ADMIRAL INDICTED.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 263, 4 October 1940, Page 7

ADMIRAL INDICTED.

MTJSELIER’S SCATHING COMMENT

LONDON, Oct. 2. Admiral Muselier, head of the Free French naval and air forces, in his world broadcast, addressing himself to Admiral Darlan, recalled that in May Admiral Darlan set up a maritime tribunal at Cherbourg which condemned the captain-commandant of marine at Boulogne to twenty years’ hard labour for being guilty of having ordered the abandonment of the town without . bringing into play all the forms of resistance at his disposal. “A little later you committed the crime and very much more seriously,” continued Admiral Muselier. “Betraying the word given to the Allies, you gave up the struggle while our navy was intact in material and while the personnel of the same navy, this wonderful body of men that you ami 1 had the honour to command, desired only one thing—to continue the struggle and fight the invader to the end. “On June 39, in a code message which will remain in history' you ordered every one of the officers and sailors to carry on the struggle with the fiercest energy. We all know how the French sailors responded to yout appeal. Leaving behind them their families and belongings in most difficult circumstances, they left the French ports threatened by the enemy and went to Britain and Africa. One hope alone was in their hearts—to continue to pursue to the end the war against the enemy, the only enemy, Germany. “And so it was. Frenchman Darlan, that yon_xommitted the greatest mistake that a leader can commit, a capital mistake, an offence against conscience. To ■ these men who had prepared for . fighting, you ordered surrender and capitulation. You led them to a betrayal of an alliance as if such a manoeuvre carried out in the face of the enemy was not the worst form of cowardice and treason.” Admiral Museliei defied anyone to prove that any of his officers or sailors, 'let alone himself, were in the pay of a foreign Power or acting against their country. The British Empire, rich as it was, was not rich enough to buy them, even if they wished to be bought.