Journal de Genève
- The Return of Mgr Seipel
- Double Game
- The Swiss Trans-African Raid
The front page of 13 October 1926 led with a Vienna correspondent's report that Austria's Ramek–Rintelen cabinet was about to make way for a new government. He traced the crisis to the savings banks' central bank, to which the government had advanced more than 60 million schillings, and to a parliamentary inquiry that exposed franc speculation and fictitious accounts at the provincial banks of Lower Austria and Styria. An editorial attacked the Social Democrat Robert Grimm's bid to preside over the National Council, citing a fellow socialist's 1918 verdict on the general strike leader and Charles Naine's article “Double jeu?”. A third piece previewed the Mittelholzer–Gouzy–Heim seaplane flight from Zurich to the Cape and stressed its geological and ethnographic aims, from Wegener's drift theory to photographing Africa's peoples.
Translation
The Return of Mgr Seipel
Rate per 6-point line Fr. 0.60. Advertisements: per 7-point line Fr. 2.–
GENEVA, 12 October 1926
The Return of Mgr Seipel
Our Vienna correspondent writes:
Austria is on the eve of a change of government that will mark a new date in the difficult history of its post-war reconstruction. At the September session in Geneva, when the Austrian delegation obtained the agreement of [?] Financial Committee and of the Council to all the [?] it held dear, the [?] Ramek was already struggling with the difficulties of what the newspapers, not without regrettably exaggerating it, called the [?] of the Zentralbank. Faced with the general rush to withdraw deposits provoked by a press campaign of the extreme left, the government, as will be remembered, had advanced more than 60 million schillings to its liquidators to prevent the disastrous consequences of a panic and a crash. The target of a demand for impeachment from the Social Democratic opposition, it had left for the Assembly of the League of Nations strengthened by a vote of confidence from its majority, but it still had to resolve the most delicate side of the affair, the recovery of the money advanced, and from that moment one could foresee that if this operation proved difficult, its position would soon become untenable.
The government counted on the savings banks, which were more or less jointly bound up with the support operation it had agreed to for the institution that called itself their central bank, to write off the advance, in agreement with the Viennese banks. The money would be found either by realizing assets or by a loan. The opposition of the savings banks, by causing the postponement of the solution desired by the finance minister Kollmann, exposed him to the severest criticism from the parliamentary commission of inquiry, whose debates have gradually laid bare before the public everything that went on behind the scenes of provincial banking since the inflation.
It is the danger of young democracies that they are tempted to abuse power in order to favour the particular interests of the leaders whom the majority has put in office, and also the interests of the social classes and political groupings that make up that majority, to the detriment of the general good, if not indeed at the direct expense of the State. The control of the League of Nations, while removing from the central government any possibility of abuses of this kind in the management of finances, had on the other hand, thanks to the federal constitution of the Republic of Austria, gained no hold over the provinces, whose elected governors seem to have regarded their political mandate too much as a blank cheque for business.
The debates of the commission of inquiry unfortunately leave no doubt about the grave imprudences committed in this respect, in an atmosphere of demoralizing contagion, where speculations that were culpable in themselves became even more so, if one may put it that way, in that they ended badly. The Peasants' Bank of Lower Austria, a politico-financial institution run by the deputy governor of the province and counting the governor himself among the members of its board of directors, thus had the folly to take part in the famous speculation against the franc in 1924, whose lamentable outcome is well known. The Bank of Styria, founded by the Christian Socials of that province with its governor, M. Rintelen, as chairman of the board, did no less unfortunate business, and in both these institutions the inquiry has revealed a series of anonymous accounts, of fictitious accounts, opened for the very personalities who ought most to have resisted this temptation, whether by their character or by their office.
It was the entire deficit of these bad operations that the Central Bank of the Savings Banks had been charged with covering, through bail-outs and mergers that swallowed up its capital. Hence its difficulties, which, once known to the opposition, seemed to the newspaper Der Abend a welcome pretext for overturning what remained of the financial edifice of the provincial bourgeois parties, just as Social Democracy as a whole hastened to draw from these unfortunate events as many arguments as possible for the coming electoral battle.
At the same stroke, the episode of the government of Austria by the provincials is over. The Ramek–Rintelen cabinet will in the normal course of things make way, during the month, for the team
Double Game
…such as that of Chancellor Wirth or of M. Painlevé's collaborator, Yvon Delbos, as the testimonies emphasized. The same spirit animated, at the same time, the two other congresses in which Vienna appeared as a natural extension of Switzerland, with Gonzague de Reynold as the link between them. M. D.
