STROKE AT RUSSIA?

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 140, 10 March 1941, Page 7

STROKE AT RUSSIA?

Germany’s Moves InBalkans WICKHAM STEED’S VIEW LONDON, March 8. In his weekly talk on foreign affairs today the well-known commentator, Mr. H. Wickham Steed, expressed the view that the real meaning behind Germany’s machinations in the Balkans was the preparation of bases for a stroke to seize the Baku area, from which Russia draws all the oil supplies necessary for the maintenance of her fighting forces and the mechanized agricultural industry she has built up. -. Though the immediate interest, following the Germanization of Bulgaria, lay in the future of Yugoslavia, Mr. Steed said, it was well to keep an eye on the perimeter of the struggle and not to be obsessed entirely by local matters. Significant Facts. The most significant fact of the past week was the thrice-repeated denunciation by Russia of Bulgaria’s acquiescence in the entry of Germany’s army and air force. During 1938, Mr. Wickham Steed said, another most significant fact had come to his knowledge. At that time, when the rearmament of Germany was proceeding to its climax, the head of the German economic commission in Moscow sent a confidential memorandum to his Government. He reported that if Germany carried out the plan for attacking Russia which was under contemplation in Berlin about that period, she would be best advised to do so from the south. He pointed out that seizure or paralyzing of the Russian oilfields' round Baku would reduce Russia to impotence. Her air force would be deprived of its fuel, and carefully-laid plans for sabotage would effect fires and explosions at the -eserve dumps throughout the country. Dr. Rauschning, formerly a confidant of Hitler, had revealed in an article published this week that the Fuehrer had long held the view that possession or control of Russia’s oil supplies and wheatfields would make Germany invincible. She could then face with equanimity the struggle he envisvisaged in the west and ultimately proceed through Asia Minor to the domination of the East, of Africa, and ultimately the whole world. Mr. Steed said that Russia knew as soon as he did of the German economist’s report, and he presumed that it was at about that time that Russia began a strengthening of her defences on her southern coasts and frontiers. Russia’s admonition of Bulgaria for her capitulation to German demands had called forth a firm statement from Berlin. Germany would not tolerate, it was stated, any interference with her moves, which were directed at the defeat of Britain. It was significant that Russia’s attitude had been noted with great interest in Turkey, and it would not be without its effect in other centres. Future of Yugoslavia. Returning to the subject of Yugoslavia, Mr. Steed said that if the heavy pressure now being brought to bear by the Axis resulted in her giving way to demands for her adherence to the’ tripartite Pact, nothing would be more to blame than the weak foreign policy of France and Great Britain in the years from 1936. Yugoslavia had seen Germany permitted to rearm, to absorb Austria —which brought German troops on to the Yugoslavian border —and to annex Czechoslovakia’s defence area and then absorb the whole of that country. Then followed the overrunning of Poland. Some recent events, however, might be working with opposite effect. The gallant stand and victories of Greece, the defeat of the Italian armies in Northern Africa, in Somaliland, and to a certain degree in Abyssinia, would no doubt have been noted in Belgrade. A Turkish broadcast from Ankara bad warned Yugoslavia that she would be better dead than under German domination. And then there was the Russian view of Bulgaria’s surrender. In Belgrade deep thinking would be going on. If Greece could so successfully stand up to Italy, surely, they would be thinking, Yugoslavia could do at least as well. loETAOINUP,Q do at least as well. No doubt they were weighing up the possibilities of resistance and estimating whether sufficient of the country could be held to make defence worth while. Another factor was the message the British Minister in Yugoslavia, Mr. Ronald Campbell, took back to Belgrade after his talk with Mr. Eden in Athens this week.