Evening star., 1940-10-27
The Mediterranean

For a few hours last week the world
wondered what Winston Churchill. the
British Prime Minister, was talking
about when he said, in speech broad
cast both in English and in French,
that Hitler was resolved on nothing
less than the complete Wiping out OF
the French people. = I repeat the
PRAYER around the Louis Dor coin: 'Dleu
protege la France God protect France!
The need for calling upon Providence
was disclosed the following day, Tues
dav. A German radio broadcast an
nounced that Hitler and his Foreign
Minister, Joachim Won Ribbentrop, had
met with Laval.
On Wednesday, Laval was back IN
Vichy, the capital of unoccupied France
He talked with Marshal
Vichy Petain, and then retrained Tor
Cr;s;s Paris. BY now the whole
world was guessing at what
unhappy demands the Germans were
making of the helpless French. From
the neutral vantage point OF Bern,
Switzerland, came rumor that msloe
the French cabinet violent battle was
raging over whether the French war
fleet would cooperate with the axis
against Britain. A government Spokes-
man in Vichy said France would under
take no military, naval or aerial action
against England
Thursday, Laval was back in Vichy,
and Petain made the sad trip to PARIS,
where he heard what Hitler had to of1er
France. Diplomatic sources described
the projected agreement put forward by
Hitler as transitional arrangement ana
said the Germans had made it clear that
the final peace terms would depend upon
Frances loyal collaboration in the axis
plans until the wars end. No communl-
cues were issued after the Hitler con-
versations. but the general deduction
was that France agreed to divide control
of her strategic African possessions
fronting the Mediterranean and the At
lantic-among Germany, Italy and Spain.
While Petain heard Hitler, Laval met
Count Ciano. the Italian Foreign Min
lister. And between the visits of Laval
and Petain, Hitler rode by train through
France to the Spanish border and met
Gen. Francisco Franco, the leader OF
Spain. with his new Foreign Minister,
Serrano Suner, who was elevated to the
lob after visits to Berlin and Rome. The
future of Spain was as provocative OF
r,lmor as the future of France. On the
one hand was the rumor that Spain
was to enter the war. On the other
hand was the rumor that Germany felt
civil war to participate in the new battle.
In summary, the most notable rumors
we're these:
1. Germany planned a two-fold STRAIT
epv for the Western Mediterranean
countries for the winter:
a. italy and Spain would attempt to
seize Britains historic rock fortress at
Gibraltar in seeking to crush British
sea power in the Mediterranean.
b. Germany and Spain would smash
ut British trade with South America and
her sea link with India via
Sauth the Cape of Good Hope,
Atlantic using Spanish ports and
airfields in the Atlantic and
Canary Islands as bases.
2. Laval and Petain agreed in detail to
allow the axis use of airbases in Africa,
SYRIA and unoccupied France and naval
bases in Dakar, French West Africa;
Toulon. on Frances Mediterranean coast;
Casablanca, French Morocco, and
Bizerte, Tunisia; in return for the re-
lease of the 100000 French war prison.
ers and the moving of the frontier of
unoccupied France northward from the
Tours-Swiss border to the Seine River.
In the midst of these conjectures the
British and the Italians fought naval
engagement in one of the approaches to
the Mediterranean, the Red Sea. Each
side told different stories of what hap
pened.
What each side admitted is that the
forces met at twilight, were out OF con-
tact during the hours of dark and then
renewed the fight at dawn. The scene
of the battle was the southern end Of the
Red Sea, around some islands of Assab,
near the Eritrean coast. According to
the British Admiralty, two Italian de-
stroyers attacked British convoy. The
British destroyer Kimberly chased them,
and after 4O-minute battle in the dawn,
drove the italian destroyer Francesca
Nullo ashore and then blew her up. The
Kimberly was hit by fire from an Italian
shore battery, but silenced two of the
battery's three guns
The Italians, in turn, reported that
In the Red Sea engagement the Italian
naval vessels, of what type
Red Sea not mentioned, damaged a
Bottle British light cruiser of the
Sydney type and sank six
merchant ships. The Italian damage
was injury to torpedo boat
Going er-clockwise around the