A PIVOTAL WEEK IN THE BALKANS. David Brigham writes in Monday’s New York Times that "the coming week may decide the outcome of the Hitlerian push to the Mosul oil fields." There are at least two possible outcomes, writes Mr. Brigham -- "If Hitler’s diplomatic efforts are successful, he will proceed without opposition to the aid of the Italians in Greece through Bulgaria; if, on the other hand, the Turks continue in their adamant attitude before the ‘proposition’ believed here to have been brought back by Franz von Papen, the German ambassador to Turkey, things will not be so easy." Bulgaria is now the key -- Rumania officially signed up with the Axis in Berlin on Saturday and Hungary did last week. A map on the Washington Post’s Sunday front page shows how important it would be for Nazi troops to have free passage through Hungary, Rumania, and Bulgaria. It would take the Germans within a few miles of the vital Dardanelles straits and an invasion route into western Greece. If Turkey is cowed to stay out of the war, Axis forces could then dash onward toward the oilfields of Irak and the British Near East army in Palestine.
Will the Bulgarians join the Axis? The Times says the country’s premier and foreign minister are to arrive in Berlin today or tomorrow. They might sign up with Hitler’s gang, or they could come up with some kind of independent declaration of "non-belligerency," meaning they’re not going to cheer Nazi troops when they march through the country on their way southward, but they’re not going to do anything about it, either. It’s unlikely Soviet Russia would, either, even though they’ve pressured the Bulgarians not to ally themselves with Hitler.
Meanwhile, Germany made a tad more progress in consolidating her Balkan position on Sunday, when the "protectorate" of Slovakia agreed to take part in the Berlin-Rome-Tokyo alliance. Sigrid Schultz notes in Monday’s Chicago Tribune that "all of Germany’s neighbors, except Switzerland, now are under direct leadership of the Nazis or are allied with them." And the Swiss are not being forgotten. According to Miss Schultz, the official Voelkischer Beobachter complained Sunday that "an attempt is being made by the Swiss to deny the genuinely German character of the German-Swiss population." It’s the same kind of press attack the Nazis made previously against Czecho-Slovakia, Poland, and...so many others.
GREEKS MIGHT SEIZE HALF OF ALBANIA. If the Nazis permit Mussolini’s military vaudeville show to continue, that is. The Associated Press reports that Greek troops advanced an astonishing nineteen more miles through southern Albania on Sunday. They’ve now on the outskirts of Argirocastro, the Italians’ chief base in that part of the country. J. Wes Gallagher reports in an A.P. dispatch filed from Greece that the Greek infantry are "cracking through the Italian mechanized forces in at least two sectors with such fierceness that the enthusiastic Greeks believed they would soon have half of Albania in their hands."
That ominous rumble you hear is coming from Berlin -- a third A.P. story published Monday quotes a semi-official German publication as asserting that Greek Premier Metaxas has "made himself openly a tool of the British policy of spreading war." Earlier Nazi statements about the Italian invasion of Greece were curiously diffident, and German spokesmen had previously gone out of their way to say there had been "no change" in German-Greek relations.
A CATALOGUE OF POSSIBLE SABOTAGE. The new issue of Time magazine has a wrap-up on incidents of possible Axis sabotage reported at U.S. factories since August --
(1) An explosion on Aug. 7 cripples the King Powder Co., Kings Mills, Ohio. The company makes dynamite and blasting powder. Three killed.
(2) An Aug. 16 explosion damages the Atlas plant in Joplin, Mo. Atlas makes a million pounds of TNT each month for Great Britain. Five killed.
(3) An Aug. 22 blast kills four at Du Pont’s dynamite plant at Gibbstown, N.J.
(4) In the worst accident of all, fifty-one workers are killed on Sept. 12 in Kenvil, N.J., at the Hercules plant, in "the biggest explosion since World War I."
(5) A blast damages the Army’s Picatinny Arsenal on Sept. 23. Two killed.
(6) On Nov. 12, blasts at three plants, all within the same hour, kill fourteen in Allentown, Pa., Edinburg, Pa., and Woodbridge, N.J.
