Mcallen Daily Press

NAZI PACT IN YUGOSLAVIA IS BLOW TO FOES

Has Made Adriatic An Italian Lake And Dangerous Base For Raiding Attacks.

By PAUL THIRIET

PARIS, May 6 (INS)—Eighteen divisions of standing army; two motorized corps; one and a quarter million reservists; approximately five hundred airplanes, and a small navy plus its fortified base.

This is the actual military standing of Yugoslavia caught between the armed pincers of the Italo-German axis as a result of Italy's conquest of Albania.

With German troops massed on one frontier, Italian legions concentrating another, and with internal separatist movements, reportedly stirred up by German agitators, becoming more and more pronounced, it is believed here that Yugoslavia cannot help but become an abject vassal of the Axis.

Although discounted in advance by the Allies today as a possible military ally who might have put up a lengthy and stern resistance before capitulation, the "neutralization" of Jugoslavia has hit the French and British a hard blow below the "naval line."

Adriatic an Italian Lake

For today the Adriatic has become an Italian lake and nothing can prevent it becoming a most dangerous base for raiding attacks, in the opinion of French and British naval experts in Paris.

"The situation is more serious than it looks at first," one of the French naval experts declared.

Italy has four colonial armies, he pointed out. One in Abyssinia; one in Libya; one in Spain and one in the Dodecanese.

"The Abyssinian army will be in serious difficulty in time of war; the Libyan army will not force the Tunisian defenses without serious resistance; the army in Spain would meet with an immediate French offensive, and the Dodecanese army would find any invasion of Greece hard due to the terrain."

These four armies would have to be quickly and regularly supplied with ammunition, food and particularly oil and gasoline, since they are mostly motorized, the informant stated.

"And Italy's fleet is not big enough to neutralize the combined French and British fleets—in fact it is not half their size.

"All Italy's hopes have been placed in her 120 submarines and her airplanes which she hopes will ensure her domination of the Turkish coast.

"And with the Adriatic as one large naval base her hopes have been increased.

But the naval expert was not pessimistic.

Comparison with 1914

He pointed out that in 1914 Germany had almost as strong an ally in Turkey and had expected to dominate the Mediterranean particularly the Suez Canal.

"Today the situation is somewhat similar. Today the Italo-German axis hopes to dominate the Mediterranean just as the Germans in the past. But today Turkey is on our side. And today, as in 1914, the French and British will prove hard nuts to crack.

"And every month France and Britain are building more planes. Many of these new warplanes are immediately dispatched to the Eastern Mediterranean.

"We are not entirely unprepared," he concluded grimly.