Finland Given Three Days to Accept Peace

Manawatu Times, Volume 69, Issue 52, 4 March 1944, Page 5

Finland Given Three Days to Accept Peace

Germans Preparing To Mffire Into Norway (By Toleffrayli—Press Assn.—Copyright.) Received Friday 7.0 p.m. LONDON, March 3. Finland has been given three days in which to decide whether to accept Russia’s peace terms, says the Daily Express’s Stockholm correspondent. It no answer is received by March 5 the offer will be considered invalid. Finnish efforts to wriggle out from a “yes or no” answer are reported to be provoking strong reactions in Moscow. The Finnish Cabinet is giving the peace moves major consideration, said a Finnish Foreign Office spokesman quoted by the Associated Press’s Helsinki correspondent. The evening papers in Helsinki follow the morning papers in asserting that the Russian terms are unacceptable, but there is no indication that the Government has reached a decision. Meanwhile, the Stockholm Morgen Tidningen says that Hitler has ordered General Dietl, commander of the seven German divisions in Finland, to be prepared to retreat to Norway. Heavy equipment has already been evacuated. Hitler told Dietl that he must in no circumstances allow himself or his troops to be trapped. The Dany Telegraph’s Stockholm correspondent says: The Germans are reported to be preparing some dramatic move to prevent Finland from qiu.-t.uig the war, but the German Government is said to have sounded Swedish leaders on the possibility of transit facilities across Sweden for the Germans in North Finland if they are forced to leave. The import of the Russian operations on the *Tont on Finland’s position will no doubt ot be missed at Helsinki, from which the advancing Russian land forces are little over 100 miles distant. Whether today’s Finnish Press comments take the latest Russian offensive fully into account seems doubtful. While there is no -’tws to suggest that the Finns have or have not accepted the Soviet terms as a basis ol negotiations, several Helsinki newspapers object to them as likely to turn Finland into a battlefield and perpetuating the injustice of the 1940 annexations. In London, such view's find no acceptance. The Soviet terms are considered not severe in the circumstances. Indeed, there can be no doubt that Finland, like Italy, can hope 4 ‘to work her passage” towards peace only by a complete change of heart. Placed where she is on Russia’s northern doorstep, it is and always was folly for Finland to attempt to maintain “neutrality” between the aggressive German and Russia.