Red-Head Recalled

Three weeks ago in French Morocco, swaggering, red-headed Brigadier-General Freydenberg, battle scarred onetime monk, vivid division commander of the Foreign Legion, rushed with 8,000 men to the relief of the besieged garrison at Ait Yacoub, Jacob's Hummock (TIME, June 24). Ait Yacoub was relieved. General Freydenberg wired the French Ministry of War that he was preparing, in accordance with the old Foreign Legion custom, to wipe out the offending Moors.

Last week General Freydenberg assembled his staff at the frontier post of Taza. issued an Order of the Day relinquishing his command, announcing his recall to France.

French officers in Morocco did not hesitate to say that the recall of General Freydenberg was entirely political. The Ait Yacoub affair was causing uncomfortable debates in the Chamber of Deputies. Socialist and Communist deputies wanted to know the cause of this latest Moroccan outbreak. There were stories of Moorish villages bombed by aviators, Moorish women and children killed. The Poincare government, attacked, recalled Freydenberg, whose brusque methods had been if anything too effective.