EYES ON THE ROCK

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXI, Issue 153, 31 May 1941, Page 8

EYES ON THE ROCK

THREAT TO GIBRALTAR. BRITAIN’S STRONGHOLD. (By “Commentator.”) Standing sentinel over the western approach to the Mediterranean, symbol of the. rugged unyielding spirit that is the Britain of the present as well as of history, Gibraltar faces the possibility of its sixteenth siege as Axis intrigue threatens to challenge its integrity. But The Rock is more than a symbol—it is one of the outposts of empire, a veritable fortress as impregnable as ingenuity can assure.

Since it fell into British hands m 1704 Gibraltar has, in fact, proved its impregnability, and in more recent times, and especially the last few years, its defences have been tlior otighlv modernised. Great galleries torn out of solid limestone honeycomb the great rock, containing armaments the strength of which remains a close-ly-guarded secret. They command the Spanish mainland, Gibraltar Bay, and the African coast, 14 miles away across tile Straits. 'The eastern side, consisting of iinscaleablo cliffs, needs no protection. The peninsula is two and three-quar-ter miles long and three-quarters of a mile wide. Linking it to Spain is a narrow neutral isthmus 1/500 yards long over which any land attack must come from La Linen and, further back, Algcciras, where the Axis are reported to have installed long-range guns. But the northern face of Gibraltar rises almost vertically to a height of nearly 1400 ft.

In peacetime the population of this naval base with its residential quarter at Alameda Gardens, was 20.000, but when the war came non-essential civilians were evacuated, leaving about 1500 people in the territory. In the event of a siege, its rock galleries would provide adequate accommodation. Ordinarily, the biggest problem is water blit great underground reservoirs store 9,000,000 gallons, all obtained from a 3Sj-acre catchment area on a slope. Galleries, storerooms, and gun cniplncrnients, most of them never seen except by members of the garrison, penetrate the living rook, while in several places there are giant stalactitic caverns, some rising to a height of 70ft from iloor to ceiling.

MANY MASTERS. The history of The Rock is irrevocably associated with strife. From Europea Point, on the European side of the Straits, to Apes’ Hill, on the African side, is little more than 11 miles. Standing on Europa Point, says a writer, one recalls tho classical legend that Hercules, on his journey through Europe and Libya in search of the oxen of Geryones, set up two pillars at the point where Mediterranean and “Ocean stream” met. Of these two pillars one, of course, is “The Rock,” tlie other is Apes’ Hill. In the 10th century they were adopted as an emblem By Charles V of Spain, with tlie proud motto, “Plus Ultra,” and it is understood that they are also represented by the two upright strokes (If) of the United States dollar sign. Hercules apart, Gibraltar lias had many masters in her time. Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans, and Visigoths, all possessed the Rock before, at the beginning of tin' Sth century, Tarik ibn Said, with an Arabo-Berber army, crossed over from Africa to destroy the power of the Visigoths and to build at Gibraltar the so-called “Moorish castle” which is still pointed out to tourists. His conquest of Gibraltar is still further commemorated by its name—a corruption from tlie Arabic “Gchel Tarik” or “Tarik’s mountain.” Not till some 600 years later was it retaken by the Spaniards, but it had already undergone no fewer than eleven sieges when in 1704 it was captured by a joint force of British and Dutch and annexed lo Great Britain, on his own responsibility, by the British Admiral, Sir George Rooko. 'The fifteenth, and by far the most- memorable, siege in tlie long story of the Rock was between 1779 and 1783, when the Governor, Sir George Elliott, held the fortress against the most determined attempts to take it on the part of the Spaniards.

SECRET DIPLOMACY. Secret diplomacy, nearly 70 years previously, had come very close indeed to recovering Gibraltar for Spain. The details of this little-known transaction are fully revealed in the Memoirs of the Due do St. Simon. In 1716, he declares, George I actually entered into a confidential agreement, with the Regent of France, and the Due d’Orleaiis, by which Gibraltar was to be surrendered to a Spanish army as the price of Spain’s entering an alliance with Great Britain and France. Had they known the scheme, the. British public would probably have had .something to say oil the matter; hut no hint of the negotiations was allowed to reach their ears, and the failure of the scheme, curiously enough, was duo solely to the Spanish Minister himself, Cardinal Alheroni, whose influence over King Philip V was as jealous as it was unbounded. In his distrust of the Cardinal, George f had stipulated with the Regent that ho should he- told not Tung whatever of the proposed pact; with the result that Alberoni, learning that a Freneh envoy—Louvillc—had arrived mysteriously in Spain, and was endeavouring (o see Philip behind his hack, obstinately concealed Louvillc’s presence in Madrid from the King, aand actually compelled the envoy to return to France without any opportunity of delivering his message. For nearly two and a half centuries Great Britain has retained her possession of the key to the Mediterranean, and tremendous indeed will need to be any attempt to wrest it from her.

The pride that one feels as one gazes upon the great Bock is well expressed in the line sonnet of AYilfrcd Seawen Blunt: at this door England stands sentry. God! to health e shrill Sweet treble of her fifes upon the ■breeze, And at the summons of the rock gun’s ron r To see her red coats marching from the hill!