HITLER’S THREAT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 December 1940, Page 6

HITLER’S THREAT

MAY CANCEL ARMISTICE i WITH FRANCE FAILING SUBMISSION I TO DEMANDS INTERESTING POSSIBILITIES ! OPENED. NOT NECESSARILY IN FAVOUR OF NAZIS. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright! (Received This Day. 12.55 p.m.) LONDON, December 22. “Hitler has threatened to cancel the armistice with France and proclaim a state of war unless Marshal Retain agrees to new German demands,” says an International News Service correspondent nt Vichy, in a message to the “Sunday Express.” The Nazis are demanding:: (1) That France hand over her I fleet. (2) The dismissal of the Minister of Justice. M. Alibert, and the Minister of the Interior, M. Peyrouton (the Ministers who exposed Laval’s treason plot), and move the Government from Vichy to Paris, (where it would be under the thumb of Herr Abetz). The correspondent adds that the demands are so harsh that Marshal Petain is not expected to accept them. A Zurich message reports that the “Basler Nachrichten’s” Berlin correspondent says it is believed in the Wilhelmstrasse that the Government will wait only until December 28 for Marshal Petain’s answer to the German demands for further French cooperation in building up the new order in Europe. Herr Abetz has made it clear to Marshal Petain that Germany is unwilling to wait longer. It is generally believed in diplomatic circles in Berlin that developments of great importance are imminent. The “Observer’s” diplomatic correspondent says Hitler aims at full French acceptance of Axis status, plus a declaration of war against Britain. If this is achieved, the strategy of Hitler’s culminating attack on Britain will be to close the Western Mediterranean, bottle up the British Fleet, isolate the British armies in the Middle East, leave Italy to her fate and, with French and Spanish help, impose an effective blockade on Britain. Competent observers are convinced that Britain’s resistance has created an entirely new situation. It is expected that the total occupation of France against Vichy protests would swing the whole of the French Colonial Empire and perhaps the Fleet, back into the battle on the side of Britain. The Free French news agency says the numbers of Gestapo agents in Vichy has been increased in the last few weeks, and they now also guard French ports and aerodromes, owing to German fears that the pressure they are exercising may create a situation in which Petain and his collaborators would be pushed beyond their endurance and tempted to flee to Africa. Germany is most cautious, because of the possibility of a breakaway of the African empire, but is doing her utmost to wear down Vichy supporters who are holding out against dishonourable dealings such as Laval advocated.