The End of the Road

Pierre Laval last week gave Germany 4,800 sq. mi. of French territory on the Channel and North Sea coasts; complete control over French industry, finance and agriculture; the remnants of the French fleet scuttled at Toulon; a large number of French merchant vessels. He also promised 400,000 skilled French workers.

In the two ceded provinces--Nord and Pas-de-Calais--fortifications were being built and the last French inhabitants evacuated. Five destroyers, two tugs and many French merchantmen were being taken over by German crews to carry and convoy supplies to German forces in Tunisia. A 140-man German mission arrived in Paris to inventory French industry and arrange to increase poverty-stricken France's already big exports to Germany.

Laval supinely--if helplessly--also acceded when the Germans seized 140 interned U.S. diplomats, relief workers, newsmen (TIME, Jan. 18) and transported them from Lourdes to Baden-Baden, to be held as hostages for Axis bigwigs seized in North Africa.

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