NEWS OF THE WEEK
THE immediate crisis in Algiers has been ended, but not. by an agreement that promises to be either satisfactory or enduring. There is to be no unification.of the armed forces. General Giraud and General de Gaulle are to, hold- co-ordinate commands which might easily, but it must be hoped will not, become rival commands. The former has under him North and West. Africa and the armies therein, the latter French armies everywhere else. A• permanent military committee, consisting of the two Commanders-in-Chief with the chiefs of staff of air, land- and sea has been created " with the mission to proceed to the fusion of the French land, sea and air forces in a new and single. army." That may be as far as it was possible to get in. the circumstances, but it is not very far. The task of unification which the Committee for National' Liberation has had before it from the outset has been simply shifted on to the shoulders of another and new committee. The old dualism remains, with all its deleterious effect on efficiency and all its possi- bilities of rivalry and fissure. Allied intervention has played some part in the negotiations, for General Eisenhower, as Allied Com- mander-in-Chief in North Africa, could not countenance any decision which would in his view render the French forces under his command a less efficient military instrument. He had had experience of General Giraud's qualities as commander of those forces, and considered it imperative that the command should not be changed. At the same time, if unification has not been achieved, there has been no actual set-back. If a spirit of unification grows, if; in particular, the Committee of National Liberation by its political courage- and sagacity and the moral authority it generates can in- creasingly command the confidence of all Frenchmen, the desired end may be attained sooner than was thought likely. But the question of a single commander-in-chief of all the French forces has still to be faced. It must be settled before French troops land on the soil of France.
