"This is going to be a mixed show," an Australian brigadier told a war correspondent at ancient Tyre last week, and no Australian brigadier ever said a fuller mouthful.
The first eight days of the British-Free French drive for Vichy-held Syria were a weird combination of Blitz and bicker, glad-handing and heavy punching, pushover and furious resistance. Australian bayonets were sheathed; Royal Navy guns blasted. Opposing Frenchmen kissed or killed each other. There was both soundtruck and aerial bombardment. But at week's end General Sir Henry Maitland Wilson, the mixed show's producer,...
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