THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES FRIDAY, December 27, 1940. GERMANS IN RUMANIA

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24491, 27 December 1940, Page 4

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES FRIDAY, December 27, 1940. GERMANS IN RUMANIA

If report, does not err-—and there seems no reason wk„* the Budapest correspondent of the Associated Press of America should be disbelieved—the Nazis are. in process of concentrating a huge army in Rumania. According to that correspondsnt. it is expected that 300,000 new German troops will be in Rumania within a month, one-third of that number having already arrived. This implies that Herr Hitler will soon have anything up to half a million men in the country to which he so recently extended his protecting arm, for, within a few weeks of the Brenner Pass meeting of the dictators at the beginning of October, it was reliably stated that 10 full German divisions—lso,ooo men —had been sent for service in the key State of the Balkans. They were there, so said the inspired press of Germany and Italy, at the request of General Antonescu, who had sought "protection" for the Rumanian oilfields from British saboteurs and " protection " also for the frontiers of the new Rumania, which had recently surrendered important territory to Hungary, Bulgaria, and Soviet Russia. To neutral observers, however, it appeared that two major, facts did not require emphasis. The Axis Powers were taking over Rumania to tighten their stranglehold on the Balkans and to discourage any further southward move on the part of Russia. If Herr Hitler still intends to drive south the further concentrations in Rumanian territory explain themselves. It was argued some weeks ago that, with Rumania in his hands, the Fuhrer would be in a 'position to conquer, or take over bloodlessly, any of the three remaining Balkan countries. A drive into Greece, it was assumed, would automatically isolate Jugoslavia and put Bulgaria into a vice, when the pressure would come almost irresistibly on Turkey to open~the way to Mesopotamia and the back door of Egypt. Significant things have happened, however, since that conception of Axis strategy was presented. The drive into Greece—on the assumption, which is now questioned, that it had been entrusted to Italy as part of the Axis plan—has not succeeded. And in the Western Desert the army of Marshal Graziani, which was to have played a critical part in the thrust toward the Suez canal, has- been shattered beyond repair. It is likely enough that, while the intended Italian advance toward the canal and the Red Sea was in progress, Herr Hitler contemplated an attempt to split the British defence of the Middle East by a second drive, based on Rumania and aimed through Turkey and Syria. In spite of the reverses in Greece and North Africa, Herr Hitler may not have put aside that plan. The Italian failure may, indeed, have forced it on him .as the only alternative to abandonment of the whole of his Mediterranean strategy. He still needs a short war, and it is possible that he needs more than ever the oil of Iraq. He may be amassing forces in Rumania for just such a desperate gamble—desperate now because of the stiffening of resistance that can reasonably be expected to result from the breaking of Italy in two theatres of war. With Turkish and British help, Jugoslavia, Bulgaria, and Greece could place serious obstacles in the way of a German advance down the Balkan Peninsula, which would, in any case, be almost impossible before spring. There were reports some time ago of negotiations for an alliance between the three Balkan States and Turkey, and, although these were denied, Turkey herself did not hesitate to warn Germany plainly that "2,000,000 Turkish bayonets " would bar the Axis path to the East. Nothing that has occurred in the past month can have undermined Turkey's confidence in her ability to check the aggressor should he yet decide to launch an offensive aimed at the Bosphorus, and beyond it.