WITH ACHING HEARTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 5, 5 July 1940, Page 7

WITH ACHING HEARTS

CABINET'S TASK

A UNITED DECISION

FRENCH PROMISES

INJURY MAY HAVE BEEN

MORTAL

(British Official Wireless.! (Received July 5, noon.) RUGBY, July 4. There was a remarkable scene of enthusiasm at the conclusion |>f the impressive and inspiring speech in which Mr. Churchill revealed the measures taken to prevent; the French fleet falling into German hands. "When two nations are fighting together in a long and solemn alliance against a common foe one of them may be stricken down and overwhelmed and may be forced to ask its ally to release it from its obligations," said Mr. Churchill. "But the least that could be expected was that the French Government, in abandoning the conflict and leaving its whole weight to fall upon Britain and the British Empire, would have been careful not to inflict needless injury upon the faithful comrade in whose final victory the sole chance of French freedom lay and lies. "We offered to give full release to the French from their treaty obligations, although they were designed precisely for the case which arose, on one condition— namely, that the French fleet should sail for British harbours before separate armistice negotiations were held. This was not done, but on the contrary, in spite of every kind of private or personal promise given by Admiral Darlan to the First-Lord of the Admiralty and his naval colleagues, an armistice was signed which was bound to place the French fleet as effectively in the power of Germany and Italy as that portion of the French fleet which was placed in our power when, many of them being unable to reach French ports, came into Portsmouth and Plymouth about ten- days ago. "But I must place on record that what might have been a mortal injury was done to us by the Bordeaux Government with full knowledge of the consequences and dangers, and after rejecting all our appeals, at a,, moment when they were abandoning the alliance and breaking the engage--1 ment which fortified it." Mr. Churchill referred to the handing over to Germany by the Bordeaux Government of over 400 German air pilots—prisoners in France, many of them shot down by the R.A.F., as another example of the callous and perhaps even malevolent treatment Britain had received, not from the French nation, who never had been, and apparently never were to be, consulted, but from the Bordeaux Government.

"Such wrongful deeds will not. I am sure, be condoned by history, and I firmly believe that a generation of Frenchmen will arise who will clear the national honour of all countenance of them. I have never, in my experience, seen so grim or sombre a question as to what we were to do about the French fleet discussed in Cabinet. It shows how strong were our reasons for the course we thought it our duty to take that every member of the Cabinet had the same conviction about what should be done. There was not the slightest hesitation or divergence among them. The three Service Ministers, as well as men like Mr. Duff Cooper and Lord Lloyd, who are particularly noted for their long friendship with France, when consulted, were equally convinced that no other decision was possible from that which we were taking. It was a decision to which, with aching hearts but with a clear vision, we unitedly came."