THE GERMAN DRIVE

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 94, 17 October 1940, Page 11

THE GERMAN DRIVE

HEEDLESS OF RUSSIA

TROOPS POUR INTO RUMANIA

LONDON, October 16,

The "Daily Telegraph" says evidence is accumulating that Germany is becoming increasingly heedless of Russian feelings, perhaps because the German general staff does not fear the Russian military machine. On this assumption, it would be reasonable to assume that Moscow is acutely apprehensive of what the early future may hold for Russia. The apparition of an unbeaten Germany established in the Black Sea has long been one of Moscow's worst nightmares.

While perturbed at the succession of '■ events and anxious to see the German eastward drive checked, the Soviet leaders hesitate to take action capable of interpretation in Germany as hostile or even unfriendly. In such circumstances it is understandable that silence is the only course open. The Sofia correspondent of the Associated Press of Great Britain says it is reliably reported that Russia and Turkey are negotiating a pact of military assistance. Russia is reported to be offering armed support if the Axis Powers attempt to seize the Dardanelles.

. Turkey has chartered steamers to evacuate her nationals from Rumania. Turkish, newspapers warn the Axis Powers against attempts to intimidate Greece and Turkey.

-Trainloads of German • soldiers are rolling across Hungary to Rumania. Probably 50,000 are already, in Rumania. A motorised division of 15,000 has arrived at Ploesti.

According to a Sofia dispatch received in Istanbul, Hungarian diplomats expeut that Germany will assist

Bulgarian action against Greece and Yugoslavia as a preliminary to a campaign against Turkey. This belief is based on the number of German tourists arriving in Bulgaria.

It is reliably estimated that there are now 20,000 Germans in Bulgaria, compared with 3000 normally. The newcomers include 3500 German soldiers and also several hundred pilots and tank-drivers who will fly the aircraft and drive the tanks Germany has been delivering to Bulgaria in much larger numbers than can be used by the technical personnel of the Bulgarian army.

The Germans are concentrated in large towns which are important railway junctions, or on the Black Sea. The vital role of these German troops will be to assist the police in the event of a revolt, which can be expected if Bulgaria is pushed into war on Germany's side and if Russia disapproves.

The Berlin correspondent of the Swiss newspaper "Basler Nachrichten" says it is officially announced that the Rumanian-Hungarian crisis has been overcome, the Axis having bridged the difficulties. The presence of German troops in Rumania, it is claimed, contributed greatly to the settlement of the dispute. The Rumanian Press war against Hungary has ceased.

The official German news agency says that the disappearance of atrocity reports from the Hungarian and Rumanian Press is interpreted as an indication that the trouble has subsided, but newspapermen in both countries know that the censor received Ger-man-inspired instructions to eliminate such reports.