AXIS IN BALKANS

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 90, 12 October 1940, Page 10

AXIS IN BALKANS

One of the finest contributions yet made to the humorous literature of the war is the incomparable sentence in which Mr. Matsuoka affirms that Japan is "trying to save the United States from herself." On the same line of argument, Germany is trying to save Rumania from herself. It is a kind of salvation which can be applied in varying degrees, whether in the form of a tripartite pact of menace, as in America's case, or in the form of "instructional troops," the euphemism under which Rumania's humiliation by the Nazis proceeds, or in the form of full military occupation. But whether Rumania has reached the stage of being occupied in force by the Germans or whether she is only half-way there, the world must be prepared for the imminent possibility that Hitler will use an unresisting Rumania (or a Rumania resisting ineffectively) as a means of naval operations, by submarines and small craft, in the Black Sea.^ This is an immediate possibility which apparently can be prevented by Stalin, and by Stalin alone; but Hitler may have bought off Stalin with concessions elsewhere.

The second possibility, perhaps less imminent, affects not only Rumania but Bulgaria, which country has a position of great strategic importance lying between Rumania and Turkey. This second possibility is that Bulgaria, as well as Rumania, will cooperate militarily with the Axis, or allow use of territory by the Axis; in which case Germany will not only have penetrated to the Black Sea, but will have advanced to Turkey's vulnerable European land-frontier. The third possibility, contingent upon possibilities numbers 1 and 2, is that Hitler, having bribed Stalin, will awe Turkey into opening the Turkish Straits, thus giving German submarines access not only to the Black Sea but to the Mediterranean, to the detriment of the Churchill Government's reassertion of naval dominance in the Mediterranean Sea, both east and west. The third possibility—but probably not the first— is one that Britain may confidently hope to prevent, for Turkey still gives every sign of maintaining her independence, though certainly she could maintain a far stiffer attitude against Axis passage through the Turkish Straits if she could rely on Stalin.

As to Stalin, what can be said? Does it not appear that he has everything to gain by standing off till the belligerents have exhausted one another? "The Times" holds that "Turkey is loyal to Britain, and knows that the British strength, already formidable, is growing in Egypt and Palestine." But, adds "The Times," "the Germans no doubt are offering Russia other spheres of influence in exchange for relaxation of the traditional Russian policy regarding the safety of the Dardanelles" (in other words, regarding the passage of the Turkish Straits). And therein lies the unknown factor. This is a war not only of hitting power but of bribes and blackmail.