STRATEGIC SYRIA

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue LXXI, 14 September 1940, Page 4 (Supplement)

STRATEGIC SYRIA

Ex-Servicemen s Page

SYRIA, amongst many other of the French possessions and mandates, has become the object of much speculation. Recent news that the Italian Armistice Commission had arrived at Beirut before those from Germany and metropolitan France—the Vichy Government—has heightened this. [' Mussolini, apparently not too trustful of Lis partner, Hitler, evidently believes in getting in first in tliis case. What the eventual outcome may be is difficult to foresee; one which may bring in its train momcoitous results. The history of Syria since the years of the Great War is an unhappy one. With part of the extensive Arab territory lying at the eastern and southern end of the Mediterranean along the Suc?z Canal and Red Sea her people played no small part in that war. That she may be destined to play an equally, if not more, important part in this, is not difficult to believe. Under the domination of Germany her geographical situation, virtually alongside the great oil pipe-, lines from Iran to the Mediterranean, makes her much to be desired by .the belligerents. The road to victory again seems destined to depend largely on oil supplies. Germany's continued supply from Rumania is problematical. Russia, Germany's other source of oil fuel, may yet prove unwilling to aid her Axis partner further along the road toward the East, so recently extended by her complete

JV • . (By TROOPER.) "years swept M. Daladier out of office almost immediately afterward; M. Blum, his successor j taking the matter up and agreeing, with the result that the FrancoSyrian Treaty of Alliance was duly signed on September 9, 1936—just four years ago. Informed writers and observers say this Treaty gave genuine satisfaction not only in Syria but in other Arab countries as well, including those in North Africa. This may prove a factor in the attitude of the latter toward the Vichy Government, who, we learn, nave sent General Weygand there to maintain contact and organise military resistance to any British measures to secure release of these peoples. Weygand was at one time High Commissioner in Syria—one of the French military dictators there. Whatever the measures taken now to disarm the large French forces in Syria, the result will be awaited with considerable interest. Such disarmament may be the means whereby the blanket suppressing a smouldering fire is removed, for the Syrians have never , been happy under French overlordsliip. Germany and Italy may find it necessary to attempt to completely . possess the country in an endeavour to secure a jumping-off place for an attack for the Iranian oil wells. This would be difficult in the first place since Britain rules the Mediterranean. The lot of these two in the event of Russian defection from the Axis would be critical. Syria under British influence,

on the side of general de Gaulle, would seriously lesseri'any possible chance they 5 might have of even making a serious , effort to secure for them the all too t vital oil supplies. Their alternative - might then be an attack on Russia with t this end in view. Turkey, of course, is : also a factor in the problem confronting the pair. T "The British are flooding Syria with L leaflets telling the inhabitants what is ' happening. n J • the light of Mr. Winston Church ill's recent forecast of heavy , fighting being imminent in the Near \ East this statement lends much colour l, to the strategic importance of Syria.