Gibraltar’s Day of Power Done

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 614, 16 March 1929, Page 18

Gibraltar’s Day of Power Done

Airplanes and Artillery Rob Old Fortress of Its Strength

HAS the Rock of Gibraltar been shorn of its j strength? Have air 1 poison gases, submarines and the increased power of modern artillery left to what was once the world's mightiest fortress but a shadow of its former impregnability The military experts are divided. One school, influenced largely, it is thought, by the traditions of the place, contends that Gibraltar is still the “Key to the Mediterranean.” The opposite school, little influenced by sentiment and looking only toward military efficiency, points n warning Anger at its many weaknesses and advocates the return of Gibraltar to Spain in exchange for Ceuta and territory contiguous across the straits on the North African coast. Spain has had her troubles in North Africa and gladly would she pull up stakes there and get out if it could be done without loss of the new advantage science has given to Ceuta and without loss of “prestige” so dear to European kings, dictators and statesmen. Thousands of lives and millions of pesetas have been lost in Spain’s unhappy African ventures. The Gibraltar of the days long past, the days of wooden ships and puny artillery; the Gibraltar of 3,000 years ago or of even fifty years ago, was very different in power from the Gibraltar of to-day. Air warfare has seen to that. In spite of all the ingenuity of England's best military engineers. in spite of the enormous expenditures lavished upon the rock in order to keep the strength of Gibraltar abreast of the introduction of destructive war machines, the hard fact remains that Gibraltar has one glaring weakness: She must have a certain water supply, and although great stretches of the rock have been Turned into smooth surfaces for draining the rain water into immense tanks, and although expensive machinery has been erected for the condensation of sea water into fresh water, the man who still feels that Gibraltar is impregnable against an up-to-date enemy is, indeed, an optimist. That Gibraltar has lost none of her beauty, none of her austerity and grandeur, none of her colour, is certain. She is magnificent. On the lower slopes and at the base of that mighty rock are to be seen the peoples of the world in miniature.

British Army and Navy officers, soldiers and sailors in khaki or white uniforms, rub elbows with turbaned brown and black men from the deserts of Africa. Spanish children with outstretched hands plead for pennies. In every shop Moors will charge you whatever they think can be extorted.

it has not always been called; Gibraltar. When Hercules ripped the mountains asunder and left standing two mighty rocks thirteen miles apart with the bequest of seas rushing between, the Gibraltar of to-day was known as Mons Calpe. The other "Pillar of Hercules” is Mons Abyla on the African shore. Doubtless Hercules had his own reasons for making a water gate between the Mediterranean and the unknown wastes of the Atlantic. Perhaps the legendary hero was blessed with the

gift of prophecy and could foresee what was to come thousands of years later. Although this stupendous rock has suffered fourteen sieges, the Siege of Gibraltar means but une event, the great siege, which lasted for three years and a-half—from June, 1773, until the attempt was abandoned ip February, 1783. After England had surprised Gibraltar and taken it in 1704. the Spaniards made several futile efforts to recapture the rock. Then, making great preparations, they decided to leave nothing to chance. But British courage had loaded the dice against them, and Gibraltar—whether military asset or not

—is still in English hands. While it is true that a few steamships stop at Gibraltar, most lines treat it as though it were a Dover or a Calais, a Folkestone or a Boulogne -—mere entrances to something better. But it would take a long search in other Mediterranean lands to find the spot that could give a greater thrill than Gibraltar. If asked offhand the southernmost point of Europe one would probably say the toe of Italy’s boot. Not at all. Punta Europa, the tip of Gibraltar, is many miles further south. If asked the locality of “No Man’s Land” one would instinctively turn to the battlefrout in France. Gibraltar has a No Man’s Land, a neutral zone only a few hundred yards in width, which separates Gibraltar from Spain. Most frontiers seem very inquisitive these days; closer scrutiny and many questions attend one’s crossing of boundary. Spain and Gibraltar take you at your word. A wave of the hand to the sentry on duty o nr either British or Spanish frontier answers all impertinent or pertinent questions. What a contrast is found in the space of that two-hundred-yard journey beyond the wire entanglements that mark the end of British territory! Barracks and colleges and naval buildings and a great old Moorish castle look down from the lower slopes of that big rock on a narrow-streeted. one-storeyed, whitewashed adobe Spanish town —recently raised to the dignity of a city bearing the musical name of La Linea de la Concepcion—that is so filthy that it becomes attractive. Lazy milch goats look at you drowsily and curiously; underfed, mangy dogs shrink in fear from you; half-clad children pursue you in scores, begging; little wine shops peep from under tattered and torn awnings where sit fat, unshaved, unwashed men drinking lazily while water carts bearing great jars of water go from door to door. No wonder the people are, unwashed! Water must be paid for by the jar or barrel.

But there is beauty, even in this neglected little Spanish town. Scarlet flowers fall by a creamy convent wall. Blue sea is there, and above is that towering rock whose baldest and most precipitous face, a sheer drop of nearly 1,500 ft, looks upon it in its tawdriness.