Double Game
M. Grimm, whom half-conscious bourgeois national councillors are thinking of hoisting into the presidential chair, has, according to the public statements of one of his socialist comrades in 1918, the temperament of a dictator; he committed an unforgivable act in calling the strike at the time of the influenza; he thereby harmed public health; he does not shrink from lying; he accuses others of demagogy, but he himself is the worst demagogue M. Rickli has ever seen; M. Grimm and his colleagues on the Olten committee were like kids or hooligans getting up to mischief, unable to appreciate the tranquillity they had enjoyed.
That is what was said, on the morrow of the general strike, about the future president of the National Council, by one of his Swiss comrades who had every reason to know him well.
But, we will be told, perhaps M. Grimm has changed by now, and his colleagues of the extreme left, who have put him forward for the presidency, have unanimous and complete confidence in him? That he has changed is quite possible, for he changes constantly according to the needs of the moment. But confidence in him does not exist even in the ranks of the extreme left, because, while his opinions vary, his character has remained the same. We know, from M. Rickli, what he was in 1918. We know, from one of his comrades in the socialist delegation to the National Council, M. Charles Naine, what he is today.
Open, if you will – once will not make a habit – La Sentinelle of 6 October 1926. On the front page, signed C. Naine, you will find a leading article bearing the title “Double Game?” These two words seemed to the socialist journalist the most fitting ones for speaking of his colleague M. Grimm, candidate for the presidency of the National Council. Let us read:
The working class will know how to repel energetically any policy of social peace or of national defence, which it cannot recognize as the direction of its action or as the safeguard of its revolutionary interests. This sentence, which we take, says M. Naine, from the manifesto drafted by M. Grimm and proposed to the next congress of our party by the majority
The Swiss Trans-African Raid
…varying according to whether or not the countries have joined the International Convention on postal subscriptions.
The Swiss Trans-African Raid
At the beginning of November, a date fixed six months ago and kept, the seaplane Switzerland will leave the Zürichhorn, heading south. To the far south, one might say, since the fantastic journey, 19,450 kilometres, half the circumference of the globe, will end only for lack of land, at the Cape.
The expedition is entirely Swiss. Walter Mittelholzer has already carried our colours over the polar ice and the deserts of Persia. René Gouzy, a lieutenant-colonel in our army, “did” central Africa in the days of the dugout canoe. Arnold Heim, son of the famous Zurich geologist, is just back from a journey to Arabia. The mechanic, indispensable, deserves to be named: Hartmann.
One might readily think that these intrepid men are aiming at a performance. That would be a serious mistake. It is by no means a matter of attempting, after others, an extraordinary raid. Above all, unpublished scientific documents must be gathered. The questions abound, especially in equatorial Africa. That is why the aviators will make long stages at the start – 1000 kilometres Zurich–Naples, 1200 Naples–Athens, 1300 Athens–Heliopolis, near Cairo.
M. Heim intends to study the Archaean massif of the Great Lakes region and the present and ancient glacial formations. But above all he is interested in the double volcanic fracture which, from the upheaved plateau of Abyssinia, reaches Nyasa by way of Lakes Albert, Albert Edward, Kivu and Tanganyika and the cones of the Ruwenzori, in the 5500s, and of Karisimbi (4500?) on the one hand, and on the other by way of Lake Rudolf and the volcanoes Elgon (4230?), Kenya (5600?) and Kilimanjaro (5893). The rifts have until now been examined from too close. The view from the air will permit surer conclusions. How is it that the crater of Kivu, 1000 kilometres from the ocean, is active? The hypothesis of our fellow citizen Brun on the latent explosive capacities of eruptive rocks is well known. Perhaps it will henceforth be possible to pronounce on it categorically. M. Heim hopes for more. He would like to test Wegener's theory in a region whose structure marks it out for such an inquiry. Could East Africa be caught in the act of continental drift? If so, what a resounding confirmation for the supporters of the new ideas! But detailed verifications will be needed.
