COLLAPSE OF FRANCE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 86, Issue 62, 14 March 1942, Page 5

COLLAPSE OF FRANCE

LETTER FROM M. REYNAUD LIGHT ON EARLIER DAYS. London, March 12. A Free French newspaper published in London has given the text of a letter which M. Raul Reynaud, former Prime Minister of France, sent to Marshal Petain Irom his fortress. The letter is almost a year old, but it throws much light on the days before the fall of France, and one London newspaper to-day called it an important contribution to the history ot the French collapse. M. Reynaud answers the charge that it was the British Government wnicn asked F'raiac lo carry o’.) ll;e war in North Alrica. This is what he wrote to Marshal Petain: "You know, better than anyone else, tiiat this decision was taken by me. It derived from the mutual promise of the Allies not t> abandon one another, a promise of which you were aware and which you never asked me lo withdraw.” M. Reynaud adds: "As soon as the High Command declared that the struggle had bcome impossible I proposed to cease fighting on French soil, following, in this, the example oi Holland. I should have carried this point.” He went on to make mention of the coalition comprising the Marshal, General Weygand, and the majority of the Ministers, which faced him. At this time, he stated, the high military authorities stated that in three weeks' time England would "have her nc.-k wrung like a chicken." M. Reynaud contradicts the familiar Vichy statement, that Mr. Winston Churchill refused the French assistance from the R.A.F. He says: “We received the important assistance from the R.A.F., in the light ol what has happened since, nobody can reproach the British Minister i.or not having thrown into the battle ol France the whole of the air forces upon w'hich to-day our sole chance oi victory is based.” M. Reynaud adds* "Give orders to cease collaboration with an enemy who has annexed Alsace-Lorraine despite the Armistice, and whose flag is now flying over Paris. Give orders to cease attacks on our ally upon whom our salvation depends.”