(7) Last Sunday, an explosion heavily damages a chemical plant at Bridgeville, Pa., and a fire destroys a bomb-making facility nearby in Johnstown. Two injured.
And that’s not all, Time reports -- "explosions and fires in an oil-field tank in Ohio, an oil well in Oklahoma, fire in the uncompleted fourth floor of the War Department’s office building in Washington, gasoline found in fire extinguishers in the Bath (Me.) Shipbuilding yards, where Navy destroyers are made, fire destroying some $1,000,000 worth of Army stores in the Municipal Auditorium at Atlanta, Ga., emery dust in precision tools at Todd Seattle Drydocks." Time’s own verdict -- "Some may have been accidents, but together they did not look accidental." Yes, and the continued silence of the F.B.I. and Justice Department, combined with the reckless over-exuberance of the Dies Committee, isn't very reassuring.
Saturday, November 26, 2016
Thursday, November 24, 2016
Sunday, November 24, 1940
TURKEY DECLARES MARTIAL LAW. Just one more sign that the Balkans is about to explode -- the Turks have proclaimed martial law in the four districts of European Turkey and two districts on the Asiatic side of the Dardanelles straits. Ankara officially says it’s necessary "in view of the general political situation," i.e., Hitler’s anticipated ultimatum that the Turks join his "new European order," and fast. The Associated Press says that towns along the Bulgarian border and the Dardanelles have been ordered to black out, and gasoline is being rationed. The New York Times reports Saturday that districts covered by martial law are also under a state of siege. Finally, the Turkish government is considering evacuating civilians from Istanbul, the city most vulnerable in the nation to air attacks.
The Turks have reason to worry. Germany has already signed up Hungary as an Axis partner, and according to Sigrid Schultz in Saturday’s Chicago Tribune, the Rumanian dictator General Antonescu went to Berlin Friday for talks which German spokesmen said were of even "greater importance" that the recent visit of Hungarian diplomats. In the meantime, an Associated Press dispatch reports that Bulgaria is expected to join the Axis, despite a warning from Soviet Russia to "her little Slavic friend" not to do so. But King Boris reportedly believes his nation is too weak, even with Soviet backing, to resist Nazi demands. Bulgaria could provide a strategic route for Germans troops to use in attacking Turkey and eastern Greece.
HOW WOULD A NEAR EAST OFFENSIVE UNFOLD? Drew Middleton, Associated Press staff writer, reports that Britain’s military leaders believe that an Axis attack on the Near East is "at hand." It would take the form of "a grand-scale pincers campaign striking at the Suez Canal and Egypt from two directions, designed to end Britain’s dominance in the eastern Mediterranean and Iraq’s oil fields, one of the war’s rich prizes." This is how one British informant told the A.P. the offensive might unfold --
"While Italy engages the bulk of the Greek Army, still weak in modern equipment and aircraft, German troops led by famed Panzer (armored) divisions will boil through Bulgaria into Northern Greece, first occupying Salonika and the Athens....Turkey will be asked by [Nazi ambassador] Von Papen to allow German and Italian troops to proceed through her territory to Syria and Palestine. Germany’s demand will be backed by Russian pressure go as far as a threat of war....Marshall Rodolfo Graziani of Italy will attack Gen. Sir Archibald P. Wavell’s Middle Eastern army from Libya in North Africa, simultaneously with the first contact between the Axis and the British troops in Palestine. The Italian general’s main stroke will be at Cairo and Alexandria, his secondary attack at Khartoum on the upper Nile. River in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, seeking to cut the Nile and intercept possible British reinforcements from South Africa. Great Britain will be forced to send a large part of her already outnumbered army into Palestine to protect the Suez Canal and halt the Axis flanking movement toward the oilfields of Iraq. Graziani’s blow must be met west of Matruh on the north coast of Egypt."
Mr. Middleton’s informant says that Turkey is the "only strong military power between the Axis and Palestine," but that the Turks would likely be cowed by pressure from Russia to cooperate with Hitler. The Russians would receive a huge reward for taking part in such a plan -- possession of Athens, annexation of a portion of western Turkey including Istanbul and the Dardanelles, long coveted by the Russians, and control over Iran.
