Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, JANUARY 19, 1941. A CONQUEST REPEATED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 January 1942, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, JANUARY 19, 1941. A CONQUEST REPEATED

4— yyiTII the capture of Ihilfaya, the conquest of Cyrenaiea once again has been virtually completed and although on. this occasion the Imperial and Allied forces engaged have gained no such overwhelming triumph as was won in the destruction of Marshal Graziani’s armies in the opening months of last year, they are to be credited with a great achievement. Their success has been reached in grim and doggedly contested battles, with fortunes fluctuating at times, against a formidable enemy. Attacking forces consisting largely of picked and highly-trained German troops, with powerful_ armoured and air equipment, the British, Imperial and Allied forces havecompleted the conquest of Cyrenaiea in approximately the same time as the Army of the Nile, under the command of General Waved, took to achieve that feat last year.

As an addition to what has gone before, the capture of Halfaya is important. The enemy has lost a strategically valuable position, strongly defended and heavily garrisoned, which’hitherto has blocked the main coastal road running west into Cyrenaiea. As in the total campaign, impressive proof has been given of the striking power of the Imperial and Allied forces in North Africa. Although there has been no repetition on this occasion of the collapse of the Italian armies last year, the forces commanded by General Rommel none the less have been decisively outfought and defeated. The retreat which has now carried them to the confines of Cyrenaiea, though orderly, has been forced. This result has been achieved in vastly more arduous effort and at much heavier cost than the defeat of Graziani, but it may be hoped that the second victorious invasion of Cyrenaiea is likely to he of more lasting effect than the first.

The immediate outlook is unlikely, however, to be regarded with any such easy optimism as ruled in some quarters in February of last year, when the Army of the Nile had established what proved to be but a brief hold on Benghazi and on areas beyond. Now, as then, the question arises whether the British and Allied forces are to continue their advance towards Tripoli, by way of the 600 miles of coastal motor road from Cyrenaiea—a road running through sands, barren wastes and occasional settlements. It remains to be considered, too, whether an advance into western Libya might be facilitated and assisted by a British landing from the sea, in rear of Rommel’s forces.

Much must depend, no doubt, on whether Germany is in a position to send substantial reinforcements to North Africa. This might be done with the connivance of Vichy France, and perhaps of Spain and the intensified fury of Axis air attacks on Malta might be regarded as implying that a new enemy effort in? North Africa is intended. There is said, however, to be an absence of positive evidence that Hitler is planning any move of this kind.

The present course of events on the Eastern front is calculated to deter Hitler and his accomplices from engaging in new adventures in either the western or the eastern Mediterranean, but allowance no doubt should be made for the possibility that the policy of Axis gangsterdom in the immediate future may be governed rather by desperation than by reason. The position reached is that Rommel’s admittedly formidable army has been driven out of Libya with the loss of a considerable part of its strength and armoured and other equipment. The remnants of this army are still organised, however, and may be reinforced. The Imperial and Allied forces have demonstrated their superior fighting power. The Eighth Army has been and no doubt will continue to be assisted greatly by the decisive ascendancy of the R.A.F. and its associated formations and that of the Navy. In any continued advance, however, our communications will be lengthened and those of the enemy shortened. Until it is known -whether Rommel is likely to be reinforced on any considerable scale it certainly cannot be taken for granted that the struggle in North Africa is over and done with.