GUARDING NAZI REAR

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 171, 16 April 1942, Page 5

GUARDING NAZI REAR

Vichy Accepts Plan LONDON, April 14. The announcement that Laval is entering Betain’s Cabinet means nothing more or less than the capitulation of Vichy, says “The Times” correspondent on the French frontier. The whole situation in France after the virtual acceptance of the Berlin ultimatum may be summarized thus: Vichy has given Germany a complete guarantee that both occupied and unoccupied France will resist the landing of Anglo-American troops with all the strength at its command. For this purpose, Vichy, at Berlin’s behest, is now planning a partial mobilization.

Young men from occupied France, recruited for service in Vichy’s naval forces, will be allowed by the German occupation authorities to pass the demarcation line without hindrance. It is learned from authentic sources that Berlin’s ultimatum to Vichy lias expired once already, but was prolonged with an explicit stipulation that it would expire finally on April IG. The Vichy Cabinet nominally meets again on April 1G for a decision, but actually Vichy lias already accepted the Nazi terms. The Government, accordingly, is being reconstructed from persons designated by Berlin and Rome. In addition to Laval, Bergery is definitely included. Vichy's Guarantee. Berlin demanded from Vichy guarantees about Hie immediate future because Hie Nazis were unwilling to start an offensive against Russia with an “uncertain France” at her back. Vichy has given the guarantees required whereby the Germans will dominate both North Africa and unoccupied France, not; in the form of a new military occupation, but indirectly by a so-called invisible occupation, which means that the Germans place their own controls in charge of all French ports, naval bases, and railway junctions. The correspondent says official quarters in Vichy say that one point of Hie ultimatum concerned the breaking off of diplomatic relations between Vichy and Washington. Negotiations on tiiis point are proceeding. Marshal Retain is hesitating, but Admiral Darlan favours acceptance on the ground that the United States position in the Pacific is such that, it is not necessary any longer to reckon with America as a potential winner of the war. Reich Weakness Exposed. Authoritative circles point out Hint the German ultimatum to Viehy reveals the weakness of Germany's strategic position and her complete military dependence on tin’ continued docility of llio French people, but the opinion is held that, it Anglo-American forces were actually landed in France what, would, count would be the reaction of the masses of the French

people, and not the composition of the Vichy Cabinet. That is what the Germans fear.

It is taken for granted that America will break off relations with Vichy, and this alone must affect Hie attitude of the French masses to Viehy, thus widening the unbridgeable chasm, in (filler words, favouring an invasion.

Competent quarters, the correspondent adds, are id’ the opinion that Hie mere flier of Laval's entry into the Viehy Cabinet, will intensify the deteiniiiuitiou of Hie French people to resist collaboration with Germany in every conceivable way.