Grappled Octopus

Last winter, when the British were strangling the Italians all over Africa, the many-tentacled octopus of Empire worked hard for Britain. But last week, its tired tentacles grappling desperately in many directions, the octopus' weakness was too apparent.

The fighting in Iraq (see p. 28) threatened the whole Moslem area of Empire--India as well as the Arab world. Disaffections, torn loyalties, old grudges: all these might even swing the Moslem parts of the Empire into the enemy's arms. The disaster of Greece (see p. 38) had brought up Dominion jealousies, which did not amount to much as yet but might another day.

But one rigid fact about Empire was Britain's greatest misfortune last week. The structure of Empire leans on geographic strong points. Knock down the buttress of Singapore, and the whole eastern wall of Empire falls. Knock out the Suez Canal, and British power in all the countries bordering the eastern Mediterranean collapses. Last week the enemy was clearly developing a huge strategy designed to flank Suez. It was hard to tell whether the super-parenthesis being formed through Libya and Egypt was stalled or just pausing; probably it was pausing to wait for the ripe hour. And on the other flank in Iraq, using the old Hitlerian devices of politics, fears, racial hatred, the enemy was nibbling, nibbling.

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