Evening star., 1942-12-09
Dukur-DurIun-De GouIIe

General Eisenhower, Allied COM
mander in chief in French North
Africa, has officially announced the
conclusion of an agreement whereby
the vital West African port of Dakar
will be made available for Allied
ships and planes. Furthermore, a
considerable amount of Allied ship
ping impounded there will be re-
leased, together with their interned
crews. Thus, by the stroke of a pen
and without firing a shot, this great
French naval and air base, COM
manding the sea lanes around Africa
and the air. lanes to the bulge of
South America, joins French North
Africa in friendly collaboration with
the United Nations. Indeed. this
status applies not merely to Dakar
but also to the whole of French West
Africa, vast area almost two-thirds
the size of the United States with
100000 population including Sene-
gal, that reservoir of tiptop fighting
men.
This is certainly good news. I'm
fortunately there is a fly in the oint-
ment. All this has come about
through an agreement between the
colonial authorities at Dakar and
Admiral Darlan, head Of the provis-
ional regime in North Africa, which
Is cooperating with General Eisen-
hover and the Allied military forces
OF occupation. That fact has fur
ther envenomed the controversy be-
tween Darlan and the Fighting
French regime of General Charles
De Gaulle. The most serious aspect
Of this factional feud is that it seems
to have widespread diplomatic i'm
plications. London does not like
Darlan, who has always been anti
British. Neither does Moscow, be-
cause of the admirals strongly anti
Communist attitude.
Clearly, lay observers should COM
ment cautiously on so delicate a
situation. Nevertheless, certain
points seem to be fairly clear. Gen
eral Eisenhower has merely followed
the consistent practice of our State
Department in dealing on de facto
basis with whatever faction happens
to control the politically divided
portions Of the French colonial en-
pire. 1t is hard to see how Eisen-
hover could have acted otherwise
than accept the proffered collabora-
ton of regime which included all
the French civil and military au-
thorities in North Africa, and which
had obtained the adhesion Of so
prominent and unimpeachably pa
triotic a figure as General Honore
Giraud. De Gaulle had no sizable
following in either North or West
Africa. Indeed, the weight of evil
dence indicates that any attempt to
impose De Gaulle upon those regions
would have aroused the hostility Of
the local authorities. Is there any
reason to believe that the situation
has changed? General Catroux,
prominent De Gaullist commander,
points out how easily the local
French forces in North Africa, now
fighting beside us against the Axis,
could endanger our communications
if they should suddenly turn against
us. But might this not happen if we
broke with Darlan and his support
ers, attempting to substitute either a
De Gaullist regime or a purely mill
tary control over the entire region?
With a desperate struggle raging
in TuniSia against swelling Axis
forces which have stalled our Of
fensive and gained local command of
the air, this would seem to be no time
to scrap an arrangement with Darlan
that has thus far worked smoothly
and that seems to satisfy General
Eisenhower himself.