FROM MARCH 10 TO APRIL 10
WAR IN THE BALKANS
Germany Attacks Serbs and Greeks. —At dawn on April 6, before a final break in diplomatic relations, German forces in the Balkans received orders for the invasion of Yugoslavia and Greece. Apparently sincere last minute peace moves at Belgrad proved useless. In the German press and official pronouncements there was the usual talk of evil British machinations which had necessitated the attack. The feeling of the American Government and people regarding this extension of the European conflict was expressed by Secretary Hull in an official statement which read in part:
The barbaric invasion of Yugoslavia and the attempt to annihilate that country by brute force is but another chapter in the present planned movement of attempted world conquest and domination.
Another small nation has been assaulted by the forces of aggression and is further proof that there are no geographical limitations or bounds of any kind to their movement for world conquest. . . .
This government, with its policy of helping those who are defending themselves against would-be conquerers, is now proceeding as speedily as possible to send military and other supplies to Yugoslavia.
The British government a day later broke off diplomatic relations with Hungary, on the ground that Hungary, like Rumania and Bulgaria, had surrendered her territory as a base and thoroughfare for German invasion of friendly neighbor states.
Yugoslav Coup Balks Axis. —Supported by overwhelming popular resentment against surrender to Germany and Italy, Yugoslav air corps and army leaders on the night of March 25 engineered a swift and bloodless coup which overthrew the Prince Regent Paul and the Cvetkovitch Ministry and gave the 17-year-old King Peter full royal power, with the chief of the Air Corps, General Dusan Simovitch as head of the government. The Cvetkovitch ministers were gathered at the Army Headquarters between 2:00 and 3:00 A.M. and forced to resign. The post of first Vice- Premier was offered to the Croatian leader, Dr. Matchek, and that of second Vice- Premier to the King’s tutor, Prof. Jovanovitch of Belgrad University. From the United States came a warm message promising material aid, and in England Premier Churchill declared that Yugoslavia had “found her soul.” To German demands as to the fate of the day-old signature of the Tri-Power Pact, Yugoslavia replied that all “open and public” commitments would be observed, but, by implication, no secret pledges involving violation of neutrality. The acceptance of the cabinet appointment by Dr. Matchek of April 3 gave increased assurance of national unity, though the Croats used the opportunity to secure large scale concessions.
The course of Axis-Yugoslav relations prior to the upset of March 26 was marked by extraordinary turns and halts. After an apparent agreement early in March there followed a series of delays while the Prince Regent and Premier Cvetkovitch struggled to secure popular acceptance of their appeasement policy in the face of a rising storm of opposition. On March 24 the Premier and Foreign Minister boarded the train for Vienna, and next day the Tri- Power agreement was signed, after a speech by Herr von Ribbentrop hailing the defeat of British-American efforts to thwart the “new order.” The protocol was accompanied by a note in which Germany gave for what it was worth a promise to respect the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia and to avoid using that territory for military operations.
Soviet Pledges in Balkans. —Significant of a possible shift in Soviet policy in the face of Axis aggression in the Balkans were the pledges of neutrality and friendship exchanged by the Soviet Government in March and April with two of the nations threatened by the Axis advance. With Turkey this took the form of a declaration on March 24, in which, in return for similar pledges, Russia reaffirmed the nonaggression pact of 1925 and promised that
If Turkey be attacked and be obliged to enter the war for the purposes of defending her territory, she can rely upon the complete neutrality and understanding of the Soviet Union, based on the existing treaty of friendship between the two countries.
The effect of this pledge was of course to give Turkey a free hand if she should decide to engage in war with Germany in support of Britain and Greece. Whether or not it would mean an end of Soviet political and economic co-operation with Germany was another matter, but it was credibly reported that since the beginning of March no Soviet oil shipments had crossed the German frontiers.
The formal Soviet assurances to Turkey, which were regarded as a victory for British diplomacy at Moscow and which had probably already been conveyed to Ankara by British Ambassador Sir Stafford Cripps when he came there last March from Moscow in a Soviet military plane, were preceded by a second meeting of the British and Turkish Foreign ministers on the island of Cyprus on March 18. The meeting had to do with the speeding up of munitions deliveries to Turkey and the granting of further British credits. Conferences of Turkish, Greek, and British military leaders were also reported following the arrival of the British expeditionary force in Greece, but it was understood that there was no pressure on Turkey for immediate entry into the war.
With Yugoslavia just on the verge of invasion by Germany, the Soviet Government on April 6 signed a 5-year friendship and nonaggression treaty, with the usual pledge that if one nation were “subjected to aggression by a third state” the other would “pursue a policy of friendship.” Again, such a pledge was empty unless it meant a shift of Soviet policy toward the Axis powers.
