ON SUBJECT OF DEVELOPMENTS IN BALKANS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 February 1941, Page 5

ON SUBJECT OF DEVELOPMENTS IN BALKANS

Nazis Massing Heavy Additional Forces TRANSPORT BY AIR FROM HUNGARY TURKEY PREPARED FOR ANYTHING (By Telegraph.—Press Association. —Copyright.) LONDON. February 11. A large number of giant three-engined troop transports have been Hying across Hungary to Rumania and Bulgaria. That is the only new fact of importance concerning Nazi action that can be established amid a welter of rumours in the Balkans Telephones ami even the railways to Bulgaria were most erratic throughout the day, feeding each new rumour, but it is apparent that Berman barges, tugs and steamers operating on tin* Lower Danube have already carried out orders to be on the Lower Danube by next Saturday. The Free French news agency records an important concentration of mechanised forces in Rumania. opposite Vidin. north-west Bulgaria. The “Daily Mail" says it is reported that there are now 750,000 German .. troops in Rumania. A “Daily Express’’ correspondent on the German frontier .says that spring weather has ousted the winter and all seems ready for a climax. The Turkish official newspaper ‘T’olilika" says that trainloads of German soldiers wearing civilian overcoats are crossing into north-eastern Bulgaria from Dobruja and Varna. It adds that German officers declare, “Our goal is the Bosphorus and the Mediterranean." (The Bosphorus is the strait which enters the Black Sea and which separates Thrace and Istanbul from the main part of Turkey.) The Turkish Press today unitedly announced that Turkey is prepared for anything; and the Ankara. radio declared:— “Turkey’s army is in Thrace. Should any aggressor choose an unforeseen direction, let him not forget that the Turkish army does not consist of merely one division in Thrace but of a nation ready for duty at the first signal from General Ineunu.” The Turkish Press and radio assailed Bulgarian policy and urged Bulgaria even now to join her Balkan neighbours in resisting Germany, adding that if Bulgaria submitted she would deserve her enslavement plus the punishment which would result from an Allied victory.