Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, JULY 10, 1940. PAINFUL NECESSITIES

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 9, 10 July 1940, Page 6

Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, JULY 10, 1940. PAINFUL NECESSITIES

The disablement of the French battleship Richelieu at Dakar by the action of a British naval force, announced today, is one more—and, it is hoped, the last—o£ those painful necessities imposed on the British Government by the terms of the Petain armistice with Germany and Italy. The Richelieu, the most modern and powerful warship afloat, like the battle-cruiser Dunkerque, now lying aground at Oran, disabled by similar action, had sailed alongside the British Fleet in a vast Allied armada that maintained undisputed command of ;the sea. The Richelieu and the Dunkerque and their sister ships, with the rest of the French navy, in enemy hands, under the terms of the Petain armistice, would have been a threat to British seapower, by which Britain and her Empire live and in which lies the only hope of a free France, a threat so grave that it could not be endured without counter-action. With the French fleet, manned by Germans, say, even the Italian navy, "skulking diligently" in port, as Lord Addison put it yesterday, might have been induced to put to sea and take a risk, with the possibility—in the Mediterranean at least—of the "local superiority" which in other fields and in other hands has proved effective. Without the aid of the French fleet, the role of the Italian navy, as Signor Gayda described, it, is ,to immobilise a substantial part of the British Fleet in the Mediterranean. Meanwhile Italian submarines —the only craft apparently permitted to venture out —are being steadily "immobilised," in Lord Addison's phrase, "at the bottom of the sea."

With the French sailors and their fine ships it has been and is a different matter. They have been our gallant allies and good friends in two great wars with the existence of both Britain and France at stake. To put French warships out of action must be about the most painful job the British Navy in all its long history has ever had to undertake. But it had to be done. It was a "painful necessity." At Dakar, as at Oran, the British commander offered honourable terms which would have permitted the French warships to remain intact but away from f the enemies of Britain till the end of the^ war. For reasons hard for Britons to understand the French admirals at Oran and Dakar refused to parley and the British commander in each case had, with the utmost regret and reluctance, to carry out his orders. The distasteful task was performed with a resolution and skill always characteristic of the British Navy, but so marked in this war as, to draw admiration of its efficiency. At Alexandria, where a powerful French squadron was lying alongside an even more powerful fleet, drastic action, fortunately, proved unnecessary and the French ships have been disarmed amicably. Here the excellent relations between the men of the two fleets are said to have been the chief influence for peace. Thus the British Navy has been rid of a menace which might* have influenced the whole future of the war. With undisputed command of the sea and growing strength in the air, Britain and the Empire can look to the future with confidence in their capacity to meet any attack and win.