TURKEY'S CHALLENGE

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 150, 21 December 1940, Page 11

TURKEY'S CHALLENGE

Why Nazis Did Not Aid Italy

LONDON, December 20,

An American radio commentator broadcasting from Ankara throws light on the reason why Germany did not move immediately to help Italy when it became clear that the Fascist armies had bitten off more than they could chew.

"The reason could be found right here in Ankara a couple of hours after the Italian troops entered Greece," he said. "It consisted of a short message to the Turkish General Staff which read simply: 'Military measures to full strength on the Greek and Bulgarian frontiers.'"

Tlie commentator added: "It is worth remembering that the day Hitler sends the Nazi armies against Greece will mark Germany's admission that the British pinch is being felt and that the time has come for an all-or-nothing gamble."

ground, trees, and rocks, and the artillery was warming up like an awakening grizzly. At first I got a lift in a model A Ford, which churned, through the mud and slush in low gear, but finally stuck in the snow, forcing me to walk for hours, my thick boots proving inadequate and my coat impossibly thin. Wading through ice-cold mountain .streams, slipping down steep slopes, rolling in the snow, and at other times crawling on hands and knees, I seldom met a soul, because every soldier had found a cave or a peasant's hut in which to take refuge. The track was continuously obscured by snow and landslides. Sometimes I took a short cut along a river-bed, using a cheap compass and an inadequate map, •. ith the result that I was never quite sure where I was. I TOO COLD TO RIDE. When finally I met soldiers in a snowed-up village they were stamping around with the flaps pulled down on their caps and their legs wrapped! in burlap. They were unable to light i fires, because they were near the Italians. Then I caught up with a mule-train proceeding to the next village. Borrowing a mule, I rode a short distance, but my feet froze and forced me to walk again. The boom of artillery could be heard, but whether it was enemy or friends, I could not tell. Then I dropped down a slope to a village, where I was told the Italians had been silent through the morning, and already had retired two kilometres. Other villages in the valley reported an artillery duel for the past two days, but the Italians ;were making a general withdrawal to