URGED TO RISE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 115, 17 May 1941, Page 9

URGED TO RISE

Frenchmen in Syria

LONDON, May 16 ~» The Free French forces in the Middle East have appealed to all Frenchmen in Syria to throw off the German yoke

General Catroux, Commander-in-Chief of the Free French forces in the Middle East, broadcast tonight a stirring Appeal to all Frenchmen in Syria: "If you should choose to take up arms and chase out the enemy," he said, "I am at your gates with ardent French cohorts."

General Catroux revealed that 800 tons of arms and munitions drawn from French stores in Syria have been sent to Bagdad. He also stated that enemy planes had landed at Beirut, Rayak, Aleppo, and Damascus. Seventeen enemy aircraft landed at one airfield in a single morning.

the Levant, and France cannot escape the responsibility for this unfriendly action against Britain. Admiral Darlan cannot complain if the aerodromes of Syria suffer our attacks, or if the granting of further facilities to the Germans compels us to take more extensive precautions. The whole episode calls for careful reconsideration of the basis on which our policy to Vichy has hitherto rested—the supposition that Vichy would not actively assist the designs of the Axis."

It is learned that the French Governor of Syria, M. Dentz, asked Vichy on May 12 what attitude he should lake in the event of German planes landing in Syrian air bases, but it is not known whether he received a reply. Certainly he has taken no action to prevent the landings.

, The Vichy correspondent of British United Press reports thai all messages from Vichy relating, to the French-German relationship will henceforth be subject to censorship, though they have been free from that in the last five months.—U.P.A.