Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 1940. AGGRESSION IN THE BALKANS.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 September 1940, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 1940. AGGRESSION IN THE BALKANS.

an example of unscrupulous mendacity, it would be difficult to improve upon Herr von Ribbentrop’s claim that in “arbitrating” between Hungary and Rumania, Germany and Italy have “solved the last problem in the Danube basin. Whether at an immediate view, or in an outlook taking account of surrounding and related facts, the German Foreign Minister’s claim is saved from being ludicrous only by being obviously and shamelessly insincere. The problems of the Danube basin have not been solved and will not be brought to any happy and satisfactory solution by the competition of dictatorships to whom the Balkan States represent merely pawns to be used in the game of power politics and predatory aggression. Pretending to assist Rumania and Hungary to settle their differences, Germany has sought only her own advantage and aggrandisement. Rumania has been compelled under threats to cede half of Transylvania, to Hungary, but the latter country has been required to take a further long step towards sacrificing its last vestiges of independence. Under the settlement, Hungary is required to concede such privileges, to her German minorities as will make of these alien elements a state, and. a destructive one, within the State.

Apart from the dark prospect thus opened for Hungary, she is already so completely under the domination of the Nazi dictatorship that the territorial concession now extorted from Rumania is for practical purposes an extension of the frontiers of the Reich. These 'are the immediately obvious realities of what Herr von Ribbentrop calls a solution of the last problem of the Danube basin.

As to the effect of these developments upon the war and its outcome,, a good deal depends on the still undisclosed, or imperfectly disclosed, intentions of Soviet Russia. According to current reports, Germany and Italy have agreed to guarantee the “integrity and territorial inviolability of the Rumanian State”—that is to say of what is left of Rumania after her losses of territory to Russia, Bulgaria and Hungary. This news

-is elaborated in other mesages, one of which, coming from

Bucharest, states that German troops will move across Hungary to take up positions guarding the Russian-Rumanian frontier and giving Hitler access to the Black Sea.

Even the reported guarantee, without any immediate movement of German troops, might be regarded as a challenge to the Soviet, which is at present involved in controversy with Rumania over military incidents on the Bessarabian border. If events are in fact taking this course, a new and stormy chapter is likely to be opened in the troubled history of the Balkan Peninsula.

The immediate position is rather puzzling. Until very recently, Germany seemed anxious above all. things to avoid any early military collision with Russia in the Balkans, but this policy of caution appeal’s to have been thrown overboard in determining the terms of the settlement between Hungary and Rumania and in the guarantee reported to have been given to the latter country.

It is in any case hardly to be taken for granted that the Soviet is prepared to retreat before Germany in the Balkans. There is some rather impressive evidence to the contrary. While the Nazis have been able to secure more or less spectacular results by putting pressure on the rulers of Balkan countries, the Soviet has relied largely on propaganda addressed to the “toilers of the Balkans” and urging them to follow the “example of their Baltic brothers”—that is to say the people of the Baltic States which are now incorporated in Russia. Propaganda on these lines has long found, a fertile field in Bulgaria, of which country it is said, perhaps only in a rough approximation to the truth, that “the throne is pro-Italian, the Army Command is pro-German, the people are pro-Russian.” Disgust and despond.ency over the treatment meted out to their country as a satellite of the Axis may now make the people of Rumania much more receptive than they have been to Russian propaganda.

Some people in London and elsewhere believe that in spite ol the vigour with which they are intriguing against one another, the Nazis and the Soviet will be able so to arrange their spheres of influence in the Balkans as to avo.ii! conflict. If there is anything in that opinion, the settlement imposed by Germany on Hungary and Rumania, with the extension, of Nazi influence it implies, may be followed shortly by some correspondingmove on the part of the Soviet. An American eorresponden't wrote recently on the subject of probable Soviet policy:

In their advance towards Constantinople the Russians might either enter Bulgaria overland across- the Dobruja or else request naval bases at the Bulgarian ports of Varna and Burgas. Although the Germans would not like either of these moves, they probably could not do anything immediately to prevent them, since until the issue with England is setttled they will probably retain the pretence of Soviet friendship. Furthermore, so complete is the German contempt for the Red Army’s fighting power that anything they undertook they would regard as merely provisional and not affecting the final map of Europe.

Some sort of agreement between the Soviet and Hie Nazis over spheres 01. influence in the Balkans: may continue for the lime being, but the situation also holds other and different possibilities. It does not seem at all likely that the Soviet will willingly tolerate an extension, ol Nazi inlliiemce through Rumania to the Black Sea coast, Ihe more so since (he Russians are believed to harbour designs on the .Moldavian region which is still part ol Rumania. The action of the Soviet in forming a Moldavian Republic from the provinces of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina taken from Kiimania. and Hie clashes between Russian and Rumanian troops on Hu* Bessarabian frontier, arc both significant from that standpoint. If is possible that the Soviet and Nazi Germany may come into violent collision in tin* Balkans even il the inelinalion of both parties al present is to play a waiting game.