MADE CLEARER

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 65, 16 March 1940, Page 13

MADE CLEARER

ALLIED AID TO FINLAND

WHY OFFER WAS NOT MADE

USE OF

TRANSIT PROBLEM

(British Official Wireless.) (Received March 16, 10.25 a.m.)

RUGBY, March 15.

Many confusing accounts are circulating regarding the. aid given by the Allies to Finland. The following information on the development of assistance by Britain and France is derived from reliable sources.

Britain and France, in common with other States members of the League of Nations, undertook, following the Finnish appeal at Geneva, to afford the victim of Soviet aggression whatever material and humanitarian assistance it was in their, power to give. From then until the end of 1939 it was understood that Field-Marshal Man-' nerheim desired help in material and not in men. French and British material in considerable quantities and on an increasing scale as each week went by began to leave for Finland, but the difficulties of transport were such that much of it has not even now reached its destination. It included, however, fighting and bombing aeroplanes.

Later, as the Russian attack developed, the Finnish commander let it be known that he needed at least 40,000 nien. The organisation of assistance in men on this scale immediately raised those problems of transit and their political concomitants which eventually caused the Finnish Government to decide that it must reach its decision on the Soviet terms without counting an further aid.

It has been impossible to dispatch troops and equipment uv the form of "volunteers,"/ and to the passage of organised bodies, of soldiers Sweden and Norway were opposed. The interpretation which they placed on the requirements of their neutrality is well known to have been decisively influenced by warning advice from Berlin.

The only procedure which might have afforded a way round t these difficulties was a« renewed appeal by Finland under the League* Covenant and substantial assurances to Sweden , and Norway of support if they decided to act upon a wider view of the obligations of Article Sixteen. The Allies gave Finland an opportunity to put that procedure to the test, but the Finnish Government reluctantly reached the conclusion that even it gave insufficient scope of effectively overcoming the difficulties. The sequel is now part of history.