VICHY METHODS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 July 1941, Page 6

VICHY METHODS

IN HANDING OVER SYRIA ATTEMPTS TO INFLUENCE OPINION. ALLIED PRISONERS RELEASED. ) (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) (Received This Day, 12.35 p.m.) LONDON, July 20. Thirteen hundred Allied officers and men, taken prisoner during the Syrian campaign, have reached Baalbeck from camps in North Syria. The first contingent included Australians taken prisoner’at Mezzo and Merj lyun. The men said they wore well treated, but the food was indifferent. It is understood that about twenty officers who were taken to France are being returned to Syria. The Allied troops occupy all the towns in Syria and Lebanon, except Tripoli, which is ieserved for the Vichyite army, pending repatriation. A notice is published in the newspapers, inviting Frenchmen desiring to enrol with the Free French to report to army headquarters. The "Telegraph's" Syria correspondent said the publication of the Beirut statement by Marshal Petain and General Deniz provoked bitter comment. Marshal Petain said France was about tq suffer an eclipse in the Levant and General Dcntz declared that the armistice terms would have been more favourable but for the influence of General de Gaulle’s supporters. Senior Vichyite officials, about to hand over their jobs, permitted publication of these statements. Their action emphasises the danger of allowing Vichyite supporters to remain in the country. The continued presence of anti-BritiSh-ers may result in sapping Allied authority, with a corresponding increase in Fifth Column activity. There is no longer any reason why General Deutz and his staff, who have declared that they recognise only the authority of Vichy, should be allowed do remain in Syria. “The Times” Beirut correspondent declares that stories of Germany military victories, recounted over the German radio, have dazzled the Moslems. They are also momentarily afraid to collaborate with the British, following ufion German propaganda that the Germans will be returning to Syria in September and threatening drastic treatment of those helping' the British.