Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, JANUARY 24, 1942. PROBLEMS IN NORTH AFRICA

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 January 1942, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, JANUARY 24, 1942. PROBLEMS IN NORTH AFRICA

■ 1 TT is now clear that reports received yesterday which stated that the Axis forces in Libya had merely made a reconnaissance in force from the El Agheiki area, and had retired after being harried by our light forces and suffering casualties, were erroneous and misleading. The enemy in fact has advanced 75 miles east of El Agheila and has reoccupied Jedabaya, without, coming into contact as yet with the Imperial main forces concentrated east of that place.

Whether these developments mean that. General Rommel has been reinforced on a more important scale than has lately been indicated remains to be seen. There are grounds for supposing, however, that an attempted enemy stand in the present area of conflict may be welcomed by the British command.

Some well-informed military commentators take it for granted that General Auchinleck has laid his plans for an extension of the British advance to the confines of Libya and the complete destruction of the German and Italian forces under Romel’s command. While action on these lines offers some obvious advantages and may even be regarded as inevitable, it is clear that a heavy and arduous task and great difficulties are involved, and that these last are liable to be added to.

In Western Cyrenaica, the British and Allied forces are operating at a distance of some 300 miles west of the Egyptian frontier and their land communications, supplemented to some extent by sea transport, to the coastal ports, are already lengthy. From the western border of Cyrenaica to Tripoli is a distance of nearly 600 miles. For about 500 miles from Cyrenaica, the coastal road—the only important transport route —runs through sandy wastes, ft then reaches the highlands which extend some 60 miles eastward from Tripoli and come down to the sea near Homs.

Once dislodged from his present position in the El Agheila area, Rommel would be under the necessity of making a difficult and dangerous retreat along 500 miles of coastal road, with his forces not only pursued by land but exposed to air and sea attacks. It is very possible that he shrinks from attempting that retreat. If, however, he contrived to reach the Tripolitanian highlands at the head of an organised force, the British pursuing army would then be operating at. the end of communications extending for nearly a thousand miles from the Egyptian border.

Account has to be taken also of the possibility that German reinforcements may be introduced by way of French North Africa. There is a poor guarantee against that eventuality in the feeble leadership of Marshal. Petain, and there is no doubt that his colleague, Admiral Darlan, is more than ready to grant the Germans whatever they desire in Tunisia, Morocco or elsewhere. So long as Darlan holds his present position of power in the Vichy administration there is certainly no assurance that these territories, together with French West Africa, and perhaps the French fleet as well, will not be placed at the disposal of the Nazi dictatorship.

The possibility of an extension on these lines of Vichy collaboration with the Nazis perhaps makes it all the more necessary that the invasion of Libya should be driven to a conclusion and even extended into French African territory, hut the task involved may be one of very great magnitude, making heavy demands on British and Allied resources. The outlook may be cleared and the position simplified by a decisive engagement in Western Cyrenaica.