, which has a well
developed policy of declining to meet
Japanese wishes that would further the
success of her belligerency on the Asiatic
continent. Mr. Butler gave this intima
tion just two days after the American
fleet reappeared in Hawaiian waters
after a surprise disappearance of a week
earlier. The fleet’s departure from and
the fleet’s return to the mid-Paciflc are
yet to be explained.
Germany concerned the United States
much more than Japan. On June 17 the
State Department conveyed to the bel
ligerent governments of Rome and Ber
lin through its representatives abroad
the Monroe Doctrine notice that the
United States would not countenance
any transfer of American territorial pos
sessions of countries conquered by Ger
many and Italy.
Friday Secretary of State Hull dis
closed that Germany oflered what here
could be accepted only as
Monroe an unsatisfactory reply.
Doctrine Germany complained that
the American interpretation
of the American Monroe Doctrine would
confer on some European countries the
right to possess territories here and bar
other nations which, like Germany, have
no such American holdings from such
a right. Berlin reiterated that it had
given no occasion for any assumption
that it intends to acquire such posses
sions. Mr. Hull was vigorous in his ob
servations on the German view, observa
tions which he made to the press in a
formal statement. The kernel of his
statement was that the United States
will not allow the Germans entry into the
American political held.
‘The Monroe Doctrine is solely a
policy of self-defense, which is intended
to preserve the independence and in
tegrity of the Americas,” he said. Then
he referred overtly to German wishes
for a “Monroe Doctrine” in Southeastern
Europe and Japanese wishes for a "Mon
roe Doctrine" in Asia: The Monroe
Doctrine "never has resembled, and it
does not today resemble, policies which
appear to be arising in other geograph
ical areas of the world, which are
alleged to be similar to the Monroe Doc
trine but which, instead of resting on
the sole policy of self-defense and of re
spect for existing sovereignties, as does
.the Monroe Doctrine, would in reality
seem to be only the pretext for the
carrying out of conquest by the sword,
of military occupation and of complete
economic and political domination by
certain powers of other free and inde
pendent peoples.”
As Mr. Hull spoke in Washington,
President Roosevelt spoke in Hyde Park,
where he is spending the week end. He
talked to the press on permanent peace.
The first essential for its
Roosevelt birth, he said, is freedom
on Peace from fear, to be accom
panied by freedom of dis
cussion and freedom of opinion—free
doms which the German wray does not
recognize. The bindery of this per
manent peace, he said, would be dis
armament.
Meanwhile, his chief assistants in the
formulation of the national defense pro
gram were whipping into shape a request
to go before Congress next week for $5,
©00,000.000 in new funds for arms. Only
a few days earlier he had signed legisla
tion clearing the way for immediate ex
pansion of the United States Navy into
the largest sea force in the world. To
help pay for the arms, he sent a brief
message to Congress requesting a “steep
ly graduated excess profits tax, to be ap
plied to all individuals and corporations
without discrimination." In the offing
was a.message from the President on
compulsory military training. The Sen
ate Military Affairs Committee and
Naval Affairs Committee took steps
toward assisting the President in the un
,folding of his national defense policy by
approving the nominations of Repub
licans Henry Stimson as Secretary of
War and Frank Knox as Secretary of
the Navy. Tomorrow, it is expected, the
Senate will consider the nominations in
a body.
Both these Republicans denied the
charge they are "interventionists." Both
upheld the policy of material aid to
Britain. Mr. Stimson received commit
tee approval by a vote of
Compulsory 14 to 3, Mr. Knox by 9 to
Training 5. When it was finished
with the problem of Mr.
Stimson. the Senate Military Affairs
Committee turned to hearings on the
bill by Senator Burke, Democrat, of
Nebraska, providing for compulsory mili
tary training in the United States. A
series of distinguished witnesses, headed
by Gen. John J. Pershing and James B.
Conant, president of Harvard Univer
sity, indorsed the bill.
"Such a measure, in my opinion,” Gen.
Pershing wrote to the committee, “would
promote democracy by bringing into in
timate contact and on equal footing
young men in all walks of life. More
over, it might well be the determining
factor in keeping us out of war.”
"The threat against us is not only
physical, ’ Dr. Conant said, “the threat
is against our entire way of life. The
training of personnel, like the produc
tion of instruments, is essential at once.
Under modem conditions, it is obvious
that we cannot wait to prepare—we can
not wait for a declaration of war or the
moment of attack.”
Supplementing these domestic moves to
Insure the peace of America is the West
ern Hemisphere movement. The week
produced statements by both Argentina!
and Cuba for all-American solidarity.
In Buenos Aires, Foreign Minister Jose;
Maria Cantilo said that his country will*
support a policy of "continental soli-J
darity and autonomy of action” wheii
the foreign ministers of all the American^
republics meet in emergency session at£
Havana July 20. Whether this indicate*
real support of the solidarity movemante
will be tested at the conference.
The Cuban government is taking
more sweeping view of the inter-AmerHJ
can situation. Its cabinet last weel£
declared its support of any stand for
continental American peace which may
be proposed at the meeting. The cabinet
said Cuba would lend complete co-opera#
tion in any effort to improve inter-*
American trade. In Chicago Secretary
of Agriculture Wallace urged' that th*
American republics “unify their eco%
nomic power.” The proposal for thi$
step will be laid before the delegates a|
the Havana conference.
Problem of British ships at Frencli
Martinique, 700 miles across Caribbean
from Cuba, threatened to complicate
whole order of inter-American neutral*
ity safeguards, resting chiefly on declara*
tion of Panama, which established 300«
mile zone around Americas barred tc$
fighting. Fight between British an<f
French near Martinique seemed possible
if not probable.