AXIS PLANS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 March 1942, Page 3

AXIS PLANS

DESPERATE SPRING MOVE IN PROSPECT ACCORDING TO AMERICAN CORRESPONDENT. THE THREAT TO TURKEY. (By Telegraph—-Press Association—Copyright) NEW YORK, March 4. The Ankara correspondent of the “New York Times,” Mr Sulzberger, says that indications from all quarters of eastern Europe point to gigantic German preparations for a desperate spring move. Five Bulgarian divisions have been sent to Yugoslavia to relieve German forces for service in Russia. The entire railway traffic has been suspended for vast military movements. Troops have been mobilised in Hungary, Slovakia and Rumania to reinforce the Axis armies in Russia. Increasing German pressure on Madrid has resulted in the dispatch of new Spanish air force support for the battered Germans. Axis barges are clustering in Black Sea ports for an invasion of Russian shores. Germany is exerting inhuman pressure against the occupied countries with the object of increasing war production. For example, forced labour has been decreed for the entire population of Bessarabia between the ages of 12 and 70. A Moscow radio message reports that the mounting anger of the Norwegians against the compulsory enrolment of children in the Quislingite youth organisation has compelled the occupation forces to close all Norwegian schools for a month to prevent disturbances. Mr Sulzberger says that public opinion in Turkey, in spite of German, preparations, does not expect that a crisis against Turkey is imminent, because the Nazis are tied up in Russia and Egypt and are unable to open a new front now. But Turkey has been seriously concerned by an eventual Japanese menace from the east, since the Japanese military attache at Ankara openly predicted that the Japanese would occupy Calcutta by the middle of April. It is felt, the correspondent says, that the Axis could force Turkey into a precarious position if a successful spring offensive against Russia should result in the occupation of the Caucasus, thereby outflanking Turkey from the north and west while the Japanese were menacing from India.