EARLIER NEWS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 April 1941, Page 5

EARLIER NEWS

BUSY PREPARATION IN YUGOSLAVIA DEFENCE OF THE MORAVA & VARDAR. GERMAN BOMBERS MASSED. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) LONDON. April 5. With the feeling that zero hour is very near Yugoslavia is feverishly preparing for war. All frontiers are closed, except to Greece, and most of the international telephones have been severed. The air force is patrolling constantly along the northern and eastern frontiers in readiness for any attack. The Hungarian radio announced that Hungary had taken military precautions along the frontiers because the Yugoslavs had fully manned their border fortifications, concentrating considerable numbers of troops along the border. A motorised division on the Hungarian frontier also mined bridges and roads. The Italians announced that they had mined a bridge between Fiume and Susak. Bulgaria is reported to have opened consultations for the joint presentation of Bulgarian and Hungarian revisionist demands on Yugoslavia. Conversations are proceeding actively in Sofia and Budapest, Belgrade has become a war town. The bars are closed and the military are taking over the hotels. Many restaurants are closing. The authorities are converting the hotels into hospitals. All private cars have been requisitioned and the censorship of letters has been established. The Belgrade radio announced that Yugoslavia had recalled all her ships to port. The Italian news agency says air raid shelters are being erected in Belgrade and anti-aircraft guns are being mounted in the parks and also on the hills around the city. Belgrade reported that German bombers were massed on the Yugoslav and Greek frontiers and were flying southward all day over Budapest. Antiaircraft defences and fighters shot down a foreign plane over Ruma. Trains filled with German soldiers were rumbling over Hungary’s railways, and the Hungarian roads were jammed with German cars and lorries while scores of boats carrying troops were seen travelling along the Danube.

Yugoslav troops were taking up positions particularly along the great natural defensive lines of the Rivers Sava, Vardar and Morava. The Foreign Minister, M. Nincitch, informed the Belgrade correspondent of the Athens newspaper “Kathimerini” that Yugoslavia had accepted the principle of the Vienna Pact, but the conversations, in which her sole aim was to safeguard the sovereignty of Yugoslavia, broke down. “We have faced threats in the past and we are not afraid,” he said. “If we have to fight you may rest assured we will do our duty.” The Belgrade police ordered ail cars and lorries to be kept in the garages. This was regarded as a preliminary to military requisitioning.

The Germans notified Turkish firms trading with Germany to cease sending goods across Yugoslavia and the Reich is paying extra freight charges across Rumania and Hungary. The 1910 and 1911 classes were yesterday called up in Turkey.