BALKANS UNDER GERMANY

Grey River Argus, 6 August 1940, Page 5

BALKANS UNDER GERMANY

ENTENTE AT AN END Turkey’s Difficulty [Aus. & N.Z. Cable Assn.] LONDON, August 4. “The Times’s” Itsanbul correspondent says: Despite official reserve, it is generally acknowledged that the Balkan Entente exists now only in name. The Turkish-Greek friendship is the only part of Balkan co-opera-tion still unimpaired. Turkey’s piesent policy towards the Balkans is one of watchful waiting, while she perfects the defence of Thrace and the Dardanelles. The attitude towards the Axis is the subject of heated discussion. A small section of the press favours the policy of acknowledging Germany as the predominant Power in Europe. However, most newspapers retort that this would mean subservience to German hegemony. Turkey would reply in the affirmative if the Axis desire normal economic relatioqs, based on common consent and common interests, but emphatically, ‘no,” if the imposition of hegemony is proposed. ROUMANIA’S ATTITUDE. SOUTH DOBRUDJA FOR' ( BULGARIA. ONDLON .August 4. “The Times’s” Sofia correspondent says: Well-informed circles believe that Roumania has accepted in principle the Bulgarian proposal for transfer of South Dobrudja. ROUMANIAN SHIPS. DETAINED BY BRITAIN. LONDON, August 3. The Port Said correspondent of the Associated Press of Great Britain says two of three Roumanian ships ■ which Britain detained at Alexandria were tankers laden with petrol for France. The third carried field ambulances and supplies. ROUMANIAN PEASANT LEADER. AGAINST TRANSYLVANIA’S RETURN TO HUNGARY. LONDON, August 4. The Balkan correspondent of the “Daily Telegraph” says: A surprise ’in Roumania has been a leaflet issued by the ex-Peasant Party leader, M. Maniu, declaring that Hungary has not modified her demands, and that her promises of autonomy for Western Transylvania cannot be trusted. He adds that force must be met by force. Even more interesting than these anti-revisionist leaflets is the flickering up of a semblance of party political activity, under the stress of Germany’s demands for further Roumanian sacrifices. “The Times’s" Balkan correspondent says that he became convinced of the truth of the assertion that all Roumanians in Transylvania will stand behind M. Maniu, during a tour of the disputed areas, where he found repeated evidence of Roumanian ability to resist Hungarian assaults, if the latter are not backed by the Axis. The correspondent, contrasting the ill-armed casual Hungarian patrols and the Roumanians, says: The welldrilled Roumanian defences are superior to anything else in the Balkans. “IRON GUARD’S” CHANGE. LONDON, August 4. The “Daily Telegraph’s” Balkans correspondent says: Roumanians are increasingly not appreciating the German proposal that Roumanian statesmen should commit national suicide. The almost impossible seems .ive happened, with the violent!.. Germanophile Iron Guard issuing a “no surrender” manifesto on August 3, which urges Roumanians to waken to the perils of the moment, and to distinguish between greedy Powers seeking to impose concessions, and the Powers which helped Roumania in the last war. The Germans will probably no longer consider’ the Iron Guard necessary as a political weapon, and will withdraw their support.