THE FRENCH IN THE SYRIAN CAMPAIGN
Sta,—Nobody suggests that General de Gaulle was in a position to give valid orders to launch the Free French troops against the Vichy. But as General Spears himself admits: " He was anxious they should take part in the campaign and blustered a good deal to have his wishes carried out." Precisely. His telegrams were peremptory, and Free French appreciations and intelligence reports were unanimous, or nearly so, that the Free French troops should be used. They took the most optimistic view of the probable reaction of the Vichy troops. Obviously the actual orders came from the British Command, but it is nonsense to suggest that the responsibility was entirely British.
General Spears finds my criticism " frankly comic " when I say that without the Free French the campaign could not have been undertaken at all. Perhaps I should have qualified this view with the addition of the word " hardly." One wonders how the General would have tackled the aproaches to Damascus via Kuneitra and Deraa with only the 5th Indian brigade, had the responsibility been his. The Australians were firmly held on the coast and at Merdjayoun ; the cavalry were wholly absorbed in guarding the lines of communication ; and the formations which General Spears lists as coming in later in the campaign were not available until after the collapse of Rashid Ali in Iraq. General Spears's mention of them in this context is as irrelevant as his mention of the Navy. No doubt it would have been possible to undertake the campaign with one battalion.
To say what I have said does not make me a subscriber to the legend of a French victory with British help; a curious charge not worth rebutting. In a few hours I go to Palestine, leaving the General to occupy without opposition this rather arid field.—Yours faithfully, United Service Club, Pall Mall, S.W. r. BERNARD FERGUSSON.
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