The aviators intend to fly over the main volcanoes, and even to land on their high-perched lakes. To reach a ceiling of 6500 metres, they will have lightened the aircraft as far as possible. M. Gouzy himself will make the sacrifice. His task, moreover, lies elsewhere. From headquarters on Victoria, he will range out into Uganda and the Congo. He will search the Semliki, Urundi, Ugogo. He will hunt – he has nothing of the Arab slave trader about him, though he will borrow his routes! – for the giant Humas and the pygmies. When he later reaches the Cape, he will have assembled the first collection – a photographic one! – of the peoples of the whole of Africa, from the Semitic and Hamitic groups of the North and the Nigritic and Negroid groups of the Centre to the Bantu and Indo-European groups of the South!
The expedition will make history. The film will capture the most varied landscapes, from the air or on the ground. Naturalists will find what they are looking for. Human geography proper expects from it plans of settlements, descriptions of sites, the distribution of roads, the layout of farms and holdings.
We have no advice to give these gentlemen. Perhaps, however, they will consent, without straying too far from the Nile, to look for traces of an old riverbed further west, to locate the starting point of the volcanic diagonal of the Sahara, to reconstruct the river captures, so crucial for the continent!
Despite its scientific objectives, the expedition nonetheless remains an exceptional performance. Imagine the distances, the altitudes, not to mention the crossing of the Alps and the Mediterranean; the empty lands where any stop may be fatal; the torrential regime of certain rivers on which one would not dare to alight; the sudden storms of Tanganyika or of the Ocean, followed along the coast from Beira, in Mozambique, to the Cape; the difficulty of taking off from mountain lakes because of the low density of the air, despite the trials in the Engadine; the “land” sectors, with no water to alight on, or with stretches covered in reeds. The critical “points” are in Nubia and between Tanganyika and Nyasa. Here there are 250 kilometres to cover, an hour and a half at the aircraft's maximum speed, 185 kilometres! The land-
Context
Ramek's exit and Seipel's return in 1926
The Vienna correspondent traces the coming change of government to the troubles of the savings banks' central bank and the parliamentary inquiry into provincial banking, and calls the outgoing team rule “by the provincials”. Rudolf Ramek, a Christian Social, had governed since Ignaz Seipel resigned on 8 November 1924 after fierce criticism from his own party and an assassination attempt that June. Ramek remained chancellor until October 1926, while Seipel stayed in the background as leader of the Christian Social Party. A later account of Ramek's chancellorship, based on Franz Schausberger's biography, puts the emphasis elsewhere: it says his government finally fell over the school conflict of 1926 and over civil servants' pay demands that were incompatible with the League of Nations agreements, and that this civil servants' strike led to his resignation and Seipel's return to the chancellery. Seipel was chancellor again from 1926 to 1929, fighting the Social Democrats in particular. The bank scandal stressed by the paper and the school and pay disputes stressed by the historian therefore offer different explanations for the same change; the article shows how large the banking inquiry loomed in Vienna in October 1926.
League of Nations control and the Austrian provinces
The correspondent's argument presupposes the financial regime Austria had lived under since Seipel ended severe inflation through an international stabilisation loan in 1922, a loan that subjected state economic policy to the supervision of the League of Nations. In his view that supervision removed the central government's scope for abuse but, because of the federal constitution, never reached the provinces, where governors and deputy governors sat at the head of banks such as the Peasants' Bank of Lower Austria and the Bank of Styria. The September session in Geneva that opens the article belongs to the last phase of this regime: the Innsbruck account of Ramek's chancellorship credits his government with obtaining, in 1926 and through the Geneva Protocols, the lifting of financial control over Austria. The paper thus describes a moment when Geneva's oversight of Vienna was ending just as the provincial banking scandals came to light. The specific charges about the 1924 franc speculation and the anonymous and fictitious accounts are the correspondent's report of the inquiry's hearings.
Robert Grimm, the Olten committee and the 1926 presidency
Robert Grimm had founded and chaired the Olten committee in 1918, drafted the call for the general strike and directed it, and a military court sentenced him to six months in prison for it. That past is the core of the Journal de Genève's objection. Grimm was vice-president of the National Council in 1925–1926; the Historical Dictionary of Switzerland records that he failed to win the presidency in 1926 and became president only in 1946. The editorial builds its case on two socialist witnesses: Rickli's denunciation of the strike leaders in 1918 and Charles Naine's front-page article in La Sentinelle of 6 October 1926, which quoted a manifesto passage, attributed to Grimm, rejecting any policy of social peace or national defence. The same dictionary notes that within his own ranks Grimm was considered ambitious, conceited, authoritarian and not free of contradictions, so the paper was drawing on a reputation that existed among socialists, while the choice and arrangement of the testimony are its own. Grimm later became one of the drivers of the reformist programme revision of 1935, which integrated the party into the Swiss political system through acceptance of democracy and of national defence, the very principle the 1926 manifesto line had rejected.
