POSITION OF TURKEY

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 4, Issue 307, 19 May 1941, Page 2

POSITION OF TURKEY

A DEFENSIVE POLICY

INTEREST IN IRAK.

Whatever is the reaction of tne Turks following the recent German victories, most military writers hold the Turks Avill not waste their strength in an offensive attempt to outflank the Germans. The Turkish ,irmy is of value chiefly as a defensive force and can hardly be expected to carry the light outside its own borders. This has been the basic attituel? of Turkey all through the piece. Mi Anthony Eden in his speech on the opening of the debate in, the [iouse of Commons did not, according to the news s:o far received, refer to Turkey or to his efforts, with Sir John Dill,. Chief of the Imperial General Staff . te. ccmcnt a more effective instrument for the preservation of Balkan independence. II was, no doubt, to this that Mi* Churchill referred in his broadcast on April 27 : "We know the forces we could vend to Greece would not by themselves be sufficient to stem the German tide of invasion, but there was very real hope that the neighs hours of Greece wo-uld, by our intervention, be drawn to stand in ,inc together with her while time remained. How 7 nearly that came off will be known some day/' It seems that the British War Cabinet .deemed that to tell the ctory now would be still inopportune and Mr Eden threw no further light on events. Politics in the Middle East are very real in the -ense that the rations there, or their Governments,, execpting Greece, count the costs very carefully before they commit themselves to any policy involving serious hazard*. This, of course, is natural after tlv Experience of the Balkans; in the series of Avars this century. lln any event Turkey AA r as very reluctant to lie involved in war. except in defence of her oAvn territory. Need of Equipment, Apparently Turkey Avas not ready to intervene' in any offensive action in the Balkans when the German attack on Yugoslavia and Greece commenced. Before a national army can-take the offensive under modern conditions against a fully-equipped army it must be at least as Avell equipped Avith all the panoply of aeroplanes,, tanks and mechanised transport, with adequate artillery find machine guns. It is the possession of such equipment that ha.? given Germany such an enormous advantage everywhere in the present w 7 ar. But "Turkey Avill defend her frontiers if attacked, and it is the danger at her back' door 011 the Iraki frontier and the temporarj 7 cutting off of a valuable supply line via Irak and the Persian Gulf that have caused her so much concern that she offers to mediate betAveen Britain and Irak. There! is also perceptible a c?rtain amount of irritation at the failure of the British to forestall Rashid Ali by having an effectiA 7 e force 0-1 the spot. The Avhole situaitcn illustrates the difficulty of B-itain n> having toi defend so many more or less vital positions at the same time One Turkish newspaper in March, before the Yugoslavs threw off the regime of Prince Paul and the, proAxis GoA 7 ernment. declared that ''there is only one way to keep Yugoslavia' from throwing herself into the arms- of her enemies, and that is a British force of 300,000 m Salonika.;" Events have shown lioav impossible that condition Avas. but nevertheless the size of the actual British force may have had somi effect on the Turkish attitude. As the position stands, Turkey does not, according to authorities on the spot, count on Russian assistance, at least in the shape of Russian armies. But the neAA 7 s from Moscoav seems to indicate a greatci confidence on the part of the Russian leaders themseh'es that they will be able to oppose any German driA r e to the East through Russian territory!. The Reel Army has been I"rough t up to elate and Stalin himself becomes the official leader as Premier in the lacep of Molotov, wiio retains the position of Foreign Commissar and holds also the VicePremiership. The danger of leaving the initiative to Hitler still remains, and the reality of the danger has been shown in many theatres of war already*.