RUMANIA YIELDS

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 54, 31 August 1940, Page 10

RUMANIA YIELDS

Hopes that Rumania would resist the partition of her territory among her neighbours that began with the Russian occupation of the province of Bessarabia at the end of June have been doomed to disappointment. The loss of Bessarabia was followed by a renewal, of pressure from the southern neighbour Bulgaria and the western neighbour Hungary, with the support' of the Axis Powers. The cession of the southern portion of !the Dobruja to Bulgaria was a comparatively minor matter, to which exception could not be taken as the negotiations seem to have been conducted in a mutually amicable spirit without, undue outside influence. Indeed, the world generally approved of the settlement as a recognition of Bulgaria's just claims and a step towards better relations in the Balkans. The same cannot in any way be said of the latest partition covered by an agreement signed at Vienna after negotiations initiated by Germany and Italy and conducted by Herr yon Ribbentrop and Count Ciano, Foreign Ministers of the Axis Powers. The agreement carries their signatures as well as those of the Hungarian and Rumanian representatives. This agreement fixes a new frontier line between Hungary and Rumania, involving the cession of 20,000 square miles, or more than half, of Transylvania by Rumania to Hungary. A cable message today states that the Axis Powers threatened to withdraw support of Rumania against Russia, unless. Rumania agreed immediately. It is stated that the Rumanian Government received an Italo-German Note described as "in the nature of a demand." Rumania is to evacuate the ceded territory within fourteen

days. In one of those peculiarly offensive, hypocritical statements characteristic of German diplomacy, Heir yon Ribbentrop said that Rumania and Hungary had appealed to Germany and Italy, but it is perfectly clear that the Rumanian Government yielded only to what was a virtual ultimatum. ' The whole procedure smacks of what happened to Austria, Czecho-Slovakia, and Poland—the exploitation of claims of minorities to bring about the downfall of independent States. In the case of Rumania the minorities were Hungarian, but the price Hungary has to pay for Nazi support of her claims on Transylvania is the complete recognition of the virtual independence of her own Nazi minorities. The agreement stipulates specifically that "the German minority in Hungary must be given all opportunity of developing their Germanic aspirations." Otherwise, these German minorities become "Sudetenlanders" in Hungary, and the fate of Hungary is likely to be that of Czecho-Slovakia. In any event, Hungary is no more than a vassal State of the Axis even now.

As for Rumania, her frontiers are whittled' down almost to those of 1914. Her highly-fortified lines of defence, with hundreds of miles of canals, like a moat, capable of being flooded with a skin of burning oil and forming an impassable barrier, have passed into enemy hands, like France's Maginot Line and Czechoslovakia's buttress of forts, all costing millions of pounds. All King Carol's diplomatic manoeuvres have availed him nothing in the end. It was in vain that, to pacify the Axis, he renounced the British guarantee. As for the attitude of Russia, which must be recognised as the key or cue to the attitude of the remaining Balkan Powers, it remains as enigmatical as ever. All that can he said is that these changes in the map of Europe brought about by Hitler, and his so-called "new order in Europe," have ho permanence unless he wins the final victory. This triumph in the Danube basin, if it can be called a triumph, is transitory so long as Britain stands as "the citadel of freedom" and triumphs in the end. as she will.