Mittelholzer's Africa flight and the 1927 return
The article announces that the seaplane would leave Zurich in early November for a 19,450-kilometre flight ending at the Cape, with Walter Mittelholzer as pilot, René Gouzy and Arnold Heim as scientific companions and Hartmann as mechanic. The Historical Dictionary of Switzerland dates Mittelholzer's first north–south crossing of Africa in a Dornier Merkur seaplane to 1927 and says it made the pilot world-famous. The Neue Zürcher Zeitung of 22 March 1927 described Zurich's welcome for Mittelholzer after his return from Cape Town, mentioning the other two expedition members, Heim and Gouzy, only in passing. According to that report, Mittelholzer stressed that the raid had not been a bid to break records but an exploration in image, word and film, which echoes this article's insistence that the goal was science rather than performance. The public celebration of the pilot also shows how the scientific programme set out here, from testing Wegener's theory to Gouzy's ethnographic photography, was overshadowed on the return by Mittelholzer's fame; the article itself records the plans as they stood before departure.
Original
La rentrée de Mgr Seipel
La ligne de 6 points Fr. 0. 60 Réclames: la ligne de 7 points Fr. 2. - GENEVE, 12 octobre 1926 - La rentrée de Mgr Seipel Notre correspondant de Vienne nous crit: L'Autriche est à la veille d'un changement e gouvernement qui marquera une date nouvelle dans l'histoire difficile de sa reconstruction d'après-guerre. Lors de la session de septembre à Genève, à la délégation autrichienne obtint l'adhésion [?] comité financier et du Conseil à toutes les [?] qui lui tenaient à cœur. le [?] Ramek était déjà aux prises avec les difficultés de ce que les journaux, non sans le rossir regrettablement, ont appelé le [?] de la Zentralbank. En présence du mouement général de retrait des dépôts provoué par une campagne de presse d'extrêmeauche, le gouvernement, on s'en souvient, vait avancé plus de 60 millions de schillings ses liquidateurs pour empêcher les conséuences désastreuses d'une panique et d'un rach. Objet d'une demande de mise en accuation de la part de l'opposition social-démorate, il était parti pour l'Assemblée de la. d. N. fort d'un vote de confiance de sa maorité, mais il lui restait à résoudre le côté le lus délicat de l'affaire, la récupération de argent avancé, et dès ce moment l'on pouait prévoir que si cette opération s'avérait ifficile, sa situation deviendrait bientôt inteable. Le gouvernement comptait que les caisses épargne, plus ou moins solidaires de l'opéation de soutien qu'il avait consentie pour établissement qui s'intitulait leur banque cenrale, amortiraient l'avance, d'accord avec s banques viennoises. L'argent serait trouvé oit par la réalisation des actifs, soit par un mprunt. L'opposition des caisses d'épargne n faisant ajourner la solution souhaitée par e ministre des finances Kollmann, a exposé elui-ci aux critiques les plus sévères de la ommission d'enquête parlementaire, dont les ébats ont peu à peu étalé devant le public ous les dessous de la vie bancaire proviniale depuis l'inflation. C'est le danger des jeunes démocraties d'êre tentées d'abuser du pouvoir pour favoriser es intérêts particuliers des dirigeants que la majorité y a portés, les intérêts aussi des clases sociales et des groupements politiques ui constituent cette majorité, au détriment u bien général, sinon même aux frais directs e l'Etat. Le contrôle de la S. d. N. en enleant au gouvernement central toute possibilité ' abus de ce genre dans la gestion des finanes était par contre resté sans prise, grâce à a constitution fédérative de la république ' Autriche, sur les provinces dont les gouverants électifs semblent avoir trop considéré eur mandat politique comme un blanc-seing ' affaires. Les débats de la commission d'enquête ne aissent malheureusement aucun doute sur les raves imprudences qui furent commises à et égard dans une atmosphère de contagion émoralisante, et où les spéculations coupables en elles-mêmes, le furent plus encore, si on peut dire, en ce qu'elles finirent mal. La Banque des Paysans de Basse-Autriche, nstitution politico-financière dirigée par le vice-gouverneur de la province et qui compait le gouverneur