TENSION IN BALKANS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 February 1940, Page 5

TENSION IN BALKANS

SABOTAGE PLOT EXPOSED IN TURKEY EXPULSION OF GERMANS. THE ALLIES AND RUSSIA. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. LONDON, February 9. Tension in the Balkans heightened when Turkey mt- , covered evidence of a network of Nazi agents ready to perpetrate explosions and train wrecks al a signal from Berlin, making ii. impossible to allow Germans to remain in strategic positions. It is alleged that German agents caused lhe explosion on the steamer '['intern Abbey on January 30.

An apparently inspired article in the Turkish Press, referring to the review by General Weygand in Egypt, says: “The Allies have counted on the possibility of a Russian attack across the Balkans toward the Dardanelles, and the Turkish armies will give adequate support to the defending forces.” It is said in Turkey that Germany regards the Turkish move as having been inspired by Britain, and France in another attempt to broaden the conflict. An earlier message said it was expected that the seizure of other German property would follow the seizure of the Krupp shipyards, and that it was learned that hundreds of German experts employed in Turkey would be discharged and sent to Germany, including technicians in factories, advisers to the Government, and professors in the Istanbul University and the Ankara Agricultural College. Germans have always been numerous in Turkey, and had almost a monopoly of some businesses till the outbreak of war.

Germany regards the affair as a trade matter between the Krupp shipyard and the Turkish Government. The German view is that the technicians were not dismissed, but were forced to cease work because of lack of materials from Germany.

A spokesman for the Governor of Istanbul denied that Germans had been ordered to leave Turkey.