THROUGH SPAIN

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXI, Issue 137, 12 May 1941, Page 8

THROUGH SPAIN

PASSAGE OF NAZIS. LAVAL-DARLAN INTRIGUE. (United Press Association —Copyright.) The Times’ correspondent on the French frontier says private reports indicate that M. Peitri (French Ambassador to Madrid) called on Marshal Retain at Vichy and notified him that General Franco lias given Hitler a written permit to march across Spain to Gibraltar, the date being left to Hitler’s discretion, but tne second half of this month is envisaged. According to these reports, General Franco declared he was unable longer to resist Berlin’s pressure, especially as Hitler undertook to supply ample food to Spain. Although this is only now disclosed to Marshal Retain, General Franco gave Hitler the permit some time ago and the document is being used in Paris as a basis for the negotiations between Admiral Darlan, M. Laval, and Herr Abctz, culminating in the publication in the French Press of Hitler’s consent to reduce the occupation charges and also partially erase the demarcation line between Occupied and Unoccupied France.

The price to which Admiral Darlan and M. Laval agreed, subject to Marshal Petain’s consent, was aerodromes, but nothing else, for Germany’s use in Syria and the use of certain French railways to Spain for transporting German troops to Gibraltar. Admiral Darlan immediately “banner-lined” the French Press with the object of generating a tremendous popular wave of hope among the French masses and confronting Marshal Retain with a fait accompli—Admiral Darlan calculating that Marshal Retain would keenly tear the consequences of disappointing the masses by rejecting the Darlan-Laval proposals. Confronted with General Franco’s signature, Admiral Darlan asserts he could not rcluse » e German demand, especially as T 1 itier" additionally promised that at the final peace settlement France would not be asked to make territorial cessions to Italy, and as compensation for the loss of Alsace-Lorraine would received other French-speaking territories elsewhere—adjacent to the pre-war French frontiers—in the whole scheme of establishing a new European order.

No word of this agreement lias yet been published in the German Press, because Marshal Petain’s endorsement is awaited, but France’s exit from the League of Nations indicates that Admiral Darlan. prepared the coup long ago, because that step legally terminates the Syrian mandate. Marshal Retain is expected to point-blank refuse to accept the transaction because it would moan a clear violation of the* armistice.