DEPLORABLY WEAK

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 76, 24 October 1941, Page 6

DEPLORABLY WEAK

BRITAIN'S POSITION IN 1939 At Home and in Middle East REVELATIONS BY FOREIGN SECRETARY (Rec. 10.50 a.m.) Rugby, Oct. 23. The Foreign Minister, Mr .Anthony Lden, revealed to-day that during the summer of 19 30 there was one moment when there was not even one fully trained and fully equipped division in Britain. Mr Eden was replying to a debate in the House of Commons in which many speakers, including Mr Noel Baker (Labour), Mr Aneurin Bevan (Ind. Labour), Commander King Hall (National Lab.) and Colonel Wedgewood (Labour) took part. “When members of the \\ ar Cabinet ’ said Mr Lden, “were asked by members to try and relieve their anxiety and tell them something of their intentions they put a difficult task on their shoulders as there would be a risk of our plans and strength being made known.” He could give Colonel Wedgewood an assurance that the Government did not propose to either now. or in the future, or at any time negotiate with Hitler or his associates on any subject.

l.ORl) GOUT'S DISPATCHES "Reference has been made to Lord J Gort's dispatches—to the shortages of equipment which those dispatches revealed —and of course every word that Lord Gort said on that subject was fully justified. They had. however, carried the examination of the subject a stage further.” continued Air Eden "All equipment being produced at ! that time before the attack on France b and ourselves was being sent to France, j with the result that our position in : the Middle East and at Home was j deplorably weak. We lost in France j at that time about a thousand guns, i and the guny that remained in Britain were many fewer than a thousand.” NOT ONE DIVISION IN BRITAIN Mr Eden then revealed that at one | moment during the summer before last I there was not even one fully trained and fully equipped division in Britain. “Added to that our defences, were virtually non-existent and our Middle Eastern forces lacked practically all modern equipment. Last; summer and last winter we had not . only to equip the army there but to send out guns, tanks and aeroplanes even before some divisions of the regular army were fully equipped.” ATTACK ON RUSSIA DELAYED “We were ready to take that risk. I ; The fact that we took it enabled Gen- • eral Wavell to win his victory and cnatled us to send a measure of help to. Greece even though that help was insufficient to save Greece. I have heard , it said that the decision was strategi- j' cally unsound. I cannot accept that J . for a minute. It was the despatch of ' those troops to Greece and the Yugo- , Slav coup d’etat, coupled with the re- \ sistance of the Greek armies and our ( own, which without the least doubt , delayed the attack on Russia for at j least six weeks. That in itself was a : valuable contribution to the common J "ause.”—B.Q.W.