RUSSIA TURNS

Hokitika Guardian, 16 July 1940, Page 8

RUSSIA TURNS

AGAIN TO THE: BALKANS

Referring po the happenings in llournania, an. states> ■ , Stalin may .have, resumed Rie old Czarist Russian advance, on the Bahians. The attempt to secure Constantinople and, the SjStraits goes hack a thousand years in Russian history. /Xhe Czar Alexander acquired the province of Bessarabia for Russia in 1812, three years after the annexation of Finland. Bessarabia, remained Russian with slight changes, till 1918. Then it went to Rumania, which has held it—uneasily—ever since. . '

IJrom 1918, the. llusso-jßmnanian frontier has been closed. Soviet and Rumanian forces have faced each other across the Dniester. Bessarabia has been cut off irom the Russian port of Odessa, through which much of its trade went in the old days. There is no river traffic on the Dniester to-day. While Bessarabia is a kind of Siberia to the Rumanians of the ‘Old Kingdom,” a bleak region in which the vine will not grow, it is more litre a California to the Russians. Hard as the • climate is, i it is warmer than that of the . greater part of Russia. Bessarabia is a reasonably fertile region, producing much

grain.. While Rumanians, form rather mere than half the population of Bessarabia, according to Roumanian offical figures, i the province contains a very large mini ority of Russians. It also contains < Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Turkish, Tartar, and German minorities, and a large 1 number of Jews. Strategically, Bessarabia is importi ant because it stretches down., to, the mouths of the Danube. He who holds Bessarabia, controls the flow of traffic between the Black Sea and the, 1 Danube. I . And while Bessarabia contains » |ittlo or no oil, the oil-fields, of Moldavia lie close to the Bessarabian i frontier* Rumania’s oil output is declining, , but she is the largest oil producer in : Europe—unless Russia is reckoned as | European. K Rumania!s total exports of oil in 11939 were, 4,178,.000,t0n5. Of this, Germany took 1,285,000 tons,, or 30 per | cent; compared with 22 P er cent of ! the 4,495,000 tons exported in 1938. j, ;■ Britain took 635,000 tons in 1939. Other large buyers were France and Italy. While Russia, hangs over Roumama from the, north-east, little Bulgaria to the south , has also claims' to the Dobrudja region, immediately to the south' of the Danube mouths. Rumania took part: of. this from Bulgaria in 1913, and the rest in 1918. -, The l Bulgarians , aye., clpsely associated with Russia, which has in recent months paid much attention to Bui-

garia. . ■ 5 Witli a population of 20,000,000, Rumania has a potential man-power estimated ait 3,500,000. The . war strength of the Rumanian .Army, is put at 1,250,000. Rumania has 500 firstline planes and 400 in reserve. These figures, are, of course, tiny beside those of the Soviet, with ' its population of 180,000,000,. ami its huge armies and fleets of planes. How efficient the Soviet forces are is a matter of doubt since the T innish war. r