CLOSE CONCORD

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 157, 3 June 1940, Page 7

CLOSE CONCORD

BRITAIN AND FRANCE. FIGHT TO VICTORY. IMPLACABLE RESOLVE. (United Press Association —By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) (British Official Wireless.) Lteceived June 3, 10.55 a.m. RUGBY, June 2. A declaration of the Supreme -War Council that the Allied Governments and peoples are more than ever implacably resolved to pursue in the closest possible concord their present struggle until complete victory is achieved was a timely expression of the spirit alike of determination and of cooperation of which there are numerous manifestations in Britain.

The meeting of the council, which happened to be the" lirst at which Britain was represented by its new allparty War Government, was the culmination of a series of consultations between the British and French Premiers during the anxious days which’ followed the German break-through. In the early days of the war Mr Chamberlain, returning from a meeting of the Supreme War Council, remarked on how the behaviour of the representatives of the Allied Governments would have suggested that they were meeting as members of a single government. The character of the consultations in recent days between Mr Churchill and M. Reynaud, whether in France or England, has similarly reflected the sense of close union which animates the two peoples, and in political circles the comment was heard that the two statesmen met and discussed rather as two leading members of one Cabinet faced with a sudden crisis than as the Premiers of two different countries.

SOLIDARITY REAFFIRMED. There is irony in the fact that, at the very moment when Nazi propaganda is making a new and rather obvious “drive” with the view of separating France and Britain, the German actions in the field are serving strongly to reinforce the original solidarity of the two countries.

The adversities which the British and French troops have shared in common in the memorable withdrawal from Belgium, and the visible closeness of the co-operation which the naval and air forces in the two countries have given to each other and to the ground forces in the relief they have brought to these sorely pressed troops, have set the seal of comradeship upon a future of their joint enterprise in arms more binding than that of the distant memories of the last war.

French troops arriving in England in the past 48 hours from the Dunkirk beaches have had a wejcome as warm as, and perhaps more demonstrative than, that accorded the men of the B.E.F. themselves. In France the part played by the R.A.F. in helping to break the force of the onslaught of the German divebombers and armoured forces, and in spreading confusion far behind the lines, is generously recognised, while in Britain there is growing admiration for the indomitable spirit in which the French have braced themselves, first to stem the disaster and then to prepare to retrieve it, and air the time calmly to prepare in the face of the converging dangers which, though never unforeseen, now offer their challenge more nearly. The declaration of the Supreme War Council underlines the fact, which may have been insufficiently pondered in Berlin and perhaps elsewhere, that that challenge will be met by the unstinted, united effort of two determined peoples indissolubly united in the resolve to rid the* world of-the nightmare of. terrorism and oppression. BRITISH COMMANDER. HONOURED BY THE KING. RETURN FROM FRANCE. LONDON, June 2. The British Commander-in-Chief (General Lord Gort) has returned to London. A War Office communique states that Lord Gort has handed over the command of the remaining troops on the qrders of the Government as a result of ■ the good progress made in the evacuation of the B.E.F. _ - Lord Gort was received by the King, who conferred on him the order of Grand Commander of the Bath, the oldest and most distinguished of the British orders of chivalry. When ho arrived in London early today Lord Gort was met at the station by Mr R. A, Eden (Secretary of War). He was subsequently in conference at the War Office. “It is not the arrival of mysfelf that matters. It is the arrival of my army,” said Lord Gort to one officer wjio welcomed him when he left a small vessel accompanied by only two officers. Lord Gort also said: “We shall meet them again, and next time the victory will be with us.” His remarks were made to an officer who said, that if the decision had been left to Lord Gort he would not have taken even the last ship from devastated Dunkirk, but the first of the country’s soldiers had to obey the orders of His Majesty’s Government. Lord Gort stood on the beach, reluctant to leave. He often looked back toward where the men were fighting. It was hard to get him away, said those who stood on the beach with him, but eventually when the tiny craft bobbed shoreward he boarded it. To the senior naval officer he expressed appreciation of the Navy’s superb service. CLAIMS BY NAZIS. DUTCH ARMY DEMOBILISED. BERLIN. June 1. Hitler has ordered the release of Dutch war prisoners and the demobilisation of the Dutch half of it, consisting of those formerly engaged in agriculture, mining, food production and building to be demobilised immediately, and the remainder gradually. Those responsible for imprisoning German parachute troops and then handing them over to the ' British will be punished. A German military spokesman claimed that H.M.S. Nelson bad been sunk' and 700 members of the crew drowned.