FRENCH COLLAPSE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24334, 26 June 1940, Page 7

FRENCH COLLAPSE

ALLEGED CAUSES TREACHERY AND GRAFT REVOLUTION POSSIBLE (United Press Association) (By Electric Telegraph—Copyright) NEW YORK, June 24. The Chicago Daily News features a copyright article by Mr M. W. Fodor, who has returned from Europe. He says the French breakdown was mainly the result of the Belgian collapse and of treachery, inefficiency, and graft in France. King Leopold, General Van Overstraten, and General Corap were the military villains of the tragedy. France’s fate was decided on May 10. The Belgian debacle started with treason on the Meuse and the Albert canal, where bridges were not destroyed through German bribery. Added to this, there was treason near Sedan, where the: French “ forgot ” to blow up six bridges. This is persistently reported to be due to German bribes in high French quarters. Helen Kirkpatrick, in a despatch to the Chicago Daily News from London, says that Englishmen and Frenchmen arriving from France declare that there was treachery in . high places. The employment of supposedly bona fide refugees by Ministries, and moral decadence causing important Frenchmen to place their personal interests above the national, were factors weakening the French Army. After giving evidence of treachery beyond realisation to the outside world, such as the French guarding two Somme hridgeheads handing them over to the Germans because they were convinced the French Government did not intend to fight, the despatch adds: “It is questionable whether France will not dissolve into the chaos of revolution unless Laval, Bonnet, and others regarded as the leading ‘ Quislings ’ establish a strong Germansupported Fascist Government.”