COLLAPSE OF FRANCE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25239, 31 May 1943, Page 4

COLLAPSE OF FRANCE

OFFICIAL PAMPHLET ISSUED ‘‘People should hesitate before passing hard judgment upon a whole country, especially in its hour of misfortune, for which it was not entirely responsible, overlooking merits and brave deeds which, at least, claim respect and gratitude This statement is made in a pamphlet which has just been issued by the Delegation of Fighting France in New ZeaThe pamphlet emphasises that the military collapse of France was largely due to the losses she suffered in the war of 1914-18 .and to the deficiencies of the Versailles Treaty. In that war 38 per cent, of French manhood called up either made the supreme sacrifice or returned to civilian life totally disabled. Twenty-one per cent, of her population, amounting to 8,400,000, was called up, and the total number of dead and missing was 1,700,000.The number totally disabled was 1,500,000 out of the 2,800,000 wounded. ” The most recent statistics," the publication continues, “ disclose that France lost practically onefourth of the industrial and military potential of.her male 1 population.” The great material destruction is summarised, and reference is made to the fact that France “gained nothing from these huge sacrifices, apart from the return of her two provinces of AlsaceLorraine.” The question is asked whether things in 1940 would have been “ vastly different if France had obtained the return of the left bank of the Rhine, which, in spite of France’s historical*right to that territory, was allotted to Prussia in 1815. Marshal Foch, it is recalled, insisted that both on political and military grounds "France’s frontier is on the Rhine.”