A SUMMARY OF THE SITUATION

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 189, 7 May 1940, Page 7

A SUMMARY OF THE SITUATION

Events in the Balkans and the Mediterranean force themselves more and more into the forefront of interest, with a new ciop■ of reports of troop movements and additional anti-Alhed pionout.eements in the Italian Press. , o „„ii,iHn Today’s reports talk of military activity in almost every .Balkan country A strong Allied fleet has now completed its journey to Alexandria, and Egypt is said to be taking all necessary precautions. Turkey reiterates her determination to resist any aggression, and is said to regard the situation very seriously, while the French Pi ess adds that Turkey, Greece, and Egypt are preparing for a sudden turn of events. Bulgarian officers assert that Turkish troops aie on the Greek frontier. . German activity includes the old tactics ot asserting that the British are about to attack, this time at Salonika, and Nazi troops aie said to be moving in Slovakia, whence Slovak planes have dropped threatening leaflets over Hungary, who has lately been complaining bitterly of Slovak provocation. Slovakia is tinder German influence these days, so it looks as if Hungary has_not been willing to fall m with German plans. In addition, Russia is said to have troops on the border of Ruthenia, once in Czechoslovakia, then taken by Hungary. , ... ._ A prediction of ‘‘remarkable' events by the Italian publicist, Signor Ansaldo, justifies the appellation by including.a prophecy that Germany will attempt to invade Britain. Significance Mid attach to a report that when the Pope called on all Italians to pray for peace he received a tremendous ovation from a packed congregation, an event surely sufficiently unusual to suggest suppot I for foreign observers in Italy who contend that the people there do not want war. . .With Allied participation in the war in Norway now conhnecl to the Narvik area, where the position of the beleaguered Germans is reported to be more desperate, interest in Britain has turned, to today’s debate in the House of Commons on the Allied intervention in Norway and the conduct of the war as a whole. There is said to have been considerable political activity over the weekend, witn groups of Parliamentarians discussing suggestions to be advanced and the advocates of a small War Cabinet pressing their proposals more vigorously.