FUTURE OF CYPRUS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 76, 19 June 1941, Page 2

FUTURE OF CYPRUS

- PLACE IN STRATEGY OF LEVANT ; • Will DO THE GERMANS WANT IT? | '. "No island in tjie world is unconquer-; ' l ab e." cried rotund ex-airman Hermann! 5 Goering. elated by the success of his -! air force over Crete, and oblivious of [I its failure over Britain. It is a good ; I round proposition, which cannot be disJ proved simply because some islands ob- '; stinately refuse to be conquered. Nor j; ca it be proved until all islands are | conquered. One way and another, it ’ i does not seem to mean much yet. Everyj thing indicates, however, that the Ger- * man High Command it set on collecting : evidence to support its Minister’s pro- - nouncement, and that Cyprus is marks ed down as exhibit B, writes Noel Goss in the Melbourne "Argus." Cyprus is rather a different proposition from Crete. The first point about Cre'e is that the western end of the , island is only 70 to 100 miles distant I from the Greek mainland. The German “I Air Force could and did place an air v | screen round and over and beyond II every point at which the High Com- - mand elected to drop troops. The soct ond point is that, even so. the Navy, alI thougn unable to prevent the Germans s | from landing by air in Sufficient force .‘l | to drive our men out. did prevent them _ | from landing troops and equipment by i sea. The cost was heavy, but the job • 1 was done. y\ In approaching Cyprus, the Germans * | will not use Crete. Perhaps they are t working there to develop ; t as a base | for later operations against Africa; per--11 haps they are content with having n I driven us and the Greek King and Govd! eminent out. However that may be. the t attack on Cyprus will be launched from . 1 Rhodes and Scarpanto. in the Dodec- ‘ anese, or from the mainland of Syria, i From Rhodes (the city) to Cape Kor- " makiti and Ktirna in Cyprus the disG ] tances are 540 and 450 miles respective0} ly. From Tripoli, in Syria, to Famao gousta, in Cyprus, the distance is 200 miles. From Latakia. in Syria, to Cape s j Andreas, in Cyprus, the distance is 140 s I miles. Whether the Germans attacking e I Cyprus will be able to repeat from the s French territory of Syria the technique s I they used against Crete depends on f many factors which we cannot judge, jin any case, whether Syria or the Doj decanese Islands or both are chosen as s j bases, the distance factor has lengthen* • ed against the Germans, whereas the r British, with the right to go as far up A the eastern Mediterranean coastline as j Haifa and Acre, are at least no worse off in defending Cyprus by air than j they were when attempting similarly to ‘'defend Crete. Moreover, unless Turkey ! turns as complaisant as France. German j heavy supplies must travel 500 miles •'; from Rhodes to the west side of Cyprus. 11 and farther still to the Syrian ports of ° i Beirut, Tripoli and Latakia. Almost Is the whole of this route is within 50C g : miles of the British naval base at Alex[t andria. With so much more sea room j one may hope that the Navy will do [t again what it did in the narrow waters d north of Crete —and with much less e risk to itself. Still, as Goering says, no island in the world is unconquerable. CYPRUS AND SYRIA 1, Why should the Germans want o Cyprus? Or.- for that matter, Syria? t > The answer is in Iraq. Cyprus is one of the large islands of the Mediterranean. About half of its j 3584 square miles are under cultivation. They will not add much to the granary of the Third Reich The copper deposits, famous in antiquity and the origin of the island’s name (Latin: ° cuprum—copper), are not much workd ed, and again are unlikely to supply 11 the Reich’s deficiencies. Syria, with i- which can be included the Lebanon, as both were in the original French manis date, is likewise not rich, much of it d being steppe country poorly watered. j£ There is a coastal belt of mountains and highlands, behind which runs a valley 1 from Aleppo to Damascus, bound on „ the east by highlands, and beyond this !» in the north is the middle Euphrates j valley, and in the south a desert area, -j The richest and best watered lands in 1 the area are the grain fields of the y j liauran. the garden country round e Damascus, and the eastern slopes of the e Lebanon mountains, with their vine- , yards and gardens. The importance of Syria is its transit trade, and the importance of Cyprus is ' s its strategic position across the outlets k of this trade to the Mediterranean This ;s trade no longer consists of the silks 2, spices, pearls and camphor from India f. f° r Genoa, Marseilles, and other Eurot, pean ports, as in the days of the Damasil cus and Aleppo caravans of the Middle . Ages, but predominantly of Iraq oil. j Statistics on the strategy and politics .“ jof raw materials lead to diverse and ~ I pretty certain, however, that European >-l conquests and the Russia exportable >e: surplus left Hitler, on the most favour- >- i able estimate of his resources, some - ; 4.400.000 metric tons, and from Iraq il 3, i would be a short step to the oilfields ol - I Iran, where he could get 10.000.00 f ” 1 metric tons more. In possession ol n i these two sources of oil, Germany woulc - Ibe more than self-sufficient. Here lies ‘ i the importance of the British coup al ..1 Mosul. If Hitler's coming drive gut; s j him into the oilfields he will find then I thoroughly wrecked, and it will be d i some time- before he can use them G I Nevertheless. Germany already doming ates European sources of iron ore yieldI inf 25,717,000 metric tons annually, and

