"The Enemy Gasps and Wavers"

"The Enemy Gasps and Wavers"

The greatest U.S. victories in Africa last week were political rather than military. They followed months of shrewd State Department maneuvering (see p. 75). It began in the winter of 1940, when worldly, good-natured Robert Murphy, U.S. Counselor of Embassy at Vichy, was sent to Algiers as a supersonic detector of French African affairs. It was Mr. Murphy who arranged with General Maxime Weygand to deliver U.S. food to the French colonies. Mr. Murphy and scores of U.S. agents saw that the food got there. In the process they made friends for the U.S. all over the colonies, got facts about the terrain and political conditions which greatly aided U.S. invasion planning.

Friends & Enemies. The U.S. political victory was partly, of course, in the bolstered spirits of allies and friends. Britain was jubilant. Even though Russia had hoped for a direct stab in the Nazi back, Russian opinion steadily warmed. Cried the Chinese press: "The turning point has been reached." Brazil's Foreign Minister Oswaldo Aranha declared: "We will soon emerge into a better world."

But the U.S. political triumph was made even clearer by the conduct of enemies. Adolf Hitler made a curious reference to the Kaiser's flight from Germany (see p. 36). The German radio clamored about "brutal assault . . . shameless breach . . . gangster methods . . . imperialistic aims . . . piece of impudence." In keeping, Tokyo broadcasters squeaked and hissed: "Illegal . . . international banditry ... a most ungentlemanly act." Bern reported that Rome was in a state of "stupefied pessimism," and Rome's radio spokesmen admitted that "the horizon is black. . . . Tonight the Italian people . . . is facing a terrible trial."

Panic in Vichy. Fright seemed plainest of all among the Vichy cabal of royalists, fascists and opportunists. They had placed their bets on Adolf Hitler as the architect of Europe's future. They had tried at one & the same time to placate Hitler and grab as much of France as possible for themselves. In this bargaining game they had sold out the French people by all manner of internal concessions, by making cargo shipments to the Axis in Libya, admitting German "technicians and importers" to Africa, deporting French workers and Jewish refugees to Germany, libeling Third Republican leaders who bravely threw the charges back in Vichy's face at the Riom trials.

Last week the men of Vichy gave the impression that they were readier to crumble than to conquer. The querulous, totalitarian old figurehead, Marshal Petain, quavered in a letter to President Roosevelt: "It is with stupor and sadness that I learned tonight of the aggression of your troops. ... It is you [who] have taken such a cruel initiative."

The Marshal radioed to shrewd little Admiral Jean Franc,ois Darlan, commander of Vichy's armed forces, in Algiers: "I am glad you are on the spot.* You can act. Keep me informed." It was Admiral Darlan, according to reports, who surrendered Algiers. He was a U.S. prisoner and rumor held that he might be persuaded to another ratlike twist of his career: a shift to the anti-Vichy side. As for Vichy's unsavory Chief of Government Pierre Laval, this wiliest of the men of Vichy was said to have hastened to Rome for a worried meeting with Hitler and Mussolini.

The leaders of the French millions who hate Vichy were quick to seize the political weapons the U.S. had given them. Broadcasting from London, General Charles de Gaulle called to French North African troops: "Forward! The great moment has come. Help our allies. Join them without reserve. Everywhere the enemy gasps and wavers." Vichy admitted a De Gaullist uprising at Casablanca, claimed to have overcome it, subsequently confessed that a battalion was still in revolt.

Over the Algiers radio came the most surprising and inspiring French voice of all. It was that of big, spirited General Henri Honore Giraud, idol of France, Germany's No. 1 war prisoner and escapist (TIME, May 11). Cried he:

"Today Germany and Italy want to occupy North Africa. America forestalls them and assures us of her loyal and disinterested support. We cannot neglect this opportunity of recovery. I take up my action station among you. We have one passion--France; and one aim--victory."

The Great Escapist. When the story of General Giraud's escape from Konig-stein prison was told last spring it was so fabulously like an Alfred Hitchcock cinema that most observers were disbelieving. It was said that the weighty, 63-year-old warrior, having assembled a civilian suit from gift boxes, had let himself down some 60 ft. of Giraud-made rope. Posing as a Swiss traveling salesman, he had serpentined through Germany for eleven days, finally crossed into Switzerland. Unpublished reports at the time said that his escape and his anti-Nazi fervor were known to the British, who sent a plane to Switzerland for him, but that before it arrived he fled Switzerland for Vichy to escape Nazi pursuers. Vichy was afraid to turn him over to Germany because of his popularity among the French people. General Giraud was later said to have gone to North Africa for his health.

It was a healthy voice that sounded over the Algiers radio last week. Commander in Chief of Allied forces in North Africa Lieut. General Dwight D. Eisenhower announced that General Giraud had arrived in Algeria "to organize a French North African Army and again take up arms side by side with forces of the United Nations for the defeat of Germany and Italy." At the time of Giraud's escape, General de Gaulle declared that he would be glad at any time to serve under his senior.

* The Marshal does not know U.S. slang.

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