TURNED ASIDE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 103, 3 May 1943, Page 5

TURNED ASIDE

\XIS COUNTER-BLOWS

LOST GROUND WON BACK (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright.) (Rec. noon.) LONDON, May 2. Except in the Medjez el Bab area, yon Arnlm appears to have calletl off the ferocious Axis counter-attacks against General Alexander's steel spearheads, which, yard after hardwon yard, continue their shortening or the Tunisian arc. Today, however, the British. First Army beat off yet another ■ heavy counter-attack in the Medjez el Bab sector. Algiers radio stated that the British repelled the Axis troops after heavy hand-to-hand fighting. The French African Corps continues mopping up in the northern Tunisian coastal sector and now has passed Mersa Douiba, 20 miles west of Bizerta. , _ . The Algiers correspondent of the British.United Press says that the Eighth Army again holds every inch which the Axis retook in the past few days. General Montgomery has now advanced 5h miles north of Enfidaville and also-10 miles north-east along the An' attack which the Eighth Army repulsed north of Enfidaville, mentioned in the Algiers communique, was in the hills where the Axis forces infiltrated over ground which they had lost. The Eighth Army cleared out the infiltration and now completely controls the area. The Allied air forces are continually tightening their air blockade and throwing more and more planes into the task of cutting communications with Italy. ■ . STALINGRAD STAND. Correspondents at the front say that the Germans are fighting in the Stalingrad manner. They apparently are prepared to make big sacrifices in men and material, . ~. The "Sunday Times" military writer says that reinforcements -are still reaching the Axis forces, in Tunisia, but the German counter-attacks are contributing to their own exhaustion. General Giraud, in a speech at Algiers, declared: "The Tunisian battle will be finished this month. I believe the war against Germany will be finished in 1944." General Giraud paid a glowing tribute to the French army's work in North Africa. He pointed out that insufficiently equipped, it had stood firm from November 15 to December 12 at a time when the Italians and Germans had landed 100,000 men in Tunisia. Outlining the features of post-war France, he indicated that a measure of social reform would replace the outmoded capitalistic system with a "State of participation" between all classes in the nation. France would endeavour I to achieve a system of minimum wages and all-round improvement in social conditions inside a framework char-i acterised by a complete absence of dictatorship. . j General Giraud, drawing a comparison Of pre-war armament, pointed out that the Germans in . 1937 were producing 100 tanks a month compared . with France's four a mdnth. j