GREEKS SEIZE KORITZA... Could it really be possible that the Greek Army might run the invading Italians not only out of Greece, but all the way out of Albania? C.L. Sulzberger of the New York Times seems to raise that tantalizing prospect in his Saturday story on the Greek seizure of Koritza, the biggest Italian military base in eastern Albania. The Times reports the Greeks have taken 28,000 Italian prisoners in the battle for the city, and that Greek troops are now "advancing rapidly on all fronts." At least 72,000 of Italy’s troops fought in the debacle, and in their hasty retreat "have abandoned enormous quantities of equipment -- so much, said the Greek spokesman, that ‘it is delaying our advance by being all over the roads.’"
...WHILE THE ITALIANS BEAT THEIR CHESTS. Privately, the Italian response, according to another New York Times story, has been to fire between fifty and sixty high ranking Fascist military officers in a "frantic" effort to reorganize Italy’s armed forces. Publicly, Italy’s response has been a form of boasting that borders on lunacy -- according to the official Rome radio, "The temporary Greek entry into Koritza means absolutely nothing, because once [Italian] Gen. Cubaldo Soddu’s troops are organized they will occupy all of Greece, literally flying through the entire country." Apparently, it’s taking them a long, long time to get organized.
WILL HITLER INTERVENE? MAYBE NOT. I’m still of a mind that the severity of Italy’s setback in Greece will cause Hitler to intervene and crush the Greeks sooner, not later. But a Saturday New York Herald Tribune editorial says optimistically that even Nazi intervention might not be of much help in retaking Koritza -- "There seems to be but one way in which the dangerous defeat at Koritza could be quickly undone. That would be by some great stroke of Hitler’s mailed fist. But how is it to be delivered? If through Italy, it would mean the virtual abdication of Il Duce. If through Yugoslavia it might mean a dangerous and exhausting winter war. And through Bulgaria the roads do not serve, while the Russian enigma remains enigmatic. The spectacle of Hitler allowing the days and weeks to slip by, while he frantically goes on summoning puppet statesmen to expand a paper Axis, at least hints that there may be less striking power in the mailed fist than had been supposed."
The Turks have reason to worry. Germany has already signed up Hungary as an Axis partner, and according to Sigrid Schultz in Saturday’s Chicago Tribune, the Rumanian dictator General Antonescu went to Berlin Friday for talks which German spokesmen said were of even "greater importance" that the recent visit of Hungarian diplomats. In the meantime, an Associated Press dispatch reports that Bulgaria is expected to join the Axis, despite a warning from Soviet Russia to "her little Slavic friend" not to do so. But King Boris reportedly believes his nation is too weak, even with Soviet backing, to resist Nazi demands. Bulgaria could provide a strategic route for Germans troops to use in attacking Turkey and eastern Greece.
HOW WOULD A NEAR EAST OFFENSIVE UNFOLD? Drew Middleton, Associated Press staff writer, reports that Britain’s military leaders believe that an Axis attack on the Near East is "at hand." It would take the form of "a grand-scale pincers campaign striking at the Suez Canal and Egypt from two directions, designed to end Britain’s dominance in the eastern Mediterranean and Iraq’s oil fields, one of the war’s rich prizes." This is how one British informant told the A.P. the offensive might unfold --
"While Italy engages the bulk of the Greek Army, still weak in modern equipment and aircraft, German troops led by famed Panzer (armored) divisions will boil through Bulgaria into Northern Greece, first occupying Salonika and the Athens....Turkey will be asked by [Nazi ambassador] Von Papen to allow German and Italian troops to proceed through her territory to Syria and Palestine. Germany’s demand will be backed by Russian pressure go as far as a threat of war....Marshall Rodolfo Graziani of Italy will attack Gen. Sir Archibald P. Wavell’s Middle Eastern army from Libya in North Africa, simultaneously with the first contact between the Axis and the British troops in Palestine. The Italian general’s main stroke will be at Cairo and Alexandria, his secondary attack at Khartoum on the upper Nile. River in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, seeking to cut the Nile and intercept possible British reinforcements from South Africa. Great Britain will be forced to send a large part of her already outnumbered army into Palestine to protect the Suez Canal and halt the Axis flanking movement toward the oilfields of Iraq. Graziani’s blow must be met west of Matruh on the north coast of Egypt."
