NEW ALIGNMENT.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 243, 11 September 1940, Page 8

NEW ALIGNMENT.

BALKAN POSITION

OVERTHROW OF CAROL

LONDON, Sept. 7. Whether Greece and Yugoslavia gravitate to tlm Axis may largely be decided ,by the effectiveness ot Britain’s increasing otlensive agamsi Italy in the Mediterranean, and Britain will have to watch both closelv following the overthrow ot King Carol of Rumania. ft is not considered that Britain can take much consolation from the .new position in the Balkans. The new supreme leader of Rumania, General Antonescu, has gone trie “whole hog” for the Axis, and it is doubtful whether he can prevent further Nazi encroachment. King Carol, who at heart was proBritish. attempted to play a subtle game with the Axis, hut oyer-p ayed his hand. Even bis intimate knowledge of peliticid trickery and intrigue failed to save him. Besides the throne. Carol leaves in Rumania personal property valued at several millions of pounds—chiefly lands, forest, castles and estates, also a valuable collection of old masters arid several thousand volumes of piano music—in which lie found consolation in political crises. The Balkan correspondents ot the London Daily Telegraph attribute Ins downfall to the suppressed hatred ot the Iron Guard, which he mercilessly persecuted. Now this hatred has risen violently to the surface. Liberals and all democratically inclined leaders are equally hostile, because the break with Britain lias resulted in further demands from Berlin for dismemberment of the country. . . . r The Iron Guard maintains that n Carol had espoused the Axis early enough, the country would have been saved. QUEEN’S RETURN. Beautiful Queen Helen of Rumania (whose marriage to Carol was dissolved in 1928) has returned to Bucharest from Florence, where she has been leading a lonely life for years, to join her son, the young King Michael. Jn a message to her, General Antonescu said: “I respectfully beg you to take the first train and to come without losing a minute to the side of our all-100-young king in order to complete the training which his country expects.” General Antonescu said: I am happy to think that the terrible sufferings of Your Majesty have ended.” Carol is described as “degenerate, epileptic, alcoholic and devoid of moral principles,” by the Bucharest newspaper, Universal. The newspaper (which is anti-Semitic) also refers to Iris “degenerate Jewish mistress” (Madame Lupeseu).