AHEAD OF SCHEDULE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 July 1940, Page 6

AHEAD OF SCHEDULE

SOVIET OCCUPATION OF BESSARABIA FAILURE OF RUMANIAN POLICY. SUPPOSED PRO-GERMAN MOVE COUNTERED. (Received This Day, 1.0 p.m.) LONDON, July 1. Reuter’s Bucharest correspondent says the Russian troops who shot over the new Rumanian boundary in some places have withdrawn within the agreed limits. The occupation was achieved in 21 days, ahead of schedule. It is now apparent that Rumania’s equivocal foreign policy has failed. The recent formation of a totalitarian National Party, aimed at uniting diverging political elements. Russia interpreted this as a pro-German move and countered it with the demand for Bessarabia, completely surprising informed Rumanian circles. All the reliable evidence available here indicates that the parallel policy Germany and Russia have hitherto followed has now ended. Rumanian policy is now expected quickly and completely to enter the German orbit. The first public hint of this movement was given yesterday, when a stereotyped manifesto, secretly distributed in the streets of Bucharest, declared that the Russian demands had been instigated by British and Jews, who arc seeking to provoke a Russo-German war. INVASION BY AIR CONDITIONS OF CONFUSION. ROADS CHOKED WITH HAPLESS REFUGEES. (Received This Day. 1.15 p.m.) LONDON. July 1. The Associated Press of Great Britain Bucharest correspondent states that thousands of Russian parachutists, including shock troops and members of the Ogpu, were dropped in Bessarabia and North Bukovina today. The Rumanian police are reported to have arrested a thousand civilians as a precautionary measure against possible rioting. The pro-German newspaper “Curentul” accuses the Russians of planning the destruction of the Rumanian oilfields, from which Germany otherwise would obtain petrol. Train-loads of Rumanian wounded, who are stated to have been wounded in clashes with Russian troops on the Prut River, have arrived in Bucharest.

The British United Press Bucharest correspondent says thirty casualties are reported to have resulted from clashes on the Rumanian and Hungarian frontier. The semi-official Hungarian newspaper “Magyar Orszag” stated that Hungarian and Rumanian troops clashed because Rumanians crossed the frontier while falling back before Russian forces occupying North Bukovina. “The Times” Bucharest correspondent says the Red Army’s advance has converted Bessarabia into a land of confusion, in which the roads to Rumania are choked with hapless refugees. Many Rumanian officials, who only learnt by radio that the territories had been ceded to Russia, had to fight their way to the Prut River through armed mobs of local inhabitants and prisoners whom the invaders released and encouraged to wreak vengeance against officials, loot the property of the wealthy and maltreat private enemies.