FINNS' POSITION

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 211, 6 September 1941, Page 7

FINNS' POSITION

ON OLD FRONTIER

Lack Of War Enthusiasm Among Axis Supporters British Official Wireless. Rec. 1 p.m. RUGBY, Sept. 5. The Finns do not appear to have got past their old frontier north of Leningrad. They are meeting with fierce resistance from the Russians, who are aided by marines of the Russian Baltic Fleet.

It is considered in London that it is unlikely Marshal Mannerheim, commander-in-chief of the Finnish Army, would have made a statement that the time has not yet come to turn swords into ploughshares unless a considerable body of opinion favoured a cessation of hostilities. At the same time Germany clearly fears the possibility of Finland retiring from the war.

Recently German eulogies of Finland's progress have been pointedly increased and Marshal Mannerheim has been decorated by Hitler. Indeed, the tremendous pressure which the Nazis are bringing to bear against Leningrad may in part have been undertaken for the benefit of Finnish public opinion.

Coolness of Hitler's Allies At the same time news reaching London indicates that a corresponding lack of enthusiasm for continued participation in Hitler's anti-Soviet war exists among his other small European allies. The territory Russia seized from Rumania having been recovered the Rumanian troops which, according to Moscow, have suffered so heavily at the gates of Odessa and in the fighting through Bessarabia, are losing any enthusiasm for war which they may have felt in the first instance. The Bulgarian people have always felt a strong kinship with the Russians, and attempts to stir them into active support of Hitler's ideological war apparently have failed. Indeed, Hitler's great propaganda drive to enlist support in Europe for his antiCommunist war has found little or no support. Even if there had been large forces willing to fight against Communism it has become clear that very few have failed to realise that Hitler's struggle against Russia is not directed, or at least not primarily, against the Communist system, but is just one more of his strategical aggressions.

The contingents which have arrived to fight in the east, from Spain, France and German-occupied countries, have been dismally small. Even the Italian contingent appears to be only a nominal one, for reasons of propaganda and prestige—rather like the Italiau bomber squadron which requested the honour of bombing London a year ago and which, after being largely destroyed during the firct attacks, has not been heard of since.