Word: gibraltarism
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Escorted by the Vichy destroyer Simoun, four French freighters nosed out from Casablanca, French Morocco, into the Atlantic last week, making via the Strait of Gibraltar for Oran, French Algeria. "Stop and submit to search," signaled the British patrol in the Strait, but the Vichy ships ploughed...
...food and war materials and soften them for the kill. At the same time Germany would try to cut the Empire lifelines. Since it is four times as far from the British Isles to Suez by way of the Cape of Good Hope as it is by way of Gibraltar, Britain would need four times as many ships if the Mediterranean were closed...
...Gibraltar, where Colonel Donovan went next, is the key to the Mediterranean. And the key to Gibraltar is Spain. England and Germany are fighting for the seduction of Spain; England with food for the immediate present, Germany with promises of future prosperity and aggrandizement. But if Germany loses this skirmish, she may by-pass Spain and reach for the coast of West Africa, where she would be in a position to cut the Cape-route lifeline and draw the cord of strangulation tighter about Britain's neck...
Germany, Wild Bill thinks, is setting up optional fronts for attack if the attack on the British Isles fails or is abandoned. The principal optional front is the Mediterranean area, with an attack on Gibraltar or Suez or both. Another optional front is West Africa. A third is the Ukraine, but that must wait until the attack on England has succeeded or failed. Meanwhile Germany risks harassment from the rear and eventual attack through the Balkans...
...step. Since there are already some 55,000 German "technicians" in Spain, last week's mercy invasion was not in itself anything to get excited about. It was probably a German effort to store up some good will against the time when it will be needed to close Gibraltar...