Evening Post TUESDAY, APRIL 8, 1941. "OUR THOUGHTS AND OUR PRAYERS"

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 83, 8 April 1941, Page 6

Evening Post TUESDAY, APRIL 8, 1941. "OUR THOUGHTS AND OUR PRAYERS"

Recognising that a high point has been reached both in the war and in the common policy of the nations of the British Commonwealth, the Prime Minister of New Zealand rightly has chosen this moment to send a special message to the commander of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force now in Greece. "Our thoughts and our prayers," the Prime Minister assures Major-General Freyberg, "are c_*_istantly with you and particularly so at this moment." We have italicised the final words, to emphasise that the moment is of outstanding importance. It is a great moment because it marks the advent of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force as a complete army-in-being, operating as such on a major warfront, and treading in the footsteps of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force of 1914-18. The moment is great also because it links up directly Avith two historic occasions in the 1914-18 period—that time when Anzac forces first operated in the region of the Aegean Sea (Gallipoli then. Greece today) and that time when the army of New Zealand and the army of Germany first clashed in France. Today there is no French front, so the Anzacs resume their Aegean story of a quarter of a century ago, and begin a fresh chapter in their "fight with Fritz," at the same time and in the same place —in the historic land of the Hellenes.

That is in itself a picturesque fact, and Avould be enough to make great the moment to which Mr. Fraser pays tribute. But there are other reasons for its greatness. Not only has the New Zealand Expeditionary Force come of age; not only is it meeting the Germans themselves in that Aegean theatre of war where the former N.Z.E.F. met the Germans' allies. It is also confirming that great principle of British Commonwealth high policy which the Anzacs affirmed in 1914-18—the principle of an open Mediterranean Sea, through which British Commonj wealth traffic shall pass unimpeded, [and which will continue to be, as in the past, a highway and vital artery of the association which binds Britain, Australia, and New Zealand. To those three members of the British Commonwealth of Nations, and to others in greater or less degree, the Mediter-ranean-Red Sea route is vital; and it is doubtful whether either their

prestige, or their association, or even their existence, would be assured if Italy and/or Germany secured a power-position from which pressure on the yjtal artery could be exerted at an enemy's will. To keep open the Mediterranean route, and to defeat all those enemy designs lurking behind Mussolini's "mare nostrum" ("our sea") slogan, is therefore not only prestige and honour, but also enlightened self-interest, to the people of New Zealand and Australia.

Mr. Churchill stands now, as he did twenty-five years ago, for maintaining the British Commonwealth's Mediterranean rights and interests, and for bold action in the Middle East. Then, as now, big, bold commitments in the Mediterranean carried their own military risks. In estimating risks, gains, and. losses, Gallipoli. Egypt. Palestine. Salonika, and Mesopotamia tell their own story of the last war.' just as Egypt. Libya. Abyssinia, the sea-battles, and Greece are now telling a similar story of this war. Without risks, there can be no war. But nothing is clearer than that a weak British policy in the Mediterranean would be a step backward in British history: and that if Mr. Churchill had done less than what he has done, he would have done less for Britain's vital association with New Zealand and Australia. For that reason, the people of these two southern democracies join with a will in the Mediterranean war, which is our war as well as Britain's, and feel that their hearts are with the Empire forces fighting there by land, sea. and air, "particularly so at this moment."

It is a moment great in war, great in world-destiny, great in heart appeal. To our soldiers in Greece and to all their comrades—to our own soldiers meeting the German army for the first time in this war, and lo those soldiers who fought if recently in France—go forth our best wishes. And with them, as the Prime Minister fervently affirms, go "our thoughts

and our prajers