EXHAUSTING DRAIN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 October 1942, Page 4

EXHAUSTING DRAIN

IMPOSED ON RUMANIA MANY DIVISIONS WIPED OUT IN RUSSIA. ANTI-WAR SENTIMENT GROWING. The Rumanian Army has been reformed twice since the outbreak of war. The army’s peace-time strength was 25 divisions. The first five months of the war. during which the big battle of Odessa was fought, cost the Rumanians 20 divisions lost or disabled. In the spring Antonescu was compelled to carry out several new mobilisations to replace them. The second reorganisation occurred after the battle of Sebastopol. The German Command demanded that Antonescu should institute fresh call-ups and the general re-examination of all men who had formerly been classed as physically unfit for military service. In accordance with Antonescu’s order, in July amendments were introduced in the conscription law considerably reducing the number of classes considered unfit for service owing to poor health. Persons considered entirely unfit were ordered to serve with the auxiliary troops. Privileges and temporary exemptions were abolished for many categories of students, beginning at the age of 18.

In the meantime, anti-war sentiment is growing among both the people and tne army. In June several hundred persons were convicted by courts marpal for "revealing a lack of patriotism.’ Sabotage, is rife in industry and m the countryside. The peasants consisiently refuse to cultivate the land and make a practice of hiding grain and cattle from the authorities. The Government has now introduced a system of so-called “mutual responsibility ’ in the villages. According to this system, “the rural community as a whole bears full responsibility for seeing that every peasant carries out all the orders of the State.” The Government is reinforcing the rural police, who, keep every peasant under strict surveillance, especially during harvesting and the autumn sowing — ’’Soviet War News.”