Mr. Middleton’s informant says that Turkey is the "only strong military power between the Axis and Palestine," but that the Turks would likely be cowed by pressure from Russia to cooperate with Hitler. The Russians would receive a huge reward for taking part in such a plan -- possession of Athens, annexation of a portion of western Turkey including Istanbul and the Dardanelles, long coveted by the Russians, and control over Iran.
GREEKS SEIZE KORITZA... Could it really be possible that the Greek Army might run the invading Italians not only out of Greece, but all the way out of Albania? C.L. Sulzberger of the New York Times seems to raise that tantalizing prospect in his Saturday story on the Greek seizure of Koritza, the biggest Italian military base in eastern Albania. The Times reports the Greeks have taken 28,000 Italian prisoners in the battle for the city, and that Greek troops are now "advancing rapidly on all fronts." At least 72,000 of Italy’s troops fought in the debacle, and in their hasty retreat "have abandoned enormous quantities of equipment -- so much, said the Greek spokesman, that ‘it is delaying our advance by being all over the roads.’"
...WHILE THE ITALIANS BEAT THEIR CHESTS. Privately, the Italian response, according to another New York Times story, has been to fire between fifty and sixty high ranking Fascist military officers in a "frantic" effort to reorganize Italy’s armed forces. Publicly, Italy’s response has been a form of boasting that borders on lunacy -- according to the official Rome radio, "The temporary Greek entry into Koritza means absolutely nothing, because once [Italian] Gen. Cubaldo Soddu’s troops are organized they will occupy all of Greece, literally flying through the entire country." Apparently, it’s taking them a long, long time to get organized.
WILL HITLER INTERVENE? MAYBE NOT. I’m still of a mind that the severity of Italy’s setback in Greece will cause Hitler to intervene and crush the Greeks sooner, not later. But a Saturday New York Herald Tribune editorial says optimistically that even Nazi intervention might not be of much help in retaking Koritza -- "There seems to be but one way in which the dangerous defeat at Koritza could be quickly undone. That would be by some great stroke of Hitler’s mailed fist. But how is it to be delivered? If through Italy, it would mean the virtual abdication of Il Duce. If through Yugoslavia it might mean a dangerous and exhausting winter war. And through Bulgaria the roads do not serve, while the Russian enigma remains enigmatic. The spectacle of Hitler allowing the days and weeks to slip by, while he frantically goes on summoning puppet statesmen to expand a paper Axis, at least hints that there may be less striking power in the mailed fist than had been supposed."
Monday, November 21, 2016
Thursday, November 21, 1940
DIES COMMITTEE FINDS A "NAZI SPY SYSTEM." Representative Dies of Texas is no favorite of civil libertarians, and his House Committee on Un-American Activities has been raising a hue and cry about Nazi and Red spies in our midst for some time -- without producing much in the way of evidence. But he just might be on to something now. According to last night’s radio news reports, the Committee has issued a 500-page white paper on the workings of the Nazi espionage network in America (which should be extensively covered in today’s papers). The white paper claims to have no less than a copy of a secret, detailed German plan for reorganizing the U.S. economy along Nazi lines.
What’s more, an Associated Press dispatch (printed on the front page of Tuesday’s Washington Post) details the dramatic appearance of an ex-Nazi agent at the Dies Committee’s secret hearing on Monday night. Heinrich Peter Fassbender, a 23-year-old alien who went by the name Harry Smith, testified to receiving several payments of $100 and $200 from German diplomats. He possessed photographs of U.S. industrial plants and confessed to spying on economic and military targets. The Committee also staged raids on ten Chicago-based organizations led by men of German and Italian ancestry, seizing letters, financial statements and membership lists.