Hungarian Premier a Suicide. — Count Paul Teleki, Premier of Hungary, committed suicide by shooting himself on the night of April 2-3. Reports from Budapest indicated that the Premier was in ill health and in despair over the future of his country. He was believed to have felt that the German use of Hungarian territory as a war base and the demand for Hungarian assistance against the Serbs would involve a direct violation of the recently ratified friendship treaty between Hungary and Yugoslavia. Count Teleki was head of the Hungarian Ministry in 1920 and again became Premier in February, 1939, adopting a less totalitarian and anti-semitic policy than that of his predecessor. He was believed to have secretly encouraged the publication of the Hungarian book Why Germany Cannot Win the War, which was suppressed only after a wide sale. He agreed to Hungary’s union with the Axis last November, after having secured about 75 per cent of Transylvania from Rumania as part of the deal. Count Teleki’s successor as Premier was Dr. Ladislaus de Bardossy, who had been Foreign Minister since the death of Count Csaky in February.
WAR IN THE ATLANTIC
War Zone Pushed West. —In a proclamation of March 25 Germany declared a danger area for neutral vessels in the waters around Iceland and westward therefrom to the Greenland coast between the 65th and 68th parallels of North Latitude. This extension of the war area was based on the ground that Iceland, occupied by British forces, was being used as a transshipment point for American cargoes en route to England. With Greenland accepted as part of the Western Hemisphere, the German zone of hostilities is thus pushed directly to American shores.
Foodstuffs for France. —Despite strong British opposition to loosening of the blockade, it appeared likely in March that consent would be secured for limited food shipments from the United States to unoccupied France, in addition to the Red Cross cargoes already landed, under control conditions which would supposedly prevent the release of the same or equivalent foodstuffs to Germany. Navicerts for two cargoes were actually issued. The probability of further shipments, however, was greatly lessened by the subsequent revelation that there was a regular barter of food supplies between occupied and unoccupied France, and that a recent release of wheat, sugar, and potatoes by Germany to the Vichy Government was exchanged for equivalent supplies in livestock, table oil, and other products from the southern area. The food shortage in southern France is admittedly due to wholesale requisitions, and according to expert investigation (“Food as a Political Instrument in Europe,” by Prof. Karl Brandt of Leland Stanford University, in April Foreign Affairs), Germany, if she so desires, is still able to handle the food problem both in the home country and the conquered nations. “The Nazis still consider themselves complete masters of the European food situation.”
AMERICA AND THE WAR
AXIS SHIPS SEIZED. —At the end of March U. S. Coast Guard boarding parties seized 27 Italian, 2 German, and 36 Danish merchant vessels tied up in 17 United States ports, as well as others in Puerto Rico and the Canal Zone. A total of about 100 German and 775 Italian officers and crew were held pending deportation proceedings which might lead to internment, or on criminal charges of sabotage. Similar action was taken in most of the Latin American countries, though in numerous instances the ships were burned, scuttled, or taken to sea before seizure. For the present no measures were taken against 19 French ships in United States ports.
As stated to Coast Guard reports, one of the two German ships and 25 of the 27 Italian ships were injured by sabotage, many of them to an extent that would require several months for replacements or repairs. According to the Secretary of the Treasury, this sabotage was the basis for the “arrest” of the ships, under the provisions of the Espionage Act of 1917 which authorizes the seizure of foreign ships “in order to secure such vessels from damage or injury or to prevent damage or injury to any harbor or waters of the United States.” Evidence connected the Italian naval attach6, Admiral Alberto Lais, with the sabotage on Italian vessels, with the result that on April 3 the State Department issued a request for his recall as persona non grata.
Protests from German and Italian diplomatic representatives in this country were delivered on April 1. The German note declared the seizures without basis in international law and contrary to the commercial treaty of 1923, but gave no specific references. Later protests related to the conditions of confinement of the officers and crews. In his reply of April 4 to the German note Secretary Hull wrote in part:
I know of no principle of international law which permits the masters or crews of vessels of a country which have sought refuge in or entered the ports of another country, to commit acts of destruction in disregard of local law and of the hospitality which they have been permitted to enjoy; nor is there any provision in the treaty between our two countries which lends even color of support to any such argument. It would indeed be unthinkable that any civilized nation would become a party to a treaty containing any such provision or that it would subscribe to any so-called principle of international law which would permit foreign vessels to be brought to its harbors and roadsteads and there willfully damaged and wrecked in violation of law and to the detriment of navigation and even the safety of its harbors without restraint or hindrance by the local sovereign.
As regarded the ultimate disposition of ships and crews, the Secretary stated in his note to Italy that this would be “determined in the light of the law and the pertinent facts.”
Air Pact with Mexico. —A convention between the United States and Mexico for reciprocal use of air fields and bases for common defense purposes was signed at Washington on April 1. From the standpoint of the United States the chief advantage of the agreement is that it will permit stops in Mexican territory for not over 24 hours by military or naval aircraft en route between the continental United States and the Canal Zone or other points to the southward. The United States is expected to furnish equipment and financial assistance in the expansion of Mexican military forces and in the development of air facilities at Salina Cruz, Mazatalan, Acapulco, and in Magdalena Bay on the west coast.
