CAUCASUS BASES

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 21, 20 October 1941, Page 7

CAUCASUS BASES

Said To Be Ready For British Forces JOINT PRECAUTIONS Event Of Enemy Advance To Mountains (By Telegraph.—Press Assn, —Copyright.) LONDON, October 17. British forces will buttress the southern Russian armies in the Caucasus mountains, says a special correspondent of the "Daily Express” in Cairo. General Wavell is co-operating closely with the air force, and has a sure chain of bases across northern Iran and Iraq. It is considered unlikely that the Russians will yet be forced to retire to the mountains, but new bases have been built under Allied supervision to await them, spanning the Georgian oilfields and most of Iran.

The resistance of the R.A.F. will increase as the Germans advance, British long-range bombers operating from aerodromes still beyond the Germans’ reach. Tiflis is a potential southern military headquarters for the Russians, who are also massing defences in Astrakan, which is thought to .be the ultimate German objective. Air .bases on the Caspian Sea which are supporting the Red Navy are now also open to the R.A.F., in addition to Tiflis, Astrakan, and a chain of minor towns to the south and east. The Russian oil country is fast developing, as depots receive and distribute supplies from India and America. Long British motor convoys are nightly streaming northward from Middle East ports. Sliced is essential because the weather is not impeding the Germans on the Black Sea front and the roads in the Ukraine are fairly solid. Since the Iranian and Syrian campaigns the roads and railways have been so developed that the Russians can expect continual supplies for the whole of the winter.