GRAVE CONCERN

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 115, 13 April 1940, Page 8

GRAVE CONCERN

NAZI THRUST FEARED. PREPARATIONS IN WEST. (United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) LONDON, April 11. In preparation against a possible German offensive on the Western Front, all French Army leave has been suspended. Belgium has followed suit. Military sources note that, it is clear that Germany is “making” preparations for an offensive. Considerable German activity is indicated along the 100-mile front between the Moselle and the Rhine, also on the Belgian, Luxembourg, and Dutch borders. The Daily Telegraph’s Paris correspondent states that tho French General Staff believes the German preparations for an offensive arc complete and the Germans are ready to attack, possibly on Monday. Tho enemy in the past 24 hours have made three or four deep reconnaissances over northern and eastern France. The Dutch are also completing their military preparedness. A large detachment of troops have moved to the German frontier. Fears of an infringement of Swedish neutrality are intensified by the possibility of a German demand for tho right "of passage for reinforcements for Norway. The Swedish Admiralty has issued a statement saying the western waters have been mined for 75 miles. ’Planes and troops are patrolling tho whole frontier. The-partial evacuation has begun of Gothenburg, outside which anti-aircraft guns shot down an unidentified ’plane. CONCERN IN BALKANS. Anxiety also is deepening in the Balkans. The Times’s Belgrade correspondent states that a German warning that she will ignore Rumanian sovereignty and police the Danube is given in an official deefuration to the Berlin correspondent of the Bulgarian newspaper Otro. The German authorities and Rumanian official circles deny an ultimatum has been issued. Tbe Rumanian Government has decreed that all factories engaged in defence works must store supplies for use in general mobilisation. DESTROYER" FIGHTS BACK. LONDON, April 32. Members of the crew of the Gurkha, which was sunk in the action, fired their guns at the attacking ’planes till the water was level with the deck. The survivors and seventy German prisoners have been landed at a north Scottish town. In his statement- in the French Chamber, the Premier (M. Reynaud) said the German los6 comprised four cruisers, not destroyers, as cabled.