THE CHANGED SCENE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 57, 5 September 1944, Page 5

THE CHANGED SCENE

CAUSE OF DECISION

Rec. 10 ajn. RUGBY, Sept. 4. The Finnish radio announced that the Finnish Government has been "informed in the names of Russia and Britain, with the approval of the Unitea States, that before terms could be discussed Finland must publicly break off the alliance with Germany and give the Germans notice to remove tneir troops by September 15. - A broadcast on Saturday by Hackzell, the Prime Minister of Finland, disclosed how it came about that Germany and Finland now, at this late stage, found their alliance mutually disadvantageous. The German High Command, he explained, had proved: incapable of defending Finland any longer against the superior power of Russia, and required for the defence of Germany itself the troops hitherto kept in northern Finland. Finland, for her part, recognised, that the war [situation had gravely deteriorated for her, since the Allied victories of the last few months. Germany was faced with the loss of the southern shores of the Gulf of Finland, and could not maintain her positions north of that | gulf any longer. ! The Soviet Foreign Commissariat, ia a statement broadcast from Moscow on. Sunday night, proposed that the Russians in southern Finland should move tip to the 1940 frontier. The Finns were prepared to take part in disarming the German troops in northern Finland, but wished the matter to be agreed upon in Moscow, particularly with regard to the assistance to be given by the Soviet High Command. In fact, the latest- reports are that the Germans in the north, by far their greatest body of troops in Finland, are already leaving for adjoining Norwegian tex-ritpry.—B.O.W.