NEW SOVIET PLAN FOR DEFENCE.

Western Star, 14 October 1938, Page 3

NEW SOVIET PLAN FOR DEFENCE.

INVASION BY GERMANY EXPECTED. VAST NO MAN'S "LAND ALONG FRONTIER. NEW YORK, October 13. Reliable reports that the Soviet is hastening the construction of a vast artificial No Man's Land along her western frontier, as a first line of defence against Germany, have reached diplomatic circles in Washington, pays the correspondent of the Associated Press. Russia, seeing the collapse of efforts to forge an international barricade to the east round Germany, has virtually dropped everything else to protect her Ukranian wheat and coal fields from invasion. The programme is designed to slow down and finally to halt an approaching army, and is dovetailed into the natural defences of distance and lack of communication. It consists of:.

(1) The deforestation of a belt ranging from a few to 100 miles between the Soviet and Rumania, Poland, Latvia and. Estonia.

(2) The depopulation of the area and the resettlement of parts of the evacuated towns and farms with trusted Red Army men and women, posing as peasants and workers while guarding the frontiers and checking illegal entry. (3) The destruction or mining of bridges, roads and railways. (4) The construction of a formidable "Maginot Line" along the westem boundary of the quarantine belt. (5) The speeding-up of railway and highway building behind the lino to facilitate the transfer of supplies and troops. (6) The development, behind tho area, of huge military concentration centres and well-fortified and wallprovisioned air bases.