FREE FRENCHMEN

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21207, 2 September 1940, Page 8

FREE FRENCHMEN

EQUATORIAL AFRICA GAIN TO ALLIES’ CAUSE UNITY OF GREAT BLOCK (Official Wireless) (Received Sept. 2, 3.15 p.m.) RUGBY, Sept. 1 The return to the Allied cause of three French African colonies, Chad, French Equatorial Africa and the Cameroons, is described by the Sunday Times as one of the most important events of the past week. The Sunday Times adds: “It has both moral and material value. The acquiescence of France’s great Empire in the Bordeaux betrayal had staggered even her warmest friends in this country. Unscathed by and inaccessible to the German sword, why should so many colonies and soldiers have surrendered? “The collapse can be only understood if one realises the peculiar force of the shock which all Frenchmen suffered when at home the German Army knocked out the French. Brought up to regard the latter as the cornerstone of Europe’s destiny they could not conceive the war continuing without it. Now they see that it does continue and will. “The material value of these three colonies to the common cause is considerable. Lying between Nigeria, the Belgian Congo and the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan their return restores the unity of the great central Allied block across Africa. They have good ports on the Atlantic and will afford a much shorter air route to Khartoum and Egypt. Man-Power and Materials “Their resources in man-power and raw materials are also large. Britain has undertaken to afford them the same economic assistance as that given to the British colonies and they will experience a local prosperity French West Africa, unless it joins them, will conspicuously lack. “But the most immediate gain of all is to General de Gaulle’s army of Free Frenchmen. Its gallant leader must greatly increase the force of his appeal to his compatriots now that he can claim to have behind him the support of a substantial part of his country and empire.” Another Colony Joins It is learned from headquarters that General de Larminat, Governor of French Equatorial Africa, has just addressed to General de Gaulle a cable announcing that the Governor of Gaboon, M. Masson, has placed himself under the flag of Free France, with all the civil and military authorities of the colony. The whole of the French forces in French Equatorial Africa have thus joined General de Gaulle. It is also confirmed that a telegram from M. Amadoo Diop, Chief of the Senegalese in French West Africa, has been received by General de Gaulle.

The telegram declared adhesion to the Free French forces of all Senegalese, “who do not want to be slaves but wish to remain French, and who will henceforth devote themselves to the cause of which General de Gaulle is head.” The adhesion of Gaboon, with its 400,000 inhabitants, makes available to the Allies two more ports on the African Atlantic coast, Libreville and Point Noir.