Greedy Eyes on West Africa

Manawatu Times, Volume 65, Issue 229, 27 September 1940, Page 7

Greedy Eyes on West Africa

Dakar Part of Wide Strategic Web

HOW AXIS WILL CARVE FRENCH EMPIRE

(British Official Wireless.) Received Thursday, 9.20 p.m. RUGBY, Sept. 25.

“The events in Dakar,” says the Yorkshire Post, “must be viewed as part of a wido web of strategic manoeuvre stretching from Africa through tho Mediterranean to IndoChina. ” In the view of the Axis Powers and Japan tho French colonial empire is ripe for dissolution. Germany and Italy mean to use some of it for establishing a “New Order in Africa and the Near East.” Japan dreams of a “Now Order in Asia” which will include the Dutch East Indies and perhaps the Philippines. Tho privileges she is trying to secure in Indo-Chiua are not required merely to help her in the war oil the Chinese. These far-reaching prospects are hidden from the people of France who are told that the Vichy Government is determined to keep the French Empire intact. All the men of Vichy, in fact, are doing is to preserve all they can for the convenience of the aggressor countries whose intrigues they are powerless to restrain.

“Von Ribbentrop's visit to Rome was concerned with Axis plans for action throughout the vast area from Syria to Dakar. Senor Suner is in Berlin receiving instructions as to the role mapped out for Spain in these ambitious undertakings. She is to be given territory iu French Morocco in return for assisting in tho assault of Gibraltar

“Mussolini wants Tunis and Syria from Franco together with Egypt and the Sudan. West Africa is to be preserved for Hitler. He would be able to look across the Atlantic towards the Americas, a prospect which tho New York Times, writing on Dakar, has not overlooked. He would be well placed also to set about 1 liberating’ South Africa with General Hertzog’s aid. ‘ * Dakar iB the keypoint of these widespread schemes and if General de Gaulle’s action turns out well not only will West Africa be saved for France, but the rest of the French Colonial Empire will be powerfully influenced to abandon the useless protection of Vichy. ’ *