THREAT TO AFRICA

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 August 1940, Page 9

THREAT TO AFRICA

SCOPE OF GERMAN PLANS

MENACE TO STRATEGICAL CROSSROADS.

POSSIBILITY OF ACTIVITIES FROM DAKAR.

It is very easy to fall into the mistake of viewing the military strategy of the axis Powers as unduly static, wrote the military correspondent of the "Sydney Morning Herald" on August 7. In a grim realisation of how much is at stake, we may come to believe that Hitler's next move must necessarily be an attempt to reduce the British Isles. and overlook the fact that this need not be the only strategical outlet for the armed forces of Germany and Italy. Hitler may turn to a world strategy rather than a European conception; and he may either accompany his blitzkrieg by ventures further afield, or rely on methods of aerial blockade to wear down Great Britain, while engaging in a more aggressive policy in other lands, where the British cannot easily divert their home forces, and where, on the contrary, the Nazis can make the fullest use of their Italian partner. The factors favouring the adoption of such a wider policy are both positive and negative. To extend his policy beyond Europe. Hitler would have to move either through th'e Balkans and the Middle East towards inner Asia or alternatively, against Africa. The great obstacle to the former direction is that it would raise the question of Russian ambitions, and, if that obstacle were surmounted, a front would be created in the Middle East where military conditions are not in Hitler’s favour.

THE AFRICAN THEATRE. On the other hand, Italy is already established in Africa, and the Pantellaria sea route is the shortest connection and allows the use of the seas under more favourable conditions than elsewhere. Here the negative factor comes in to favour Hitler. The collapse of France, and the decision of the most important French African colonies to support the Vichy Government, open up the possibility of military and aerial action from French bases. It is true that the armistice terms do not allow this, but, as has often been pointed out, the general armistice conditions are so vague that Hitler could sweep the whole of them aside at any moment he chose to do so.

Military conditions thus act as an enticement for Hitler to attempt a revival of the old Zimmermann concept, of Mittel-Afrika, so familiar to us before and during the last war. Libya, or better still, Libya-plus Algeria, might quite conceivably form the jumping-off ground for an attempt to seize ,Ihe strategical cross-roads of the whole of the African continent. Indeed, it may be in anticipation of some such general drive that Italy has held her hand in such a curious way since June 26. A lightning attack on keypoints might well form a corollary to the blitzkreig against England, for Hitler knows that Britain needs her men and her ships for the vital problem of home defence. ITALIANS MASSING.' What grounds are there for assuming the possibility of such an African coup? In the first place. Italians are massing on the borders of Libya and Ethiopia, and comments take the line that the stake is by no means limited to the acquisition of a few border towns, but that the enemy may attempt the widest drives. He may attempt to plunge straight through to the Canal in the north and to the Nile and the Libya-Sudan junction in the south. Second, German airmen and aeroplanes have gone to Libya: and it is not inconceivable that large numbers of German troops can reach Africa. If the Pantellaria crossing should become too dangerous, the troop-carrying aeroplanes of Germany might cross from southern Italy to north Africa, especially if Hiller decides to reply bn a blockade rather than an invasion to conquer England. Germany is supposed to have 3000 aeroplanes capable of carrying troops, and, if Tunisia were used, the only dangerous point would be during the crossing from Sicily, little more than 100 miles. Recent concern about German activities in Dakar reflects disquietude about the possible developments in Africa. Dakar is the capital of French West Africa. It is at the centre of the great African coastal bend, and is almost the westernmost point in Africa. Germans have flown there recently, ostensibly to take over a Polish steamer and possibly to supervise the immobilisation of the French naval units at present in Dakar harbour. There are well-established French air routes across the desert, with every facility for maintenance and repair work, and the factor of distance alone would make the task of possible interception of German movements across

the Sahara very difficult, if not virtually impossible. Pressure on Vichy might at any time secure a revision of the armistice terms giving Germany rights of action in the French African colonies; and. even failing this, it would not be beyond the bounds of reason for relatively small German spearheads to attempt some surprise coup in Dakar. ,If small German parties took advantage of the prevailing confusion in French Africa and seized the land defences at Dakar, as they did in various Norwegian strongholds, they would be difficult to dislodge. Their objectives might be a temporary diversion or a strategical lightning blow of a more permanent nature. They might either try to get away with some of the French vessels in Dakar and use them as raiders, or they might attempt to establish themselves in Dakar as a base against Britain’s small colonies in West Africa. British control of the sea would operate in the long run, but they might count on our pre-occupa-tion with the defence of Britain itself.

BASES FOR RAIDS. Dakar is only 100 miles from the tiny British colony of Gambia, but Sierra Leone, on the southern side of French Guinea, is a much more important objective. The port of Sierra Leone. Freetown, is not only an importantbase in so far as West Africa itself is concerned; it is also the only main harbour and base between South Africa and England. Conversely, botji Dakar and Freetown are admirably situated as bases for raids against our Atlantic shipping routes. In enemy hands they would constitute a fundamental threat to Imperial communications. For the whole of the four British colonies in this part of the world, the Royal West African Frontier Force has a peace-time establishment of 320 British troops and about 5000 natives. This force has been enlarged since war broke out, but part of it has gone to Kenya to help cope with any direct southern thrust by the Italians. The British colonies are practically surrounded by French territory, so that the problem of land defence scarcely arose as long as France was our ally, especially since the risk of landings from German vessels along the coast was remote. But the defection of France and the possibilities of air transport have changed all this, and we are confronted with a potentially disconcerting situation. The belligerency of Italy and the fall of France have created in reality that threat to Africa which South African strategists have feared for years past, and which was perhaps unduly minimised because of our faith in the French military machine and because of the existence of France’s “Black Army.” It is also a threat very real to American army circles. They are not disposed to sweep it lightly aside as the ravings of some mad strategist. From the time of Balbo’s mass flights and the beginning of the aerial services that crossed the South Atlantic from Natal in Brazil to Dakar they were acutely conscious of the fact that only 1900 miles of sea separated South America and West Africa, and they have looked askance at the long-range flights made during the present war as a harbinger of what would be possible if an enemy held Dakar and could look out towards a friendly Fascist Brazil. The Atlantic, instead of being a guardian moat, could readily become what Colonel Knox called an enemy speedway.

WIDE POSSIBILITIES. Thus the widest possibilities are involved in any axis attempt to execute large-scale operations of war in the African continent, and it must be repeated that, remote as they seem, their practicability becomes enhanced if the British should be compelled to concentrate on a grave challenge to the British Isles. To those who would say that such an African strategy is fantastic, it may be retorted that Hitler's strategical conceptions have always been a calculated combination of audacity and imagination, and we are dealing now with a man who has recently revived the old German colonial institutions both in their military and their administrative form and who think that von Lettow-Vorbeck. who held out in East Africa right through the last war, has a special place in the German Valhalla. Moreover, as the Nazi military paper recently said, “Von Lettow-Vorbeck held out without aeroplanes.” On the other hand, if we are not disposed to rule out such African plans as sheer fantasy, it must be emphasised that however much Hitler might seek to profit from our distractions nearer home, and however much audacious lightning-strokes might succeed in the present state of French demoralisation, the factor of sea power ultimately comes in. Hitler, however, might feel disposed to counter this by a reliance on interior lines of aerial communication, and there is no gainsaying the reality of such a challenge if he has the neccessary aeroplanes and petrol. Counter-attacks nearer home may prevent any attempt on Germany’s part to promote a concerted African strategy, but the fall of France has brought such a strategy within the realm of practicability and the Germans in Dakar- show that the possibility of extensive African diversions has not been overlooked in Germany.