INVASION OF ASIA

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 85, Issue 47, 25 February 1941, Page 10

INVASION OF ASIA

TURKEY IN THE WAY STUBBORN STRONGHOLD The Axis Powers have focussed their attention on the Near East by way of the Balkans and the Dardanelles in their attempt to cut off Britain from Suez and drive the British Navy out of the Mediterranean, and a writer in the Christian Science Monitor deals with the situation in very informative manner. He stresses the point that if the Axis Powers should try to force the Dardanelles—which the British failed to do 20 years ago —they would be only at the beginning of their task of the invasion of Anatolia. There would still lie ahead of them the Sea of Marmora, between the Bosporus and the straits, part of the defence of Thrace and Asiatic Turkey. Here in the mountains protected by desert is a country that lends itself to defence. The straits have been fortified by the Turks. Cyprus, which belongs to Britain, guards Turkey’s southern coasts. The heavily-guarded fortified western coast of Anatolia offers little hospitality to an invasion from the Dodecanese islands, which are in Italian possession. Axis forces advancing against Turkey, Iraq, Suez or Egypt, must drive through a land of mountains and deserts, without proper railroad facilities or highways for mechanised columns, and with gorges as natural barriers for ideal defence. Turkey, with its Thracian Mountains, presents a little Maginot Line. With the rainy season at hand it will offer an inhospitable welcome to mechanised forces coming from Bulgaria on the north. If, however, Anatolia were invaded —provided that Greece had previously been invaded —air bases in Greece would give the Axis control of the eastern end of the Mediterranean. The seizure of the Dardanelles would put it in control of a Black Sea-Mediter-ranean passage for submarines. Operating from these bases the combined air force and submarine fleet could then drive the British Navy from Cyprus and the eastern Mediterranean. This would enable the invaders to transport troops in safety to Anatolia and Syria. But the British occupation of the Greek islands Corfu and Crete will make such an attempt none too easy. The history of the “Drang Nach Osten" might be written in terms of railway development in the Near and Middle East. In the alignment of the Anatolian and Bagdad railway system, strategic considerations came first: Since the Great War Turkey retained the whole of Aanatolia’s railways and all those sections of the Bagdad railway which now runs through the mandated territory of Syria. The Anatolian railway has been the main artery of communication in Turkey during and since the Great War. Turkey in Asia Minor is divided into mountain Tanges, deserts and plateaus. On the north, on the eoast of the Black Sea and the Pontus mountain ranges on the south, on the Mediterranean coast in Cilicia, the Taurus Mountains with almost impenetrable natural gorges and passes, in the east of the Caucasus Mountains and Mount Ararat Ranges; and in the west the Olympus Mountains. Central Turkey is mostly plateau, with small barren mountain ranges. The highest peak. Mount Ergias, in Cesaria, rises about 13,000 ft. During the Greco-Turkish war Ankara was highly fortified and generally known as “little Verdun.” Both from the north, where a mountain chain hems it in, and from the south, where a salt desert extends, the place is well-nigh inaccessible. ■ Should Ankara fall to an invading army, then the invaders face two alternatives in their advance toward Syria. They can take the southern route by way of the Berlin-Bagdad line, crossing the desert for 200 miles from Ankara Io Konya, or else they can take the eastern —*•' through Sivas.