TREACHERY IN FRANCE

Southland Times, Issue 24162, 26 June 1940, Page 5

TREACHERY IN FRANCE

German Bribes In High Quarters

"REFUGEES” IN MINISTRIES

NEW YORK, June 24. The Chicago Daily News, in a copyright article by M. W. Fodor, who has returned from Europe, 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, whose army was broken on the Meuse, 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 the bridges were not destroyed as a result of 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 dispatch to The Chicago Daily News from London, says that Englishmen and Frenchmen arriving from France declare that treachery in high places, the employment of supposedly bona fide refugees by Ministeries and moral decadence, causing important Frenchmen to place their personal interests above the national interests, were factors in weakening the French Army after evidence of treachery beyond realization in the outside world. French troops guarding two Somme bridgeheads handed them over to the Germans because they were convinced that the French Government did not intend to fight. The dispatch adds: “It is questionable whether France will not dissolve into chaos and revolution unless M. Pierre Laval, M. Georges Bonnet and others regarded as leading Quislings establish a strong German-supported fascist Government.

OFFENSIVE AGAINST BRITAINjCOMING BERLIN, June 24. The German News Agency stated that Grand-Admiral Erich Raeder, Chief of the German Naval Staff, made a tour of inspection of the battle fleet units and naval bases on the Belgian, Dutch and North French coasts from June 17 to June 21 to assure himself of their readiness to strike against Britain.

The Berlin radio said: “Germany is now going to strike the only enemy left and the chief culprit responsible for the war—Britain. The armies of Hitler are standing in full readiness to emulate in England the glorious victory achieved against France.”