CAIRO CHANGES

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 36, 12 February 1943, Page 4

CAIRO CHANGES

THREAT TO NILE GONE

Churchill Reviews Middle East Situation

British. Official "Wireless Rec. 2.30 p.m. RUGBY, Feb. 11. Contrasting the present situation at Cairo with that in August, Mr. Churchill, in the House of Commons, said that in August he had to give orders that every preparation be made to defend the line of the Nile exactly as though we were fighting in Kent. "I had to make very drastic changes in the High Command. Those changes have been indicated, he said. "Within a week an electrifying effect was produced on the desert army by the appointment of General Montgomery and the orders he issued, and upon the whole situation by the appointment of General Alexander. At the same tune great reinforcements were steaming up the Red Sea' and pouring into the Nile Valley. . . . "Now I find, on arriving m Cairo, that the enemy who boasted that he would enter Alexandria and the capital and cut' the Suez Canal, and who even struck a medal to commemorate the event, of which I was handed a specimen, has been rolled back 1500 miles. What an amazing event, because the battle is one story and the pursuit another. "So rapid an advance by such "powerful combatant forces .over distances so enormous was witnout parallel ■in modern war. From Cairo 1-proceeded to Tripoli which ten days before was m the hands of the enemy. It is the first Italian city to be delivered by British arms from the grip of the Huns. Naturally there was lively enthusiasm among the Italian. popuiatio:n, and I can hardly do justice to the effusive ness of the demonstration of which I was the fortunate object. . "I had the honour to review two of our forward divisions. One was the 51st Highland Division, successor to that 'brave division overwhelmed on ,the coast of France in the tragedies of 1940. It has already more than equalised the account which Scotland opened m this matter."