—» ♦——♦—♦—*—♦—♦—♦— i lin Spain. Spanish Morocco. French Morocco, Algeria and Tunis she can get I 4.202.000 metric tons more. Deficiencies j remain in alloys, such as tungsten and chrome, and the food position in Europe may remain difficult for years. It is hardly likely, however, that Euiopeanj I peoples as a whole will starve under j German organisation of agriculture. There will be local famines and short ’ I commons generally, except in Germany I itself, but what does this matter to ‘j the Nazis against the prospect of con- | trolling all the oil and steel they need? r THE MILITARY ANGLE 1 It is this dream of rounding off his - self-sufficiency in a vital respect which r draws Hitler on, and we may as well 2 face the fact that he is close to realist ir.g his dream. At the same time, there - is the military angle to be considered. - Concentrating first on Greece and then 1 ! on Crete. Hitler appears to have neg- ' I lected the campaign initiated by bis ‘ forces in Africa after we routed the I Italians in Cyrenaica. The reasons seems fairly obvious. Had j |he pushed on in Africa and succeeded in getting to Alexandria and Suez his \ path would have been open down the -j Nile valley—but there is no oil in the i- Nile valley. Moreover, unless we then 1 decided to evacuate the entire Middle - East—an unlikely decision, in view of - the importance of the oilfields in Iraq - and Iran—Hitler would have succeeds ed only in driving us into concentrate tion in Palestine, and possibly have n compelled us to enter Syria. While, by i y cinquering Alexandria, he would have j b deprived the fleet of its most important i base, be would have crowded us into j ‘ the very path which he must ultimately I e take to the oilfields. By going through Cyprus and Syria he reckons to achieve g the oilfields and then use African and Syrian bases to squeeze us out in a e new pincer movement, designed ultill mately to make him master of Alexandria. ). Such issues, then, centre in the coming attack and defence of Cyprus; >■ such is the emergency which we are called on to meet in the Middle East. " Should Hitler succeed in his design 0 the war will not be over. Hitler’s new q order in Europe will be a reality, but not necessarily a permanent one. Polie tically the dominance of Germany will e set up its own reaction; economically n the blockade can stultify many of tl^ 2 advantages which might be expected to >- accrue t.o the Now Order from the conis trol of such wide resources. Well-being i- still depends on the interchange of e goods and commodities over much p wider areas than those embraced in is Hitler's actual or potential conquests. ;e And conquests in the Middle East cann not offset the growing capacity of the ° l British Air Force in defending Britain or its growing ability to inflict damage >s and hards hip on the German people. s Hitler may yet conquer Europe and the Middle East, and find all the main cities of Germany laid systematically in ruins. iq while the fruition of his economic c _ schemes is further frustrated by the n blockade. And then, again, he may not o conquer the Middle East.