FRENCH MOROCCO

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 May 1941, Page 6

FRENCH MOROCCO

DANGER SPOT THAT NEEDS ' WATCHING 1 ACTIVITIES OF GERMAN TOURISTS. INSPECTION OF AERODROME SITES. Two hundred German “tourists” have recently arrived in Morocco, according to information contained in a recent French broadcast. They will need watching. The “tourists” are in addition to the 82 members of the German armistice commission already in the African protectorate, and it is not surprising to find among them a naval officer, army officers and aviation officers. A number of likely sites for aerodromes, additional to those already existing, have been inspected by them. Everywhere, systematically, the French military forces are being referred to and treated by the commission as merely police forces. But while there is bitter anger among the colonists and officers and soldiers of the

army of Africa who with Lyautey and his successors made Morocco, what is it today. German intrigue has everywhere thrown discord, doubt and uncertainty. Among other methods. Moroccan prisoners of war have been released from German prison camps and sent home after being well schooled and hearing much about Germany as the protector of Islam and as the hater of the infidel Jew. Money freely distributed among the very poor natives has turned many heads, and certain wealthy colonists have at the same time been given to understand that their property would always be safe.

The victories of our forces in North Africa are known throughout Morocco. Young officers and soldiers burn with a desire to join with ours and wipe the floor with the Italians, for whom as soldiers the French have always had the greatest contempt (“Dress them up in green, dress them in red. dress them how you like, they always run away," said Napoleon, speaking of the Italians). But the sinister- hand of Germany is at work. The weaker- of the higher command fear the loss of a pension for which they have spent years beneath the broiling sun. or reprisals on their families in France—the most terrible threat of all. But in spite of all that, whenever the military governor visits a town the walls overnight blossom with inscriptions. J "Vive de Gaulle! Vive I'Angleterre!" | Morocco is a danger spot that needs close Watching. Germany has alwavs had her eye on it as a key to Africa, and just as the Nazis have taken up the Drang nach Osten" of the Hohenzollerns (you can change the label but it is always the same Germans), so they will not fail to revive the claims put forward twice in the early years of this century, that already ' nearly plunged Europe into war before 1914.