FEAR IN BALKANS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXIV, Issue 37, 12 January 1944, Page 5

FEAR IN BALKANS

RUMANIA DEMORALISED

(Rec. 9.30 a.m.) LONDON, Jan. 11. Germany's Balkan satellites are terrified at the prospect of the approaching climax to the Russian advance and do not dare to move for fear of German reprisals, says the Times Istanbul correspondent. Should the Russian plans succeed, the Red Army will be knocking at the northern doorway of the Balkans before next spring. The Hungarians are "staying put," hoping that their comparatively lenient treatment of the. Jews and the withdrawal of their troops from the Russian front might be accounted to their credit on the day of reckoning. Panic prevails in Rumania, where the Germans have sent reinforcements to stiffen the Rumanian defence and also maintain order. It may be said that Rumania is under full Gorman military control. Public opinion is completely demoralised and a state of absolute helplessness and demoralisation seems to have spread to the army, several units of which have been disbanded on the German demand based on the ground that it is better to have a'small and more reliable army than a larger one on whose loyalty they could not count. The underground organisations are mustering their forces for the clay when they can strike with a better chance of success.

The Bulgarian army is almost completely mobilised and kept in readiness as a trump card in the hands of the Bulgarian Government when the hour strikes for the settlement of accounts. Reuter's Algiers correspondent says the pilots of Wellington bombers, which made a night attaox on Sofia, reported that fires were still burning from the attack by Flying Fortresses at noon yesterday. The flames were visible 55 miles away. A Lightning escort shot down eight of 40 Axis planes which tried to intercept the Fortresses. According to the Official Wireless, although the Fortresses were over Sofia for only five minutes yesterday, the load dropped was the heaviest the citv has yet folt. The bombing was made extremely hazardous by haze over the target, snow on the ground, and a temperature of 30 degrees'below zero.—Official Wireless.

The Bug River, the enemy defences of which the Russians are now storming in their advance, rises in tho Avratynsk hills near the Polish frontier and flows generally south-east through Potlolia and Kherson, to enter at Nikolaiev tho lagoon into which the Dnieper River also discharges. The upper part of the river is beset with rapids, and the lower portion has numerous sandbanks and rocky stretches which almost completely prevent navigation. The river runs almost parallel to the Polish and Rumanian frontiers for the whole of its length, which is nearly 400 miles. At its closest point it is about 40 miles from the border, and is never more than 1.00 miles away.