TENTH ARMY

Evening Star, Issue 24283, 26 August 1942, Page 5

TENTH ARMY

POSSIBILITY OF HEW FRONT LONDON, August 24. The creation of an independent Per-sian-Iraq Command, with General Sir Henry Maitland Wilson as Commander-in-Chief, has obviously been decided on as the result of the German thrust to tho Caucasus.” says the Cairo correspondent of ‘ The Times.’ “ The chances of a German advance across Turkey seemed at tho end of last year greater than a thrust through the Caucasus, and so the role of the Ninth Army transcended that of the Tenth Army in importance. Now it is the other_ way round. The Tenth Army has a bigger responsibility, considering tho long front of 500 miles it lias to cover. It is provided, however, with base depots in the Persian Gulf and ordnance supply services on a scale fit for a much larger army, and now presumably it will 'be suitably reinforced to meet the Gorman thrust as it comes nearer. “ Both the Tenth and Ninth Armies have been engaged since their creation in organising defence and supply. As long as this was the case they did not provide much preoccupation for the commander-in-chief, but it is otherwise now that there is a prospect of opening a second major front in the north, in addition to the Eighth Army’s operations. In this case the Middle East Command, already somewhat unwieldy, would become too heavy a burden for one man.”