LUXEMBURG UNEASY.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 112, 10 April 1940, Page 5

LUXEMBURG UNEASY.

GERMANS ON FRONTIER. MUCH RECENT ACTIVITY. LONDON. March 12. Since the beginning of December the inhabitants of Luxemburg have seen thousands of Germans at work enlarging and improving all the roads leading from Germany to their borders. In addition to this work a new strategic road at right angles to tho course of the Alosello and reaching that river at Ehnen, six miles north of Remicli, lias been begun, Many hundreds of men have been working on the road. Roundings wore mutle by Germans all along the Rivers Our and Sauer, which form* a frontier line between Luxemburg and Germany. Luxeniburgers have become convinced that the idea was to discover at what points the streams wore fordable. Recently many German staff officers were seen making observations on the frontier. Each time they halted on the middle of the bridges, of which there are 21 over the frontier rivers Moselle. Sauer ’ and Our. Two other bridges, the Schengen and Bivols, have been blown up. The existence of 21 bridges along the 60 miles of frontier makes the rivers valueless as a means of defence. The ; bridges are at Rcmich, AVormcldange, ; G revemnaeher, AVassorhillig (two),! Laugsur, Rosport, Echternaeh, AVcilcrhnch. Bnllendorf, Rillingcn, AYallendorf (two), Bettel, Vianden (two), Stolzembourg, Geimind, Unterc'senbach, Dashing, and Ketzknop. They have been mined, but all the mines are on the ; German side. Strong military forces - have been billeted on the German side of the border. Only a few Customs officials and gendarmes are posted on the Luxemburg side. Still another factor has added to the uneasiness of the Luxeniburgers Some time ago German journalists paid a visit to the Duchy. They all wrote articles afterward in the same strain—that the inhabitants wore more like French people than natives of an independent State. It was believed in Luxemburg that the articles were written to prepare German public opinion for the possible occupation of the Duchy as a precautionary measure.