MORE POWER TO FREE

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 51, 28 August 1940, Page 8

MORE POWER TO FREE

FRANCE

All France, including the vast French empire, is now divided into two parts, and Frenchmen into two parties, those who follow Marshal Petain and the "men of Vichy" in capitulation to the Nazi conqueror, and those who acknowledge the leadership of General de Gaulle in a determination to fight on for freedom. These "free Frenchmen," as opposed to the "men of Vichy," have received an important new accession of strength, according to today's news, by the decision of the French colony of Chad, in Equatorial Africa, to join the forces of Frenchmen loyal to the alliance with Britain in the struggle against Nazism and Fascism. Chad is a large colony of 480,000 square miles, with a capital at Fort Lamy. on Lake Chad, and a population of a million. It is important as a link with British Nigeria and the AngloEgyptian Sudan, so that Allied territory now stretches from the Atlantic to the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, from coast to coast of Africa. The welfare of the colony has been

generously guaranteed by the British Government pending the establishment of an independent and constitutional authority on French soil. Mr. Churchill has given General de Gaulle a written assurance that the British Government is "prepared to extend economic assistance on a scale similar to that of assistance given to colonies of the British Empire." In general, the British Government "will do everything to promote the economic operation of all French colonies, provided that they stand by the alliance, and will also foster their trade."

The attitude of the French overseas empire since the capitulation of France, has been somewhat difficult for us to understand, just as was the attitude of the French navy, for neither was in any immediate danger from the enemy. The proclamation of the Governor of Chad, announcing the decision of the colony to join General de Gaulle, throws some light on the mystery. In the proclamation the Governor and military commander explain th.at when the Franco-German armistice was signed

they submitted with grief but in a spirit of discipline, but in the last two months they had seen that the armistice did more than compel France to give up the struggle. Because of what France had been obliged to do under the armistice they had decided to carry on the fight.

This seems to confirm what General de Gaulle had already suggested, namely, that the reputation of Marshal Petain and General Weygand had been used to influence Frenchmen, in their native land and overseas, dazed by military disaster, to yield under the assumption that anything these heroes of the Great War recommended was right. Frenchmen now are beginning to wake up every-, where from their stupor to the realities of the situation, and to resist. There is therefore every reason to think, with General de Gaulle, that the example of Chad will be followed, and that fighting France will be reconstituted, will take her rightful place in the line of battle, and will be present at the victory.