The Geopolitics of the Mediterranean, II

Abstract

THE FRENCHMEN, like the Britishers, view the Mediterranean as a roadway, which especially before World War II, led to Syria, located at the eastern end of the sea, and through the Suez Canal to Madagascar and French Indo China. But France is also interested in the Mediterranean as the chief means of communications with the three French possessions lying directly opposite Marseilles along the coast of North Africa. Almost touching the eastern side of this French triangle is the Italian island of Sardinia, with an air base at Cagliari, while near the western side of the triangle is the Spanish island of Majorca (which during the Spanish civil war was an Italian naval air base). The newly fortified Italian island of Pantelleria and Sicily were also within easy aerial striking distance of Bizerte and the French colonies of Tunisia and Algeria. These possessions, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco, are isolated from Europe by water, and from the rest of Africa by the Atlas Mountains and the blazing Sahara. They contain a million French people and about 14,000,000 Moslems, and are a profitable source of iron ore, zinc, phosphates, grain and olives. In wartime, France could do without North African wine, olives, and dates, but she needed the mineral ore and grain. And even more she needed its manpower; the Moroccan divisions had always been a very important part of her army, as were those from Algeria. It is true that France can operate ships between the Atlantic ports of French Morocco, Casablanca and Rabat, and her own west coast-thus communicating with her North African holdings over a route which lies entirely outside the Mediterranean. But the Moroccan Atlantic ports were connected with Algeria and Tunisia by only one single-track railway, and the overland communication line was too thin for comfort. Actually, the French must keep open their Mediterranean route to North Africaand the importance of this relationship proved itself by the invasion of North Africa by the Allied forces as an opening wedge of invasion of Italy. At any rate, to protect this route, the French maintained a triangle of three powerful naval and air bases in the western part of the sea: at Toulon, near Marseilles; at Mers-el-Kebir, in northwest Algeria; and at Bizerte, in Tunisia.