AFRICAN CROSS-ROADS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 August 1942, Page 4

AFRICAN CROSS-ROADS

VALUE OF CHAD TERRITORY

HELD BY FIGHTING FRENCH.

LINK IN ALLIED LIFE LINES

The land life lines from Britain and the United States to the Middle East, India and the Far East lie across the heart of Africa. General Mangin, a hero of the last war, whose statue the Nazis have thrown down in Paris, said: “Who holds the Chad holds Africa.”

The Fighting French hold the Chad today. In this territory air bases maintain a regular link between Gambia, Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast and Nigeria, on the one hand, and Egypt, the Sudan and Kenya, bn the other. Within this territory also lie jumpingoff places for attacks on Axis positions in North Africa, especially Libya.

Fighting French Africa, which includes French Equatorial Africa and the French Cameroons, rallied to General de Gaulle and the Allied cause immediately after the Bordeaux Armistice. It cements into one block the huge eastern half of the African continent, stretching from Cairo to the Cape, with the south-western coastai areas and British Nigeria. This latter colony would otherwise have found itself isolated. The Chad territory constitutes the cross-roads of the African continent, and from it roads radiate north, south, east and west. The Free French in Brazzaville have in the past year completed a system of strategic roads ensuring Allied communications aci oss the heart of Africa to the Red Sea, and the continent can be crossed in four to five days by lorry in all seasons. No less important than the roads are the ail' bases strung out at key points across the territory, especially the air base at Fort Lamy, capital of the Chad country. It was from Fort Lamy that a year ago Free French forces successfully raided Italian garrisons at Mourzouk and Koufra. One of the Armistice terms imposed by the Italians provided for the cession of a strip of territory to the north of the Faya line, but its use as a base for a thrust into the heart of Africa has been forestalled by the Fighting French. _ Fighting French African ports in die coming months may be called upon to play an important role. Their value as sea bases for patrolling the sea routes of the South Atlantic and on the Cape-India route is obvious,