The Camas Hot Springs Exchange

Mediterranean Mix-Up

Inside story on General Wavell's transfer to India, as told in diplomatic dispatches, is that Wavell had been quarreling with Churchill and had opposed political-military moves such as the campaign in Greece and Crete and the expedition to Solum.

More important from the American point of view, Wavell had favored the evacuation of all British forces from the entire Mediterranean area. And U. S. military experts agreed with him—in fact, urged it.

So although in a sense General Wavell is being demoted, yet in other respects he will be in a position to command British forces from an area to which he had urged that British forces retreat.

For some time General Wavell had contended that Britain's position in the Mediterranean was indefensible. The British force of only 400,000 men in the Near East faced a combined Axis total twice as strong—400,000 Germans and Italians in Libya, plus 600,000 Nazis in Greece, Bulgaria and Rumania.

The latter figure has been partially diminished by transfers to Russia; but Wavell argued that the Nazi-Fascist armies could concentrate attack in one place while British troops had to spread out over a far-flung line from Libya to Syria and Iraq. Therefore he disagreed with Churchill on all military moves which had a political motive.

U. S. Worried Over Atlantic.

U. S. military and naval strategists sided with Wavell, were strong for the idea of a complete British withdrawal from the Mediterranean.

The strategy behind this was two-fold:

1. The British have lost 40 per cent of their original Mediterranean fleet. The losses at Crete were much worse than officially admitted, and even in the Syrian campaign naval losses were considerable.

Therefore, American naval men, facing the probability of having to help the British fleet in the Atlantic, did not want the fleet further weakened.

2. The United States is more interested in what happens on the bulge of Africa around Dakar (opposite Brazil) than it is in the Mediterranean.

To this end, both General Wavell and U. S. strategists favored the idea of withdrawing British forces from the Mediterranean entirely and establishing a new line of defense across the very center of Africa—from Port Sudan on the Red sea to Freetown on the Atlantic ocean.

This line of defense meant that about 1,500 miles of the hottest desert in the world would be between the Nazis and the British lines.

Over such a desert it is difficult for tanks to operate without heating up; also it is difficult for the average bomber to carry a load over such distances. So it was expected that the Nazis would exhaust themselves in the deep, hot deserts of Africa.

Part of the plan contemplated a highway straight across equatorial Africa from Freetown and later from Dakar to Port Sudan.

Churchill Says No.

However, Churchill was flatly opposed. So were many other British leaders. They felt that the shock of withdrawal from the Mediterranean, traditional sphere of British influence, and from Suez which had been identified with the British empire for years, would be too much for the British public.

This debate occurred before the Nazi attack on Russia and before the British march into Syria. But after the slowness of Wavell's success in Syria, all these factors culminated in his transfer to India.

There Wavell can concentrate on defense of the most important part of the empire—if the Nazis creep up on the Indian border in South Russia. Also, he will not be in the Mediterranean, for the defense of which he had no great enthusiasm.

MERRY-GO-ROUND

It was a breathless day in Washington. The only breeze was kicked up by the little subway car running between the senate office building and the Capitol. Passenger Hattie Caraway, senator from Arkansas, clutched at her flying strands of hair.

Curly-haired Sen. Berkeley Bunker of Nevada, who succeeded to the seat of the late Key Pittman, never misses a senate session and is assiduously studying parliamentary procedure. Vice President Wallace has called him to preside during his absence more than any other senator.

United Service Organizations have had some big gifts, but none more touching than the savings brought in by one Harry Katz, who emptied on the desk 512 pennies, 44 nickels, eight dimes, and one quarter.

Displayed in the department of agriculture lobby are four practical pamphlets: 'Cockroaches and Their Control,' 'Bedbugs: Causes and Cures,' 'House Ants,' and 'How to Control Fleas.'

The President has on his desk a new leather briefcase, fastened securely at one end with a steel pad lock.