RED WARSHIPS

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 30 July 1924, Page 5

RED WARSHIPS

ROUMANIA EXCITED. RESERVE MOBILISED. MAY MEAN WAR, 3Y CABLE—PRESS ASSOCIATION—COPYRIGHT LONDON, July 29. There is excitement throughout Roumania owing to the appearance of Russian warships off the coast of Bessarabia, ostensibly for the purpose of manoeuvres, hut large forces of Reds are concentrating simultaneously on the frontiers, says the Bucharest correspond, ent of the Daily Express. The Roumanian War Ministry has stopped army leave and mobilised the reserve. Officers begun have to concentrate troop.s in Bessarabia, in which martial law has been declared.

A special correspondent of the DailyExpress, after lengthy enquiries in Rou. mania and Bessarabia, sent a message to his paper late in May stating that the indications pointed to the fact that there would be a Russo-Roumanian war for the; possession of Bessarabia- in the near future. The Roumanian general staff had information showing that the Russian foreign policy had not changed since the revolution, Constantinople being still the ultimate objective. The first step would be an attempt to seize the mouth of the Danube.

Bessarabia is a province in the extreme south-west of European Russia, between the Black Sea and the Dniester. Pruth and Danube. Bessarabia became a Turkish possession in 1503. Russia annexed it* in 1812, and added to it after the war of 1877 by .acquiring from Roumania the district between the Pruth .and the Dniester, whilg a more recent treaty gave the control of Bessarabia back to Roumania.