On the one hand, it’s impressive to hear some first-person evidence of what’s been alleged extensively about the connection between Nazi diplomatic officials in the U.S. and plans for sabotage. On the other hand, Fassbender looks like a pretty small fry, and apparently has no connection to any of the incidents of possible sabotage that have been reported. And no doubt these "raids" won’t impress either F.B.I. Director Hoover or Attorney General Jackson, both of whom consider Dies a reckless investigator. But then -- the F.B.I. hasn’t said a word about any of the sabotage investigations it’s been conducting for almost four months, and hasn’t nabbed any saboteurs yet. As long as the Justice Department keeps mum, the Dies Committee and the press will step into the vacuum and try to provide a frightened public some real information. Is what we’ve been hearing over the last week reliable? I don’t know, but it’s plenty worrisome.
WHAT NEXT FOR THE AXIS? (II). Russell Hill writes in Wednesday’s New York Herald Tribune that southeastern Europe is "in a state of semi-war." After traveling via train through Greece, Yugoslavia, and Bulgaria, Mr. Hill reports that the Yugoslavs are actively mobilizing (though they don’t call it that), and that the Bulgars plan to start blackouts on Saturday -- they are calling classes of men to the colors as well, though no official mobilization has been announced. It’s all in response to Hitler’s "complicated diplomatic game," and diplomats are predicting the Nazis are about to go on the offensive again -- "Speculation in Sofia has Hitler striking across Bulgaria at Greece to help Italy; making a deal with Russia to isolate Turkey, and throwing his troops across the Yugoslav frontier, as they were thrown across the Belgian and Dutch frontiers last spring."
King Boris of Bulgaria was summoned to Germany for a visit with Hitler last Sunday, and Sigrid Schultz writes in Sunday’s Chicago Tribune that King Leopold of Belgium has been "escorted" to southern Germany for talks with Hitler. Writes Miss Schultz -- "The Germans are speeding up efforts to erect the structure of a new Europe under Nazi leadership. Small countries are being invited to officially proclaim their cooperation with the axis partners. If they accept all terms of the axis they even may be granted the title of member of the axis." Spain has apparently been "invited" to receive this honor as well, and several Associated Press dispatches in recent days have discussed the possibility of German troops knifing through Spain to attack the British at Gibraltar.
Hitler might have special reason to hurry -- Mussolini’s setbacks on the Greek front have turned into an out-and-out pasting. One radio report this morning says the left wing of the Greek Army has smashed the Italian lines "on a wide sector" and that the Fascists are fleeing the battle area so quickly that the Greeks can’t keep up. Two Greek army corps have reportedly moved into the gap, with five Italian divisions hastily pulling back. One could enjoy this news a lot more if not for the realization that a sudden and large influx of Nazi troops into the Greek campaign, now likely to happen very soon, will almost surely write a bitter finish to these exciting stories of Greek victory and Italian humiliation.
NOW, BIRMINGHAM. Percival Knauth reports in Wednesday’s New York Times that German bombers have surpassed in destructiveness their terror raid on Coventry last week with yesterday’s attack on Birmingham, another major Midlands city --
"The Birmingham attack started just after dark, it is stated, when clearing skies gave promise of favorable weather throughout the night. Flying into England on a wide front, German planes converged on their objective, attacking in a mass, while new formations followed. The first wave dropped numerous incendiary bombs, it is stated, which started more than 20 huge fires. From then on the city was brilliantly illuminated so that the formations following were able easily to to spot their burning target and drop their bombs in full flight....[The attack’s] destructive effect is held by informed quarters to be greater than the raid which razed Coventry only a few nights ago. No estimate is forthcoming on the number of planes involved. The operation is described, however, as a ‘large-scale attack’ which is the superlative term in German military phraseology."
