ONTO BAGDAD?

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 59, 9 March 1940, Page 21

ONTO BAGDAD?

; Neutrals may well play as important a part in the present war as the combatant Powers. The Balkan countries, with their valuable supplies of food and raw materials, and their situation on the Black Sea and .the Dardanelles, are most important pawns on the diplomatic ; chessboard. Wartime developments in this area can only be understood in the light of the political, social, economic, and racial background in each country. What of Rumania, with its large German, Jewish, Magyar, and Ukrainian minorities, and. its oil and wheat; of Yugoslavia,- with its; own minority problem and its important metal resources; and of Greece, with its important strategic .position, on.the Mediterranean? What I will be the role of Bulgaria, with its ! revisionist aims and bitter memories ;of the last war, and of Turkey, an entirely reconstituted and uncertain factor in the situation?

In "Hitler's Route to Bagdad," which has'been compiled for the international research section of the Fabian Society and. which has been published by George Allen and Unwin, a number of authoritative writers treat each of these countries in turn; examine their internal situation and problems, their foreign relations, the attempts of Germany to gain economic and political control, and suggest what steps should be taken to counter the expansion of Nazi influence.