12 JUNE 1941, Page 5

If that advance proceeds quickly Cyprus should be saved and

we should prevent the pincers the military experts tell us about from closing upon a battered and unhappy Egypt. But unless it proceeds very quickly indeed—in other words, unless most of the French come over to our side—Hitler may receive a very valuable consolation prize in the shape of an Anglo-French war. This is a struggle not merely for a place of strategical value called Syria ; it is for the soul of France.