NAZIS AND RUMANIA

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 22, 26 January 1940, Page 8

NAZIS AND RUMANIA

WAR IN THE BALKANS?

POSSIBILITIES EXPLORED

This week's report of German troops beginning, to mass handily for an invasion of Rumania may be exaggerated, but nevertheless^ it reflects what a number of people think is going to happen, and what some .people would even like to happen.

There is no. escaping the fact that the Finnish invasion has revived the belief that the war may spread, and the Allies have been taking no chances of being caught unprepared. Today there is a vast army in the Near East, and a recent, description in the London "Daily Telegraph," the first to be printed in any newspaper outside France, described French armies stationed over an area of hundreds of miles. To these undoubtedly must be added British forces and possibly colonial troops; Mr. Hore-Belisha revealed last March that a new.Middle Eastern Reserve of two divisions was being established as a separate command to act wherever British interests were imperilled in this sphere. At the moment, it- is clear, our preparations are defensive and are aimed at preserving the security of Egypt, Palestine, and the Canal, as well as giving aid to Turkey, which we are bound to support against German attack and possibly would aid against Russian; attack. But if the Nazis make a move in this theatre our strategy may pass from the defensive to the offensive. It is true that fighting a German army in Rumania would be a big task, but we maintained several armies overseas, at Gallipoli, in Palestine, and at Salonika in the last war, and it must not be forgotten that the decisive [strokes were made in this theatre. So Ithat today there are not wanting those in Britain who would see the task of defeating the Nazis made easier by an [invasion of the Balkans.

Those who take this stand believe three things. First, they believe that Germany is vulnerable from the south-, east, whereas she is almost impregnable in the west. Second, they argue that to exercise pressure from that quarter would be less costly in the long run than waging a war against the West Wall, because it would take a heavier economic- toll of the/ Reich. Thirdly, they believe that a Balkan campaign would throw the surrounding countries into such confusion that it would be almost impossible for the Nazis to obtain the supplies they now count on receiving from that region. Part. of the economic pressure, of course, would be the war on two fronts which the Nazis dread and which would expose their weakened transport to merciless strain. Finally, some argue that if the Allies sit down to a siege war there is nothing to prevent the Nazis from proceeding with their plans to establish an economic empire in the east, as they appear to be attempting to do in Rumania, and, as they claimed the right to da against Poland. There is also the belief that intervention in the Balkans will topple Italy off the fence and down on the side of the Allies.