lui-même parmi les memres de son conseil d'administration, est ainsi a folie de participer à la fameuse spéculaion contre le franc de 1924, dont on sait la amentable issue. La Banque de Styrie, fonée par les chrétiens-sociaux de cette proince avec son gouverneur, M. Rintelen, comme président du conseil d'administration, ne it pas des affaires moins malheureuses, et ans ces deux établissements, l'enquête a réélé une série de comptes anonymes, de omptes fictifs, ouverts aux personnalités qui auraient du le plus résister à cette tentation, oit par leur caractère, soit par leur fonction. C'est tout le déficit de ces mauvaises opéations que la Banque centrale des Caisses ' épargne avait été chargée de couvrir par es renflouements et des fusions qui absorberent son capital. De là ses difficultés qui, onnues de l'opposition, parurent au journal Der Abend le prétexte bienvenu de renverser e qui restait de l'édifice financier des partis ourgeois de province, de même que la socialdémocratie tout entière s'est empressée e tirer de ces événements fâcheux le plus ossible d'arguments pour la prochaine baaille électorale. Du même coup l'épisode du gouvernement e l'Autriche par les provinciaux est terminé. e cabinet Ramek-Rintelen va normalement éder la place, au courant du mois, à l'équipe
Double jeu
comme celle du chancelier Wirth ou du collaborateur de M. Painlevé, Yvon Delbos, soulignèrent les témoignages. Ce même esprit animait dans le même temps les deux autres congrès où Vienne apparaissait comme un prolongement naturel de la Suisse, avec Gonzague de Reynold comme trait d'union. M. D. Double jeu M. Grimm, que des conseillers nationaux bourgeois à demi conscients songent à hisser au fauteuil présidentiel, a, suivant les déclarations publiques d'un de ses camarades socialistes en 1918, un tempérament de dictateur; il a commis une action impardonnable en déclarant la grève pendant l'époque de la grippe; il a ainsi porté atteinte à la santé publique; il ne recule pas devant le mensonge; il accuse les autres de démagogie, mais il est lui-même le pire démagogue que M. Rickli ait jamais vu; M. Grimm et ses collègues du comité d'Olten ressemblaient à des gamins ou des voyous faisant des bêtises, ne sachant pas apprécier la tranquillité dont ils avaient joui. Voilà ce que disait, au lendemain de la grève générale, du futur président du Conseil national, un de ses camarades suisses qui avait toutes les raisons de le bien connaître. Mais, nous dira-t-on, aujourd'hui M. Grimm a peut-être évolué et ses collègues de l'extrême gauche, qui l'ont présenté pour la présidence, ont en lui une confiance unanime et complète? Qu'il ait évolué, c'est fort possible, car il évolue sans cesse suivant les besoins du moment. Mais la confiance envers lui n'existe pas même dans les rangs de l'extrême gauche, parce que, si ses opinions varient, son caractère est resté le même. Nous savons, par M. Rickli, ce qu'il était en 1918. Nous savons, par un de ses camarades de la députation socialiste au Conseil national, M. Charles Naine, ce qu'il est aujourd'hui. Ouvrez, si vous le voulez bien - une fois ne sera pas coutume - la Sentinelle du 6 octobre 1926. En première page, sous la signature C. Naine, vous trouverez un article de fond qui porte le titre Double jeu? Ces deux mots ont paru, au journaliste socialiste, ceux qui étaient le mieux appropriés pour parler de son collègue M. Grimm, candidat à la présidence du Conseil national. Lisons: La classe ouvrière saura repousser énergiquement toute politique de paix sociale ou de défense nationale, qu'elle ne peut reconnaître pour la direction de son action et pour la sauvegarde de ses intérêts révolutionnaires. Cette phrase, que nous tirons, dit M. Naine, du manifeste rédigé par M. Grimm, et proposé au prochain congrès de notre parti par la majorité
Le raid suisse transafricain
