SYRIAN PEACE

Grey River Argus, 18 July 1941, Page 5

SYRIAN PEACE

ENTRY TO BEIRUT By Allied Troops [Aus. & N.Z. Cable Assn.] LONDON, July 16. Generals Wilson and Catroux, this morning, led Allied detachments into Beirut. The Generals received the Lebanese Government, church, civic and commercial leaders, and in the. evening, returned the visit of the Lebanese Prime Minister. General Dentz left Beirut early yesterday accompanied by a number of the more enthusiastic Vichy supporters among the higher officials. Desoite the cordiality of the welcome accorded to the Allied forces. General Wilson is taking no risks. Curfew was imposed. A proclamation was posted throughout the city, warning the populace that any act jeopardising the Imperial forces was liable to punishment by death. The R.A.F. made a five hours goodwill flight over Beirut, Tripoli, Lattakia and Aleppo. Everywhere the people rushed into the streets, waving and cheering. During the 34 days’ campaign, the R..A.F. destroyed nearly a hundred hostile aircraft and damaged many others. “The Times’s” Beirut correspondent says the impression gained locally is that General Dentz was highly pleased with obtaining such favourable armistice . terms. Fair-minded Vichyites were impressed with Allied generosity. Free French sympathisers believe the British were more generous than was prudent. AntiBritishers claim that the British were obliged to make peace . before Hitler finished Russia. Beirut’s Warm Welcome FOR THE AUSTRALIANS HAIFA, July 16. An Australian war correspondent, relating the entry of the troops to Beirut, describes tremendous •enthusiasm on the part of the people, who went wild with excitement, and threw flowers at the Australian soldiers, patted their backs, blew kisses, waved from windows, swarmed on rne tops of every building and cheered and cheered. The band, of the Aus tralian Headquarter’s uuard Aidmatters livelier by playing Mademoiselle from Armentieres. ine troops with rifles sloped, three abreast and wearing weather-beaten slouched hats, stained with five weeks of.dust, treated the affair as a splendid reward for incredibly tougn fightrng in terrible country. They were followed by processions of citizens gesticulating and talking torrents of Lrench. lhe Australians, who by this time c °uM make themselves understood in. almost any language, grinned, ] ‘t cigarettes and waved to all and sundry. They called everybody George. From conversations with the police it was learned that the majority of the Syrians and Lebanese detest .tru Vichy Government’s French officials, who grabbed all the best jobs, extorting a comfortable living, while the rest of the country has suffered extreme privation. The people are loking forward to better trading conditions, now that free intercourse with Palestine and Egypt has been established.

END OF SYRIAN CAMPAIGN BRITISH COMMENTS. LONDON, July 16. At Berlin it is officially stated that the end of the Syrian campaign does not prove that France is unable to defend her colonies. “The Times” says: The Syrian campaign restores the military and political situation existing in the East Mediterranean before the capitulation of Franc.e The effect on Turkish policy would be important. The “Daily ‘Telegraph’s” Syria correspondent says: A changed atmosphere resulting from the agreement is noticeable in Haifa last night. ine general feeling is one of relief that the distasteful situation has ended. This sentiment pervaded the entry or the Allied troops into Beirut. It was not the entry of a victorious, army, but of representatives of a nation resuming former friendly relations. German threats heavily to air raid Haifa, also a warning to the Arabs to leave the town, were entirely disregarded by the residents. Speaking in the . Commons Mr Churchill said: A military, convention putting an end to the period of fratricidal strife between Frenchmen and Frenchmen, also between Frenchmen and British, Australian and Indian soldiers, all of whom drew the sword of their own free will in defence ot France, has been signed in a cordial spirit by both sides. . The fact that such relations as existed with the Vichy Government have not been worsened during the campaign, when the forces of both sides acquitted themselves with discinline, skill and gallantry, is proof to deep apprehension by the people of France of the true issues at stake. It is a manifestation of that same spirit, whicn leads them to wave encouragement to our bombing aircraft, although bombs in the hard fortune of war have to be cast upon French territory, because it is in enemy hands. We seek no British advantage in Syria. Our only object’ in occupying the country has been to . beat the Germans and help to win the war. We rejoice that with the aid of General de Gaulle’s forces, led by General Catroux and General le GentUhomme, we have been able to bring'to the people of Syria and Lebanon the restoration of full sovereign independlnce We have liberated them from the thraldom exercised by the German armistice commission at Wiesbaden, and from, dangerous German intrigues and infiltrations, whici were in progress. The histone interests of France and Syria, and the primacy of those interests over the same interests of other European nations are preserved without prejudice to the rights of the sovereignty of the Syrian races. Anyone who months a°-o when the British Minister at Baghdad was a prisoner, m his own legation, and Syria and Iran began to be over-run by German tourists, had predicted that by mid-July the whole Levant would be cleaned up and British authority re-established there, would have been considered a most imprudent prophet.