ARTERY OF BRITAIN

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 76, 19 June 1941, Page 3

ARTERY OF BRITAIN

i WATCH ON THE SUEZ CANAL

VITAL STRATEGIC RECTANGLE Between Suez at the extreme northeastern point of the Red Sea and the synthetic town of Port Said on the Mediterranean lies the most valuable, one of the most vulnerable, and one of the most strategically important rectangles in the world. (Panama is the second.) It is 101 miles long and a few hundred yards wide. Within the borders of those few hundred yards there runs from north to south a sweet-water canal, a railroad, a superbly surfaced motor highway, electric cables and the Suez Canal, writes Philip Jordan in the “New York Times” magazine. It is for the possession of the Suez Canal that armies have been fiercely battering one another in Greece and Crete, and on the hot Libyan plateau, for it has always been the German conception that once Great Britain was driven from military Cbntrol of the canal the whole structure of her imperial might would dissolve and that the home island would thereafter yield to a conquering force. STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE This conception of the canal’s strategic importance vis-a-vis London is not a new theory. As long ago as 1911 a German writer, Dr. Paul Rohrback, in a book, “Die Bagdadbahn,” wrote: “England can be attacked and mortally wounded by land from Europe only in one place—Egypt. The loss of Egypt would mean not only the end of her dominion over the Suez Canal and of her communications with India and the Far East, but would probably entail the loss of her possessions in Central and East Africa.” It is with full realisation that this statement is intrinsically correct that outposts of the immediate British defence of the canal have been fighting hundreds of miles from its magic waters —in Libya and in Greek territory. To balk Germany of the prize she so ardently covets there are also the Royal Navy, the Imperial forces in Palestine, Syria and Transjordan, and, whereever there is air above, the warplanes of the Royal Air Force. But this rectangle of land and water is still defended in no small degree from headquarters in the lovely canal city of Ismailia, about half way between the two seas which the canal joins, where a co-ordinating British force of all three fighting services maintains p regular defence patrol of sufficient strength to insure—within the numerical limits of troops available to General Wavell —the canal’s immunity from serious attack.

At regular, very shortly spaced intervals—it would be unwise to say how often—the canal is swept from end to end for mines, its greatest danger, for even the most vigilant air patrols cannot with certainty guarantee to prevent the enemy’s flying into the canal zone at night, and laying mines in the waters of this great international maritime highway. Targets are easy, for Egyptian nigh a, even when the moon is small, c..n have a splendour and brilliance found nowhere else, and even at the darkest hour the visibility is often tremendous. NO CHANCES TAKEN No ship, about the integrity of whose papers and purpose there is the slightest doubt, is allowed to enter the canal before she has been searched from stem to stern, from truck to keel, but, even so. there is always th" chance, however slim, that she may have concealed about her undetected apparatus for nsinelaying. Such precautions are not always considered sufficient, as I had the opportunity of observing shortly before the Italian entry into the war. A Soviet freighter loaded with cement passed through the canal from north to south. On arrival at Suez she received orders from her government to turn around immediately and go home. No chances were taken with a ship whose load and circumstances were considered suspicious. An armed guard was Placed on her bridge and a naval escort preceded and followed her, while along the canal bank a Bren gun carrier accompanied her and there was a bomber overhead. Thus she journeyed from Suez and Port Said, where the army abandoned her to the care of other escorts until she had reached the three-mile limit. An often exaggerated wartime danger to the canal is the ship whose captain has orders either to scuttle her or set her on fire So close a watch is kept on all shipping that passes through that if such a case were to arise there would always be time for tugs to push the sinking vessel to the bank before she was able to block the main passage. As the main channel, which is that part of the canal forty-two feet deep, averages in width just under 200 feet, which is nearly half the total surface width, it will be understood that there is plenty of space in which to manoeuvre sinking or fired ships so that they will not interfere with legitimate traffic. Although Britain is defending the canal in her own vital interests, she is in fact under international law responsible to all nations for its safety. She is the international guarantor that in both war and peace the canal shall be available to ships of all nations.

THE 1888 CONVENTION In the original 1888 convention whici defined the policies on which the cana was to be operated, its signatories— Great Britain. Germany, Austria-Hun-gary Spain. France, Italy, the Netherlands, Russia and Turkey—named tht Ottoman Empire as guarantor, but ai the end of the last war, when Turkej was no more than a defeated and disarmed nation, this duty was demandec by and granted to Britain. But the convention was not otherwise modified and indeed, Article I—although somewhat ironic at the moment—reads "The Suez Maritime Canal shall always be free and open in time of war as ir time of peace to every vessel of commerce or war without distinction ol flag.” It adds: "The canal shall nevei be subjected to exercise of the righl of blockade.” This means that if, say, a German or an Italian ship were able by some almost impossible means to reach either Port Said or Suez it could not properly be refused transit through the canal, provided it obeyed the canal company’s regulations. It could, however, and would be either captured or destroyed as soon as it passed the threemile limit at whichever end it left the