variant selon que les pays ont adhéré ou non à la Convention internationale pour l'abonnement postal. Le raid suisse transafricain Au début de novembre, date fixée il y a six mois, et tenue, l'hydravion Switzerland quittera le Zurichhorn, se dirigeant vers le sud. Vers l'extrême sud, pourrait-on dire, puisque la fantastique randonnée, 19. 450 kilomètres, la moitié du tour du globe, ne cessera que faute de terre, au Cap. L'expédition est entièrement suisse. Walther Mittelholzer a déjà porté nos couleurs sur les glaces du pôle et les déserts de la Perse. René Gouzy, lieutenant-colonel dans notre armée, a «fait» l'Afrique centrale à l'époque des pirogues. Arnold Heim, fils du célèbre géologue zuricois, rentre d'un voyage en Arabie. Le mécanicien, indispensable, mérite d'être nommé, Hartmann. On penserait volontiers que ces intrépides ont pour but la performance. Ce serait lourdement se tromper. Il s'agit rien moins que de tenter, après d'autres, un raid extraordinaire. Il faut, avant tout, rassembler des documents scientifiques inédits. Les questions affluent, surtout en Afrique équatoriale. C'est la raison pour laquelle les aviateurs feront de grosses étapes au début - 1000 kilomètres Zurich-Naples, 1200 Naples-Athènes, 1300 Athènes-Héliopolis, près du Caire. M. Heim se propose d'étudier le massif archéen de la région des Grands Lacs et les formations glaciaires actuelles et anciennes. Mais il en a surtout à la double fracture volcanique qui, du plateau bouleversé d'Abyssinie, atteint le Nyassa par les lacs Albert, Albert-Edouard, Kivou, Tanganyika et les cônes du Rouvenzori, dans les 5500, et du Karisimbi (4500?) d'une part, de l'autre, par le lac Rodolphe, les volcans Elgon (4230?), Kenia (5600?) et Kilima N'Djaro (5893). Les fosses ont été jusqu'ici examinées de trop près. La vision du haut des airs permettra des conclusions plus sûres. Comment se fait-il que le cratère du Kivou, à 1000 kilomètres de l'océan, soit actif? On connaît l'hypothèse de notre concitoyen Brun sur les capacités latentes d'explosion des roches éruptives. Peutêtre pourra-t-on désormais se prononcer catégoriquement à son sujet. M. Heim espère mieux. Il voudrait vérifier la théorie de Wegener dans une région que sa structure désigne pour cette enquête. L'Est africain pourrait-il être surpris dans un processus de dérive du continent? Si oui, quelle confirmation éclatante pour les partisans des idées nouvelles! Mais des vérifications de détail s'imposeront. Les aviateurs entendent survoler les principaux volcans, se poser même sur leurs lacs haut perchés. Pour réaliser un plafond de 6500 mètres, ils se seront délestés dans la mesure du possible. M. Gouzy lui-même se sacrifiera. Sa tâche, au surplus, est ailleurs. Du quartier général du Victoria, il rayonnera dans l'Ouganda et le Congo. Il fouillera le Semliki, l'Ouroundi, l'Ougogo. Il fera la chasse - il n'a rien du marchand d'esclave arabe, dont il empruntera toutefois les parcours! - aux géants Houmas et aux pygmées. Lorsque, plus tard, il atteindra le Cap, il aura constitué la première collection - photographique! - des populations de l'Afrique entière, des groupes sémitique et hamitique du Nord, nigritien et nègroïdes du Centre, bantou et indo-européen du Sud! L'expédition datera. La pellicule fixera les paysages les plus variés, des airs ou sur terre. Les naturalistes y trouveront leur compte. La géographie humaine proprement dite en attend des plans d'agglomérations, la description des sites, la distribution des routes, la forme des exploitations. Nous n'avons pas de conseil à donner à ces messieurs. Peut-être consentiront-ils cependant, sans trop quitter le Nil, à chercher des traces d'un ancien lit plus à l'ouest, à repérer la naissance de la diagonale volcanique du Sahara, à reconstituer les captures hydrographiques, si capitales pour le continent! En dépit de ses objectifs scientifiques, l'expédition n'en reste pas moins une performance exceptionnelle. Imaginez les distances, les altitudes, sans parler de la traversée des Alpes et de la Méditerranée, les terres vides où tout arrêt peut être fatal, le régime torrentiel de certains cours d'eau sur lesquels on n'oserait se poser, les tempêtes subites du Tanganyika ou de l'Océan, longé de Beira, dans le Mosambique, au Cap, les difficultés de départ sur les lacs de montagne, en raison de la faible densité de l'air et malgré les expériences de l'Engadine, les secteurs «terrestres», sans eau pour alaquer, ou avec des nappes couvertes de roseaux. Les «points» critiques sont en Nubie et entre le Tanganyika et le Nyassa. Il y a ici 250 kilomètres à parcourir, une heure et demie, à la vitesse maximum de l'appareil, 185 kilomètres! L'atteris -