THWARTING AXIS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20632, 13 August 1941, Page 5

THWARTING AXIS

AID OF YUGOSLAVIA WIDE PLOT DELAYED HEROIC RESISTANCE (Elec. Tel. Copyright—United Press Assn,) (British Official Wireless.) Reed. 9 a.m. RUGBY, Aug. 12. How the heroic Yugoslav decision to resist the Germans on March 27 helped to thwart the Axis plans to seize the Middle East and Russian oilfields in the spring of 1941 was described in a broadcast from London by General Simovich, the Yugoslav Prime Minister and Commander-in-Chief. In March the main German army of south-east Europe was in the southeast of Bulgaria ready to move into Greek Thrace and then eastward to turn the flank of the Turkish defence. Everything seemed favourable. Russia was on friendly terms. Syria was in Vichy hands with Axis agents preparing to get possession of strategic points. The Iraqi rebellion was timed to begin simultaneously— April 3 —on which date it actually started. Airborne troops were to be landed in Syria, so that' Turkey would have been cut off from British supplies and hindered in making effective resistance. The German armies were to sweep along the north of> Anatolia and across the Black Sea from Rumanian and Bulgarian ports ancl would be knocking at the doors of the oilfields of Baturn and Baku almost befoie Russia was aware of the clanger. Hostile Army on Flank The operation was planned to begin between March 15 and April 1 and to be completed in six to eight weeks. A few days before it could start the Belgrade revolution placed on the German flank a hostile army which had to be removed. The subsequent campaigns in Yugoslavia, Greece and Crete kept the German armies occupied in what had been meant to be only a preliminaiy task until June I—by which time the British had quelled the Iraq rising. A week later the Allies entered Syria and turned out the Axis advance guard. . . . "Thus,” said General Simovich, “apart from the moral blow, which affected the prestige of the Reich rulers, Yugoslavia frustrated the plans of the German staff, compelled it to lose time and thereby saved Turkey and the Near East ancl made impossible the envelopment of Russia from the south and an attack on it from the rear over the Caucasus. Hitler was then forced to limit himself to a frontal attack in order' to reach the oil without which the Panzer divisions and air fleets would become useless.”