Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, APRIL 27, 1943. DECISIVE EVENTS IN PROSPECT.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 April 1943, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age TUESDAY, APRIL 27, 1943. DECISIVE EVENTS IN PROSPECT.

BROADCASTING to his countrymen at Easter, the exiled President of Czechoslovakia, Dr Benes, not only forecast “decisive military events very soon,” but added some detail predictions, of which not the least interesting was that Rumania would be one of the first satellites to fall away from the Axis. At the moment, Rumania’s prospects of breaking out of her bondage to Germany appear to be very poor indeed and predictions, even when they come from an authority as well informed and as justly respected as Dr Benes, must always be accepted with some reserve.

Rapid changes in the war situation in Europe are made possible, however, by events in progress and in near prospect. In Tunisia the Allied armies are cutting and blasting their way steadily into the vital defences of the last Axis foothold m Africa and this campaign is becoming more and more obviously the prelude to an extension of Allied offensive action into the continent of Europe. It is certain, too, that the current lull on the Eastern front will give place before long to conflict on the greatest scale. Meantime the Allied air offensive against Geimany and occupied territories is expanding apace and already dwarfs the Axis attempts to bomb Britain into submission.

The prediction of Dr Benes with regard to Rumania suggests that the Balkans are likely to be the scene of Allied offensive operations in the very near future. On some grounds this might be thought unlikely, but there are facts, also which tend to give colour to the belief apparently entertained by the Czech President.

Apart from the continued resistance of patriot forces in Greece, Crete and Yugoslavia—in the last-mentioned country on such a scale that access to a considerable part of its area is denied to the Germans —and to the reported developmente of serious disorders in Bulgaria and other Balkan States, Rumania is to the Axis at once a vital and.a vulnerable source of oil supplies. It is now obvious that some estimates made early in the war of the extent to which Germany would be handicapped by limited oil supplies were unduly optimistic, but according to a recent article in the “Christian Science Monitor”: —

All available evidence indicates that the Reich’s oil situation is reaching a critical stage and that an all-out aerial offensive against the oil fields of Rumania might bring the Reich’s war-machine to a state of near impotence.

No dependable estimate of the amount of synthetic oil produced in Germany is available, but of the output of 7,000,000 tons of natural oil available to her in 1942 it is stated that a little over 5,000,000 tons came from Rumania. Not less than 95 per cent of the total output of oil in Rumania is normally refined in or near the single 'centre of Ploesti, in eastern Rumania, and systematic bombing by the Allies of the concentrated target thus offered, if it becomes practicable, evidently may be expected to have far-reaching effects on Germany’s total war effort.

Some evidence lias appeared both in Russia and in North Africa that Germany is short of oil fuel for tanks and aircraft, and there are reports, too, of industry and transport being hampered in Germany and occupied countries by inadequate supplies of oil. In these circumstances the Nazi High Command may be impelled to take great, risks this year in another desperate attempt to break into the Caucasian fields. The same facts give the Allies excellent reasons for doing anything that is possible to bring the Rumanian oilfields within reach of effective bombing or other attack.