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Aviation History
1940
1940 - 2297.PDF
AUGUST 194O 125 Air Strategy—XV AIR BLOCKADE Britain's Air Blockade Must Reach East Germany, Says CAPTAIN NORMAN MACMILLAN, M.C., A.F.C. THE weapon 01 blockade is only of full value if itcuts all sources of supply. In this respect it isopen to doubt if Britain's sea blockade is as com- plete as it was in the war of 1914-1918. For then, Ger- many was more completely ringed about on land. Her eastern frontiers were largely closed frontiers; even if her arms could penetrate into the Middle East, into the country which was then called Mesopotamia and is now called Iraq, they stopped at the shores of the Persian Gulf, and, shortly after, far up the great rivers that flow into the Gulf. All the Mediterranean, except a narrow strip in the extreme east, was denied to Ger- many and her Allies. To them the vast hinterland of Russia and all the Far East were shut off. How different things are to-day! All the mainland of Europe is open to Germany, much of it under Ger- many's direct domination ; Russia is not cut off ; in the central and eastern basins of the Mediterranean the positions have been reversed. One of the Pan-German dreams of the 1914 epoch was the conquest of the Islamic world. That dream in recent years has brightened the sleeping hours of Musso- lini. But the Islamic world which rejected German domination in 1918 is no more enamoured of Musso- lini as an overlord. However, taking things by and large, the Islamic world of to-day believes itself to be in less danger than it was in 1914-1918. This is prob- ably why it has not yet taken a really active part in the present campaign. It takes a threat to the Koran rather than a threat to a tribal community to rouse the Islamic world to the consolidation needed for a modern Jihad. So far the religious war has not threatened the Koran ; it has been an anti-Roman Catholic and an anti- Judaic war which has been waged by Hitler, and into which he has impressed Mussolini and now passive Petain. Respect for Islam Hitherto Hitler has been far-sighted enough to keep his hands off Islam, while Mussolini in recent years has courted the believers of the Koran. It may be the know- ledge that it will not pay to sweep a third religion against him, a religion whose followers are fighters, and fanatical about their freedom to worship the Prophet in their own way, which has kept Hitler from pushing down into the Near East, from smashing through the. Balkans. With Islam Hitler must steer clear of the persecution he has handed out to Jews, Catholics and Protestants if he is to make any overtures to the Moslem world ; there are not so many more great religions which he can treat superciliously without rousing nearly all mankind against the two partners of the company of Axis, Ltd., and their subsidiary Nippon. The Italo- German boast cf a population of some 130,000,000 may seem a grand boast in Western Europe, but it is a puny part of the world's total population. The mere fact that Hitler and Mussolini have hesi- tated to antagonise the world of Islam is significant, for it is proof that they realise that there is a limitation to the projects which they can set themselves simul- taneously to attain. But woe betide the world of Islam if these two fanatical anti-religionists should conquer Britain. Their mechanised hordes would sweep over the Islamic world, and against them all the bravery of the followers of the Prophet would not avail. To-day, Britain is the unacknowledged champion of the Islam world's freedom. Yet the frontiers of the lands in which the followers of the Prophet live are in many places open to the passage of men (and goods) who will work to attempt the overthrow of Britain. It is time that the truth was made known to the Believers so that they will know that their religion may be endangered by this war which has come like a cloud of darkness over the western world. They could help by means of passive measures, even if they are unwilling to risk their patrimony upon what they consider (so far) to be a white man's war. They do not realise that regalism is one of the principles over which this war is being fought. Let them know it. It will help the blockade. For blockade can be greatly strengthened by the personal resistance of individuals; it is the weapon which has been so widely used in recent times—by the suffragettes in England, by the disciples of Ghandi in their civil disobedience campaign in India; it is a weapon which could stir the bowels of the armies of Mussolini; it has already begun, faintly, to function in the region of Ethiopa with the return to north-eastern Africa of Haile Selassie. Africa and the Near East Britain's power to shut off the Axis partners from the Islamic world will be decided in Egypt and the Near East, in the Sudan, in Somaliland. And there, since Italy came into the war on June 10, the Axis partners have been subjected to blockade. But the peculiar position of status quo in the French colonial possessions enables Germany and Italy to turn their full forces against the British Empire's forces while they leave the question of the destiny of French colonies until a later date. They know full well that if we win this war the French colonies will not be administered by either Ger- many or Italy, and that the Italian "Empire" (so facilely created out of the conquest by gas and bombs of a foe without such refinements in war weapons) will cease to be an Empire by the return of that unhappy land to non-Italian rule, whatever else Italy may have to do as well by way of compensation for her record in the European tangle since the time of her rapproche- ment with Germany. They know full well that if they win this war the French colonies are theirs for the asking. So it is now or never for the two dictators. They must knock us out before they can begin to crow. To trouble about the French colonies too much at present would dissipate their forces, forces which they need to continue the struggle against Britain which they now face. And it is for that reason that we must apply the powers of blockade to the uttermost limit of our power, without scruple, for this war in which we are engaged is a war to the end, a struggle to the death—and we must win. Italy's attack upon British Somaliland is a strategic move. It must have been framed with the triple object
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