Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, OCTOBER 28, 1941. TURKEY IN THE SPOTLIGHT.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 October 1941, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, OCTOBER 28, 1941. TURKEY IN THE SPOTLIGHT.

JN one of yesterday’s cablegrams, the Ankara correspondent of the “Sunday Times” was quoted as stating that the increasing German threat to the Caucasus throws the spotlight once more on Turkey and that;

’lt is believed that Hitler will not hesitate to _ infringe Turkey’s neutrality if he succeeds in subduing the Crimea and decides to risk a sea invasion of the Caucasus.

This hardly covers all the ground. There have been and are good reasons for believing that Hitler will infringe the neutrality of Turkey, or attempt to do so, irrespective of whether lie succeeds in subduing the Crimea or not.

Gaining the use of Turkish territory, the Nazi dictatorship would be strengthened and assisted considerably in the operations in which it is now engaged in Southern Russia, particularly in. the drive on the Caucasus, and also in any further operations it may undertake against the Middle East. Subjugating Turkey, by force or diplomacy, the Axis in the first place would secure command of the Dardanelles and possibly the opportunity of introducing Italian warships into the Black Sea. It would secure also the use of a land approach to the Caucasus by a railway and roads which, though of rather poor quality, probably are not of entirely negligible importance.

Russia at present, though her principal remaining naval bases in the Crimea and elsewhere are more or less imminently threatened, has an effective naval command of the Black Sea. Apart from the land attack on naval bases, however, this command at least would be challenged very seriously if any considerable proportion of the remaining ships of the Italian Navy could get past the watch and ward of the British Mediterranean Fleet and into the Black Sea.

Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham was reported yesterday as stating that the Italians, allowing for new launchings, probably had four or five battleships, two or probably four eight-inch gun cruisers, up to fourteen six-inch gun cruisers, numerous destroyers and a considerable number of submarines. Taking account of the possibility of German stiffening of command and crews, it seems likely that if enough of these ships could be moved into the Black Sea, with the gateway of the Dardanelles closed behind them, they could play a formidable part.

As to the land approach to the Caucasus through Turkey, a railroad runs from central Turkey through Erzurum to the Russian border and on to Tiflis, the capital of the Soviet republic of Georgia. West of Erzurum, according to a bulletin of the American National Geographic Society, the line is of standard European gauge. A narrow-gauge mountain railway connects Erzurum with the Russo-Turkish border, while the remaining part of the line, to Tiflis, is of the Russian gauge—wider than’ the European standard. •

In the mountainous territory of Eastern Turkey there is an intricate network of horse and foot trails and in places of third-class roads which often peter out on steep slopes or in rocky gorges, the bulletin states. Available information is that there are only two highways spanning Eastern Turkey to meet Russian and Iranian roads at the border. Of these the more southerly leads from the road and rail system of Central Turkey and runs, past Mt. Ararat, into north-western Iran. The other runs from Trebizond, on the Black Sea coast, to the railroad at Erzurum. There it forks, one branch following the rails, through Kars, to Leninkan in the Caucasus, while the southern fork connects with Iran.

It is hardly in doubt that Germany will attack Turkey if she sees prospects of advantage in doing so, and she is in a position to develop formidable assaults by land and air on both the Bosporus and the Dardanelles. Presumably it is a question simply of whether she could afford to regard lightly the resistance which Turkey, with Allied.aid, could offer. The importation of war material from Britain and the United States has done something to make good the serious deficiencies in mechanical and other equipment of Turkey’s otherwise excellent army of two million men. Turkey has declared that if attacked she will defend her independence. It may not be long before that determination is put to the test.