FRESH MOVE NEAR?

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 12, 14 July 1939, Page 9

FRESH MOVE NEAR?

AXIS PREPARATIONS

FORCING THE DANZIG ISSUE

SIGNIFICANT EVENTS

(By "Senex.")

At the time of the Czech crisis last September, it is reported, the Germans tapped the international telephone line and recorded the conversations between President Benes and Sis Ministers in London and Paris. VJhen he heard M. Benes express misgivings about the French attitude Herr Hitler ordered the German Press to "turn on the drumfire." Again in the last month the drumfire has begun. It rumbled all through the Tientsin affair, in the course of which the Italian "Tribuna" informed Britain that her prestige "had received a blow the consequences oi which cannot be foreseen," and askea 'does not the Tientsin aifair toretelj the fatal twilight ot a system oi negemony?" it mounted to fury ai the creation of the new publicity department in the Foreign Office, arid all the time kept up a steady beat on the subject of encirclement and the hope of failure of the Anglo-Russian Pact. And while the newspaper campaign went forward the work of organisation for the next Fascist stroke went hastily forward, too, and evidence accumulated that it may not be far away. At the end of last month "The Times" Berlin correspondent reported that "the German Pi-ess campaign against Britain grows more and more furious. Villification, and provocative snejers are the order of the day." Rejoicings over British diplomatic setbacks, "The Times" reported on June 26, were also daily affairs and accompanying them were boasts about Germany's military might. A BLOCKADE IN WAR. The "Frankfurter Zeitung" warned Britain and France a day earlier that j if war came their inability to give aid to "friends in Eastern Europe" would not save them from "total war." The British hoped to establish a blockade, the newspaper said,, but "the reckoning of (a blockade) would be disturbed by a much greater application of foresight and energy," and the question of whether Britain would be permitted to follow such a line would be decided not in London and Paris, but in Berlin and Rome. At the same time work on the Eastern fortifications was pushed ahead at high speed. It is beginning to look, in fact, as if Germany is repeating her tactics after last May when she threw vast labour armies into the task of building the Siegfried (now renamed the Limes) Line, to deter France and Britain from any action when the time was ready , for the Czech coup. At the same time the Fubrer has been at work consolidating his position in event of a sudden stroke. The ceremonial parade which he arranged to impress the Prince Regent of Yugoslavia early last month lasted several hours and included 30,000 men and 30 squadrons of aeroplanes. In mechanised force it eclipsed even Hitler's birthday parade six weeks earlier. There are more medium tanks, more light tanks mounted on trucks, many more 210-millimetre guns, and ' great numbers of the 88-millimetrel anti-aircraft guns which were used in Spain. The Yugoslavs know a hint when it is given them and the urbanity of the Prince Regent's speeches about relations between his country and Germany could hardly have been surpassed. ASCENDANCY OVER SPAIN. At the same time the ascendancy obtained in Spain during the civil war is being consolidated. A German trade mission was there two weeks ago. Count Ciano has ' also gone to Spain, where "The Times" reported in the middle of last month a "knock-out blow against France" is being freely discussed. The recent Italo-German military pact has been followed by intensive organisation of the joint forces of the two Axis countries. ColonelGeneral Erhard Milch, Chief of the Staff of the German Air Force, has : arranged for technical co-ordination of the air forces of the two Powers and the arrangement was concluded , within a week of the signature of the military alliance. It provides, according to certain information, for the plants in both lands to turn out machines of the same size, calibre, speed, and strength. Thus pilots and gunners of the two nations will be interchangeable. POSITION IN SLOVAKIA. And at the same time Germany has been organising in Slovakia, the significance of the position of which under the Reich is now beginning to be apparent. It appears that the aim of keeping the so-called Carpatho-Ukraine as a road to Greater Ukraine must have been abandoned when it was found what unpromising material, strategically, it was. The "protectorate" over Slovakia, however, permits of preparations for a stroke at the so-called Polish "industrial triangle" (the region of Sandomierz), which is the heart of the Polish war industry. Here a blow will be delivered, possibly by September, unless Danzig, and with it the mastery of North Poland, is surrendered to the Fourth Reich, which is now assuming overlordship of * other nations. These things are not being done without difficulty. Just as the German occupation of Austria proved to be a piece of colossally bad organisation and resulted in blocked roads and tanks having to be shipped to the i outskirts of Vienna by railroad, so the much-publicised feat of building the Limes Line last year at high speed rer . suited in bad workmanship. At the end of May the waters of the Rhine invaded the system along the front line. A week later the Nazis were still pumping out sand and silt, guns were damaged,, and the electric supply system .ut out of action. Motor roads have been seriously impaired by frost and thaws. Concrete works connected with defences did not harden successfully, and much reconstruction has been necessary. THE FOOD POSITION. Yet the work goes ahead. Recently Marshal Goering proclaimed himself as the greatest hoarder of food in Germany. It was calculated by Hugh C. Greene (the recently-expelled Berlin correspondent of the "Daily Telegraph") last month that Germany had probably amassed food supplies sufficient to last her for six months in event of war, and that whereas a great deal has been made of the food shortage, the position now reached is such that war-time restrictions will not make much difference to the population, as those already in force have probably been designed to build up reserves. Also it is now clear that the German people are accepting the story that Britain is planning to encircle them, and that they view Poland as an enemy with something akin to pleasure, the non-aggression pact with j Poland having been one of the most i unpopular moves of Hitler. And all the time the drumfire of the German Press mou..ts and mounts. Arabs, the "AngrifP' told its readers on June 23,

were driven barefoot over splintered glass, wire was screwed round their toes until those toes fell off, and they were electrocuted with armbands designed to give them the utmost torture in slow death. At the end of last month, in fact, the German Press began to run out of material, and had to begin taking it from Italian sources.