What’s more, an Associated Press dispatch (printed on the front page of Tuesday’s Washington Post) details the dramatic appearance of an ex-Nazi agent at the Dies Committee’s secret hearing on Monday night. Heinrich Peter Fassbender, a 23-year-old alien who went by the name Harry Smith, testified to receiving several payments of $100 and $200 from German diplomats. He possessed photographs of U.S. industrial plants and confessed to spying on economic and military targets. The Committee also staged raids on ten Chicago-based organizations led by men of German and Italian ancestry, seizing letters, financial statements and membership lists.
On the one hand, it’s impressive to hear some first-person evidence of what’s been alleged extensively about the connection between Nazi diplomatic officials in the U.S. and plans for sabotage. On the other hand, Fassbender looks like a pretty small fry, and apparently has no connection to any of the incidents of possible sabotage that have been reported. And no doubt these "raids" won’t impress either F.B.I. Director Hoover or Attorney General Jackson, both of whom consider Dies a reckless investigator. But then -- the F.B.I. hasn’t said a word about any of the sabotage investigations it’s been conducting for almost four months, and hasn’t nabbed any saboteurs yet. As long as the Justice Department keeps mum, the Dies Committee and the press will step into the vacuum and try to provide a frightened public some real information. Is what we’ve been hearing over the last week reliable? I don’t know, but it’s plenty worrisome.
WHAT NEXT FOR THE AXIS? (II). Russell Hill writes in Wednesday’s New York Herald Tribune that southeastern Europe is "in a state of semi-war." After traveling via train through Greece, Yugoslavia, and Bulgaria, Mr. Hill reports that the Yugoslavs are actively mobilizing (though they don’t call it that), and that the Bulgars plan to start blackouts on Saturday -- they are calling classes of men to the colors as well, though no official mobilization has been announced. It’s all in response to Hitler’s "complicated diplomatic game," and diplomats are predicting the Nazis are about to go on the offensive again -- "Speculation in Sofia has Hitler striking across Bulgaria at Greece to help Italy; making a deal with Russia to isolate Turkey, and throwing his troops across the Yugoslav frontier, as they were thrown across the Belgian and Dutch frontiers last spring."
King Boris of Bulgaria was summoned to Germany for a visit with Hitler last Sunday, and Sigrid Schultz writes in Sunday’s Chicago Tribune that King Leopold of Belgium has been "escorted" to southern Germany for talks with Hitler. Writes Miss Schultz -- "The Germans are speeding up efforts to erect the structure of a new Europe under Nazi leadership. Small countries are being invited to officially proclaim their cooperation with the axis partners. If they accept all terms of the axis they even may be granted the title of member of the axis." Spain has apparently been "invited" to receive this honor as well, and several Associated Press dispatches in recent days have discussed the possibility of German troops knifing through Spain to attack the British at Gibraltar.
Hitler might have special reason to hurry -- Mussolini’s setbacks on the Greek front have turned into an out-and-out pasting. One radio report this morning says the left wing of the Greek Army has smashed the Italian lines "on a wide sector" and that the Fascists are fleeing the battle area so quickly that the Greeks can’t keep up. Two Greek army corps have reportedly moved into the gap, with five Italian divisions hastily pulling back. One could enjoy this news a lot more if not for the realization that a sudden and large influx of Nazi troops into the Greek campaign, now likely to happen very soon, will almost surely write a bitter finish to these exciting stories of Greek victory and Italian humiliation.
NOW, BIRMINGHAM. Percival Knauth reports in Wednesday’s New York Times that German bombers have surpassed in destructiveness their terror raid on Coventry last week with yesterday’s attack on Birmingham, another major Midlands city --
"The Birmingham attack started just after dark, it is stated, when clearing skies gave promise of favorable weather throughout the night. Flying into England on a wide front, German planes converged on their objective, attacking in a mass, while new formations followed. The first wave dropped numerous incendiary bombs, it is stated, which started more than 20 huge fires. From then on the city was brilliantly illuminated so that the formations following were able easily to to spot their burning target and drop their bombs in full flight....[The attack’s] destructive effect is held by informed quarters to be greater than the raid which razed Coventry only a few nights ago. No estimate is forthcoming on the number of planes involved. The operation is described, however, as a ‘large-scale attack’ which is the superlative term in German military phraseology."
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