OFFENSIVE ACTION

Evening Star, Issue 23726, 6 November 1940, Page 7

OFFENSIVE ACTION

BRITISH ARMY PREPARING NOT CONTENT WITH STALEMATE IMfRDVED SITUATION IN MIDDLE EAST (British Official Wireless.) PrMt Association—By Telegraph—Copyright RUGBY, November 5. (Received ‘November 6, at noon.) Offering a word or two about the British Army, The Prime Minister said : “ We are engaged in forming and training a very strong army, and the like is being done in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. " Although the sea and air will be the main elements of the war efforts of the British Empire we muet have a strong army, well equipped, well armed, well trained, and well organised, capable of interfering as the war proceeds in the liberation of one or other of the many countries yearning to free themselves from the odious Nazi yoke. Without such an army forged, tempered, and sharpened with a power which gives it a wide choice of action the war might be prolonged,” said Mr Churchill. “ It might even drift towards a disastrous stalemate.” This ■winter, he continued, the Army had got to train itself and perfect its fighting men in all the arts and manoeuvres of war that Britain might be in a position to regain the initiative. EASTERN THEATRE. He made it clear, moreover, that during all the menace of invasion, when troops were needed so badly, they had never failed to reinforce the British armies in Egypt almost to the limits of shipping capacity, and not only with men, but with weapons and supplies. Scores of thousands of troops had left Britain month by month, or had been drawn from other parte of the Empire, for the Middle East.

Recalling what the loss of France had meant in this area, Mr Churchill said: “ I am thankful to be able to reassure the House that the balance of forces on the frontiers of Egypt and the Sudan are far less unfavourable than at the time of the French collapse. “ There has not yet been a serious collision with the Italian forces, but there is every reason to be content with the results of skirmishes and forays on the ground and in the air. The Italian published casualties for the fighting in Libya amounted to 800 killed. 1.(00 wounded, and 860 missing. The British

casualties at the same time were 66 killed, 68 wounded, and 36 missing.’* The Fleet in the Eastern Mediterranean had also been continually strengthened, and he stressed its readiness and desire at any time to engage the Italian navy in general action. “ The power of the British Fleet in the Eastern Mediterranean goes a long way to restore the situation created by the collapse of France, and is a great guarantee to our friends and Allies in Turkey of the unweakening power of Great Britain on the seas,” he added.