WAR ON TURKEY?

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 April 1941, Page 5

WAR ON TURKEY?

REPORTED NAZI DEMANDS FIFTY-FIFTY CHANCE SEEN IN ANKARA. ATTACK ON SOVIET POSSIBLE. LONDON. April 24. The “Daily Herald” says foreign diplomatic circles in London report that Germany is demanding from Turkey complete military control of the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles in return for a slice of Grecian Thrace. The Turkish Government, according to these circles, has not yet answered, but is being pressed for an immediate reply. A message from Ankara says the Bulgarian occupation of Grecian Thrace has liberated German troops for other duties. The German High Command is reported to be concentrating men and materials at Plovdiv (Philippopolis) in Bulgaria, and it is reported that E-boats are being assembled at Burgas and Constanta on the Black Sea. The Ankara correspondent of “The Times” says it is realised there that the next German move may intimately concern Turkey. The German Ambassador, Herr von Papen, however, has not “yet returned from, his visit to Herr Hitler, and German troop movements in the Balkans give no precise indication of what is in the wind. The German concentrations at Plovdiv were.recently increased, but this is not necessarily ominous. The question of whether or not Turkey will be attacked depends on the state of Turk-ish-German relations. It is simply a question of whether the German High Command aims to make a way from the Near East to the Middle East across Anatolia. It is not believed that Germany will make war against Turkey for the sake of the Straits alone. Forcing a passage across Turkey would involve operations on a grand scale, which is less inviting since the British have asserted themselves in Iraq. The Turks, accordingly, think there is a fifty-fifty chance that Germany will make no effort. “The Times” adds that nobody, however, imagines that the German armies will remain idle, for which reason Balkan reports that German officers are talking of invading the Soviet Union—to break the blockade by the Odessa route—may not be entirely bluff. An Istanbul message says the British consulate there has advised British people to leave.