TURKEY

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 64, Issue 4528, 26 January 1942, Page 6

TURKEY

THE CHANGING STRATEGIC PICTURE RUSSIAN INFLUENCE When Germany made her thrust through the Balkans to Greece and Crete in the. spring and early summer of last year she placed the Axis, albeit at unexpectedly high cost of time, men, and materials, in a strong strategical position in relation to TurkeyThe occupation of the islands of the Aegean and the reinforcement, re-pro-visioning, and re-munitioning of the Italian garrison in the Dodecanese Islands offered a serious outflanking threat to the Turkish main defences

on the Chatalja and Dardanelles lines. Turkey was left “ on a limb.” The thinly-veiled Nazi domination of Syria and the pro-Axis intrigues of Raschid Ali in Iraq and of the Shah ol Iran threatened the lines of communication in her rear. Tier ally Britain, hard pressed to maintain her vital footholds in Palestine and Egypt, was obviously in no position to render other than token assistance should she be attacked. The only bright spot, and that a somewhat negative one, was the declaration by Soviet Russia that she would maintain an attitude of neutrality should Turkey be attacked by a third Power. This removed unease, present since the Soviet-German accord of August, 1939, as to attacks simultaneously at the Dardanelles and from the Caucasus. The period of military inaction in the Eastern Mediterranean following the fall of Crete was an anxious one in Ankara. It was not until Ger-

many opened her attack on Russia in June that the clouds showed ally rift. The obvious line of movement of the northern claw of an Axis pincer drive against Suez is through Turkey, Syria, and the Holy Land, and the determination and speed with which the attack on Crete was pressed suggested that Germany was hastening to remove a base for a possible flank attack against such a drive. With the beginning of the attack on Russia it became obvious that Germany, for the time being at least, had abandoned her plans for making her attack on Suez two-pronged. ECONOMIC PRESSURE In the threatening circumstances Turkey was forced to make concessions to Germany. Following protracted underground negotiations, a German political mission visited Ankara and a Treaty of Friendship was signed. It contained the usual “ good neighbour ” clauses, but was no different in guarantees from many previ-

ous expressions of German goodwill which had been followed by unprovoked attack. It did, however, contain a clause under which trade between the two countries was to be increased. This brought to Ankara a German trade mission, headed by the sinister Dr Clodius, with great hopes of displacing Britain from the strong position she had built up under her treaty of alliance. The exact course the negotiations took has never been made public, but it was certainly not an harmonious one. Several times the impending departure of the mission was announced. No doubt Dr Clodius threw out veiled hints of what might befall if Germany did not get her way, but Turkey courageously stood to her alliance with Britain, which, at the time of the signing of the friendship agreement, she had publicly reaffirmed. In the end a trade agreement was signed, but Germany gained none of the important concessions she desired. Chrome ore, of which she is short, is one of the natural resources of Turkey, and Britain’s agreements provide for all but minor quantities of her surplus output. On this Germany cast covetous eyes. The trade agreement left Britain’s quota unaffected to the end of 1943, The German hones were dashed. WEAKENING POSITION Such was, the position as the German drive against Russia developed. Mile after mile the German, Hungarian, and Rumanian forces progressed along the northern shores of the Black Sea. Odessa fell. The Crimea was isolated and overrun; and Sebastopol was besieged. The victorious Axis armies pressed on to. the Don. A new threat to Turkey, that of attack along her Black Sea littoral, was developing. In her rear, however, the situation had improved. Allied forces under General Maitland Wilson gained control of Syria. Raschid Ali’s coup d’etat in Iraq had become a thing of the past; jmd British influence there was restored. The pro-Axis machinations of “ tourists ” in Iran, facilitated by the Shah, had been eradicated by joint Soviet and British invasion. Turkey’s overland supply routes had been made safe. When the Soviet fortunes on the eastern front were at their lowest ebb Turkey’s situation seemed desperate. News leaked out of Bulgaria of military and naval preparations. German engineers were reported to be preparing aerodromes and improving means of communication. Varna, Bulgaria’s chief port, was reported to be the scene of feverish activity, directed, it was alleged, toward the equipment of sea-borne invasion craft. Then came news of the concentration of heavy Axis forces. Threatening clouds were again massing. This was the situation at the beginning of last month.

RUSSIA’S ALLEVIATING THRUST With Germany in sight of her Caucasian goal, threatening it from both Rostov and the Kerch Peninsula, Russia struck back. In a mounting coun-ter-offensive she drove the invaders from. Rostov along the shores of the Sea of Azov, and developed a parallel blow in the direction of Kharkov. Germany, fighting desperately to stem the tide, saw the riches of the Caucasus slipping from her grasp. . Supplies which might have been destined for her designs further south had to be used in the Ukraine and round Moscow, where, baulked in her hopes of capturing the capital, she also found imposition of a static winter line likely to tax her strength to the utmost. In the darkest hours of the autumn and early winter Turkey received considerable encouragement in the form of the extension by the United States of the provisions of the Lease-Lend Act to include the supply to her. of war materials. Pro-Axis Turkish nationals received a set-back which was heightened by the success of Allied arms in Libya. To-day Turkey’s postion is much less threatening. With the raising oi the siege of Sebastopol and thrusts from there, from the Kerch Peninsula, and from Eupatoria, converging on the Crimean forces of qpeupation in the mountains -round Simferopol, Russian supremacy in the Black Sea is on the way to restoration and a sea-borne invasion of the Turkish littoral is becoming very unlikely. The nossibility of Turkey being compelled, because of a hopeless strategical position, io accede to a German demand for co-operation in the passage of troops and supplies for an attack on Suez from the north is receding into the background, and the Allied prospects in the Eastern Mediterranean are correspondingly brightening.