A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
THE commentators so often tell us that we have reached a turning point that, to a detached observer, our progress would resemble the staggerings of a drunkard. But the Syrian affair, very important for reasons of military strategy, is even more so for the sensational end it gives to the chapter of appeasement of Main and the other men of Vichy. That appeasement was probably necessary because the surrender a year ago by those same men to the Germans left us so terribly short of weapons. But those who believed in it as a policy produced the strangest argument in defence of it- Petain was a soldier and would defend the honour of France. But surely just because he was a soldier he was sure to follow up his first act of cowardice by others? Having once sur- rendered, he would almost inevitably spend the rest of his life seeking to convince himself and others that his surrender had been justified. * * * *
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