HEARING CLIMAX

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 115, 17 May 1941, Page 10

HEARING CLIMAX

SYRIAN SITUATION

FRENCH PROTEST AT BRITISH BOMBING

FLAGRANT HOSTILITY'

:«tec. 2.15 p.m.) LONDON, May 16. The position in Syria is rapidly moving towards a climax. Swiftly after the announcement of the British bombing of Syrian aerodromes comes the news of a French protest.

The protest, which was lodged with ;i2ie British Consul-General at Beirut, stated: "The British action constitutes ? flagrant hostility against France. In .recent days German planes made forced landings on Syrian aerodromes, and the French authorities, in accordance with the terms of the Armistice, procured their departure as rapidly as possible."

The French High Commissioner in Syria, M. Dentz, issued a communique stating that a French officer was killed when British planes bombed Palmyra and Rayak, and machine-gunned barracks at Beirut and Damascus and at the Rayak aerodrome. Vichy's decision to collaborate with Germany caused consternation in influential circles in Syria. It is reported that scores of Frenchmen who were sent there to try to counter the activities of General de Gaulle's supporters have now resigned. Many incidents have occurred since the announcement of the agreement between Hitler and Admiral Darlan. Free French flags mysteriously appeared on public buildings at Beirut. They were immediately taken down. Scores of suspected British sympathisers have been arrested. Refugees from Syria arriving in Transjordania report an acute food shortage throughout Syria because the authorities have confiscated all hoarded foodstuffs for military purposes. It is stated authoritatively in London that should Britain enter hostilities against Vichy the "French warships at Alexandria will certainly be seized. The French units have been demilitarised, but they could be quickly commissioned. A fair proportion of the French naval personnel is believed to be on Britain's side, but not the majority. The Istanbul correspondent of the Associated Press of Great Britain says that the news of the British bombing of Syrian aerodromes has caused a tre- j mendous stir in official circles at Ankara. If fighting were to spread to Syria, he says, Turkey would be virtually isolated from the democracies •to which her policy'is attached. It is stated in well-informed quarters in Ankara that Turkey will maintain her attitude of non-belligerency despite developments in Syria, and will only abandon it if her independence is threatened. This course can only be interpreted as meaning that Turkey will keep out of the war at all costs--At least eight German freighters, and four or five Italian or Rumanian ships, have entered the Aegean Sea from the Black Sea laden with troops and war material, states the Istanbul correspondent of the British United' Press. ' A Berlin spokesman refused to comment on the Luftwaffe's use of Syrian aerodromes, but said that if France permitted the passage of German troops and planes across Syria she would merely be applying the United states principle of lease and lend.— P.A.