COSTLY SACRIFICE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 July 1943, Page 4

COSTLY SACRIFICE

MADE BY FARMED FRENCH IN TUNISIA GENERAL GIRAUD’S REVIEW NO POLITICAL AMBITIONS. CONCENTRATION DEMANDED AGAINST NAZIS. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 12.25 p.m.) RUGBY July 22. General Giraud, at a Press conference in London, laid emphasis cn the impossibility, from the military standpoint, of leaving the liberation cf France to the armed forces cf her British and American allies alone. The French Army, which had proved that it could fight with its former prowess, must be revived, he said, and would fight even better when the pitiful inadequacy of its armament had been made good. Ho had seen the first-class quality of the arms coming from the United States and greatly, appreciated the very good effort that was being made in speeding delivery. The actions of the small French army left in North Africa since the Armistice afforded the best proof that it was well worth the while of the Allies to give the necessary armament to the 300,000 men he intended to mobilise. In Tunisia there had been 75,000 French soldiers still under arms, but only with the miserable and outmoded weapons left them by the Germans and Italians. It would have been foolish in normal times to employ them against the best German troops, equipped with the most modern products of German war industry, including the heavy Tiger tanks which appeared in Africa earlier than in Russia. But the bad state of communications made it necessary for him to take the responsibility of sacrificing those troops to give their British and American Allies time to develop their supply lines and deploy. Till January, the French practically held the whole Tunisian front alone, taking over the central sector when the British and Americans arrived successively at the front. The sacrifices of Frenchmen were in consequence enormous. Of the 75.000 men under arms, they lost over 15.000 killed, missing and wounded. At least 2,500 were killed, not counting those who vanished in minefields, or were never found. Eleven days after the landings, two squadrons of Chasseurs D’Afrique were detailed to hold a bridge at Medjez el Bab against two battalions of German infantry, two tank squadrons and four squadrons of stuka dive-bombers. In the evening, the bridge was still in French hands, but of 190 men they had lost 80. They achieved this armed only with rifles and a few 25 millimetre anti-tank guns. At the end of the campaign there were still 50,000 French in the battleline. 25,000 having been withdrawn because of heavy strain. In the first twelve days of- May they took 40,000 prisoners. During the campaign the Allies delivered very little material direct to the French Army. The main help consisted of lending anti-tank guns, anti-aircraft guns and field artillery, with men to serve them.

Referring to Army reforms now being worked out, General Giraud said all the reforms so far were only proposals which awaited his agreement. He reiterated that he had absolutely no political ambitions for himself. Frenchmen outside France had only one right before France was liberated, to be killed for French liberty. Only the French homeland could decide its own political future. Speaking as one whose wife and children were still in France and whose daughter, and children had been taken to Berlin as hostages, General Giraud pointed out that speed was of the utmost importance in the delivery of France. Only that morning he had spoken to several compatriots recently arrived from Paris, Lille, Lyons and Marseilles who confirmed that France was starving and would be dying of hunger and cold next winter. One should never underrate the inner strength of the Nazi regime, nor speculate that German morale would crack soon. It was no good to count an adversary weak when he was really strong. He was sure the Nazis would be beaten —their success would mean the end of civilisation. The reasons for the great strength of the Nazi regime was, firstly, that it. had given the German people real material advantages, such as much-improved housing for the working classes, which he had observed whilst a prisoner; secondly, the Nazis could use the historically developed spirit of submissiveness of all Germans to iron discipline, which was not found among the democratic nations, such as the English, Americans and French. General Giraud said he believed lasting peace could be safeguarded only by the closest collaboration of the three western democracies —the United States, Britain and France —in close collaboration with Soviet Russia. His father had had to figh't the Germans in 1870, ho had fought them in 1914. Hs son had to fight them in 1940 and he did not want his grandsons to have to fight them again in another twenty years.