Word: madagascars
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Failure of a Courtship. "His Majesty's Government had hoped," the new communiqué intoned, "that the Governor General of Madagascar would allow the British command to take such steps as they considered necessary in order to deny to the Axis . . . facilities ... in the island." A report said the British, after their first attack, had attempted to woo French colonial administrators with honeyed words and attractive trade agreements. The British had also promised that pensions and salaries to all French officials would continue after the British took over. Renewed military operations were an admission that the courtship, tainted with...
Worse, the intervening four months had given the Axis, Japan in particular, time to use Madagascar for refueling submarines that prey on shipping through the 250-mile-wide Mozambique Channel between Madagascar and the African coast. German agents had filtered into the island to stir native resistance against the British. Japanese planes had scouted the territory unchallenged. The radio at Tananarive, Madagascar's capital, had kept up a steady chatter of Vichyssoise, inveighing against Britain, the U.S., Jews and De Gaulle, giving prominence to every Axis victory...
...second attack opened when fleet units and the R.A.F. shelled and bombed three key points along Madagascar's irregular western shore. Under cover of Navy guns, landing parties were soon ashore driving toward Morondava, Majunga and Ambanja, which fell with little opposition. A few days later British forces were well on the road to Tananarive, this time to mop up Madagascar for good...
...From Madagascar to the Libyan Desert a single battle is being fought: the battle to keep Africa open as the supply crossroads of the United Nations. Rommel's dusty warriors menaced the land bridge between Africa and the Middle East. Vichy intrigue and Japanese submarines at Madagascar menaced the waterway up the African coast toward Eritrea, Suez. Persia and Russia...
...keep Africa, the United Nations have more than Rommel and Madagascar to consider. Once the vast Sahara was considered a sufficient barrier to guard the heart of Africa from invasion by forces using Vichy-controlled Tunisia and Algeria as a jumping-off point. Mechanized warfare changed that concept. If the Germans conquer Egypt, they may turn south. French North Africa and Dakar, the continent's westernmost base, in the hands of Axis-enslaved Vichy can never be anything but a danger to the security of Africa as a great crossroads of the United Nations...