Word: gaullists
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...Henry's show could be put over and kept running it would be a considerable satisfaction to the Allies. It would screen part of the Near East from the Nazis, give some spine to wobbling Turkey and boost the stock of the De Gaullist Free French who furnished the incidental music when they entered Syria with their band playing La Marseillaise...
General Wilson is said to be using three to four divisions at present in the Syrian campaign, plus an unknown number of native troops, perhaps 400 planes. Part of his forces are De Gaullist Free French under General Georges Catroux, who opened hostilities by proclaiming independence for Syria and Lebanon and then sent his men into Djebel Druse, home of the rough & tough Druses, who hate the Vichy French and are expected to join the Allies...
Also helping the Allies will be colorful General Philibert Collet, who escaped into Trans-Jordan recently with bloodthirsty detachments of Circassian and Ismaili tribesmen. Vichy authorities had suspected him of De Gaullist leanings and dispatched him away from the border to Damascus. Mme. Collet took a room in a Damascus hotel in her husband's name and a junior officer was stationed there to answer phone calls until she and the General could make their getaway. At the frontier, guarded by quick-firing Senegalese, Mme. Collet stepped on the gas of her husband's car, hooted the horn...
...Vichy would not take military action in Africa against the De Gaullists or against De Gaullist territory...
Many observers took all this with more than a grain of salt. Heavy Nazi infiltrations have long been reported in French Morocco. Fortnight ago it was said that French North African troops had crossed the Sahara to a camp near the De Gaullist headquarters around Lake Chad...