Pacific Defense Areas. —On March 24 the President by executive orders established new defense areas in the Pacific by restricting to military and naval use certain waters in the vicinity of Kodiak Island, Alaska, and Subic Bay in the Philippines. At Subic Bay the air space over the bay and over the Naval Reservation at Olongapo were also specifically restricted. The orders were to take effect in 90 days.
The Myth of the Continents. —In an article by this title in the April Foreign Affairs, Professor Eugene Staley of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy emphasizes the point that water areas are means of communication, whereas land areas are often barriers, and hence that such phrases as “continental integration,” “hemispheric unity,” etc., are based on a misconception. Distance is significant only in terms of barriers to exchange of messages, movement of persons, and movement of goods; and a comparison of over-water and over-land distance will show that over-water distance offers no greater barriers to communication and travel and much less to transport of goods. Italy for instance imports in peace time 20,000,000 tons by water to 4,000,000 by land. Wheat transport costs 33 to 43 cents from Kansas City to New York, and only 13 cents from New York to Liverpool over a distance three times as great. Akron is nearly as far from New York as Singapore is, in terms of freight. In terms of actual distance, furthermore, no capital of Europe is as far away from the United States as Buenos Aires, and Gibraltar is closer than Florida to any point in southern South America. He draws this conclusion:
In sum, South America is overseas to us, and important parts of it are farther from our bases than from the bases of European powers. The problem of defending South America is a maritime, not a continental problem, and if command of the seas in the South Atlantic passes to hostile powers we could neither establish bases there ourselves nor prevent them from ensconcing themselves on the Continent. Once they were there, only a major expeditionary force could root them out or prevent them from gradually working northward by successive jumps overland. Those soporific calculations about the number of ships an invader would have to have in order to send an expeditionary force from Europe to the United States, and about the perils to which such a force would be exposed from land-based defenders, would, apply to us in reverse, once command of the South Atlantic had passed to the Axis. For strategy of the Nazis could place us before the dilemma, either of trying to drive them out of South America, or of letting them work northward to the Canal. In fact, the Nazis would know how to create a situation, after taking over important Latin American countries by “consent,” without using any military force at all, where we would have to be the attackers. . . .
The Western Hemisphere defense plan is a static plan, and either the hemisphere or the “quarter-sphere” defense lines would, on the whole, be weak compared with the maritime defense line available to us so long as Britain survives. The United States should regard Western Hemisphere defense lines as distinctly secondary, to be prepared for emergency use if the first line breaks and we are forced to fall back for a last- ditch stand.
FAR EAST
Matsuoka Visits Axis Capitals. — Despite Foreign Minister Matsuoka’s strenuous denial of a special purpose in his European tour, it was generally assumed that the Japanese diplomat’s March visit to Moscow, Berlin, and Rome was to develop plans for more active Japanese participation in the war and to reach an understanding regarding possible recompense therefore. At Moscow, where Mr. Matsuoka held conferences on March 23-24 on his westward journey and again on April 5-12 upon his return, his reception was described as “correct but reserved.” Little was to be expected in the way of concessions from Russia, where since the Nazi movement into the Balkans the pro- Axis sentiment has decidedly cooled.
At Berlin and Rome also, where the Foreign Minister spent several days in March and early April, the elaborate ceremonies prepared for his reception were damped by news of the anti-Axis coup in Yugoslavia and the Italian reverses in Africa. In both capitals the visitor gave assurances that Japan would “remain faithful in the spirit and the objectives of the three-power pact” and expressed his confidence in a “rapid victory” for his allies. Such a victory would no doubt greatly simplify Japan’s problems in the East and these difficulties would presumably be further simplified by the nonaggression pact with Moscow which Mr. Matsuoka succeeded in negotiating just prior to his return from his European tour.
Chinese Civil Strife. —Correspondents in the Far East and specialists in China affairs take a far more serious view of the current strife between the Communists and the Chungking authorities than is indicated in official dispatches from Chungking. The view of the correspondents and specialists is that unless a settlement is brought about by Anglo-American pressure, the civil warfare may lead to a compromise peace with Japan, and the release of Japanese forces for activities elsewhere. In the March Amerasia the Far Eastern writer and lecturer Anna Louise Strong concludes an article on “The Crisis in China” as follows:
It will never be too late to save China. She will survive. Her people will organize under some banner to cast forth Japan, even though it may not be under Chungking. But it may soon be too late to prevent a powerful Japanese attack on the Southeast Asian front, which would inevitably involve yet another area in the Second World War. Only swift action to preserve Chungking as the center of Chinese unity can do that. The quickest way to cut the Gordian knot might be an immediate conference among the American, British, and Soviet Embassies in Chungking, a pooling of information and charges from both sides of the strife, and joint pressure to stop a Chinese civil war. Acting together, these three countries might prevent a temporary crisis from becoming a national and international disaster.