FRENCH FEARS OF ATTACK

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25740, 28 February 1949, Page 7

FRENCH FEARS OF ATTACK

“ IF RUSSIANS SHOULD CROSS THE RHINE” DR. QUEUILLE DISCUSSES AMERICAN AID (N.Z. Press Association —Copyright) LONDON. February 25. The Prime Minister of France (Dr. Queuille), in an interview with the Paris correspondent of the British United Press, said that the United States must never allow France and Western Europe to be overrun by Russia as they had been by Germany, The United States yas the only Power capable of forestalling such a catastrophe. Dr. Queuille said he did not doubt that the United States would again come to France’s aid, even without a written treaty. “But that is not the question." he added. France and the rest of Western Europe must be spared invasion. “If, as Mr Thorez envisaged in his declarations, the Russians should cross the Rhine, the catastrophe would be all but complete. Communist saboteurs and fifth columnists would seize control of the mechanism of government and the mass of the civilian population would be immobilised- by fear of self destruction. “We know that once Western Europe were so occupied America would again come to our aid, and eventually we would be liberated, but the process would be terrible. The next time you probably would be liberating a corpse, and civilisation would probably be dead.” An invasion must be stopped before it could get started. If sufficient force could be counted on to prevent the Russian army from moving beyond the Elbe, European civilisation could breathe again. “The real frontier of Western Europe which must be defended must be moved well beyond the reach of the actual frontiers, because once the geographical frontiers of these countries are crossed it will be too late for America to save very much" he said. “Fifteen days after the, invasion it would tie too late.” The .correspondent says that Dr. Queuille would not say whether this means that France was seeking the the creation and maintenance of an international force well within Germany so long as a guarantee against Russian invasion was necessary.