112
CAIRO TO DAMASCUS
thorized confidential agent to a third place, like Bucharest or
Ankara, in order to discuss this co-operation." It was agreed
that the Mufti should act as an intermediary.
Outside the palace the orgy of Nazi collaboration was at
fever pitch. British plans for the defense of strategic Tohruk,
less than one hundred miles from the Egyptian frontier, which
had unwisely been communicated to the Egyptian high command, were promptly relayed to Nazi intelligence. Tobruk
fell, a "Rommel victory" traceable to the Egyptian fifth column. The Egyptian parliament and press repeated verbatim
the Nazi propaganda broadcasts by the Mufti and his agents
from Berlin, Rome, Bari, and Athens. German victories were
headlined in the Egyptian newspapers: "You could tell if the
Germans or the Allies were winning merely by looking into
the faces of the Egyptians," a journalist said to me.
So pronounced was pro-Axis sentiment throughout the Arab
world that this phrase became common: "Bissama Allah, ala'
alard Hitler. In heaven Allah, on earth Hitler."
The spring of 1942 found the Allied cause in North Africa
nearly doomed, with Rommel only seventy-five miles from
Alexandria, Egypt's second city. The island of Crete, just
north of Egypt, was already in Nazi hands. The presence of
British troops and brilliant counterespionage kept Egyptians
from committing violent acts of sabotage and spreading the
welcome rug for Rommel. If Egypt fell, one by one the other
Arab countries (except Trans-Jordan, a virtual British colony)
would have soon surrendered. Oil from the Middle East
would have greased the Nazi war machine. The Suez Canal would have served the Nazi cause. The resources of the
Empire would have been cut in two, and Allied Forces
pinched between Africa and a hostile Arab world.
The British took drastic action. They forced King Farouk to
remove Ali Maher Pasha and appoint their choice, Moustafa
el Nahas Pasha, as prime minister. The Axis agents in the king's
entourage were cleaned out and about 350 important officials
and members of the royal family were imprisoned or kept un-