Four Mobs and the Balkans

No midtown Chicago 'legger of the Capone era -- muscled on one hand by the North Side mob and on the other by the South Siders -- was ever in a tighter spot than blue-jowled Benito Mussolini found himself in last week.

The Hitler mob, whom he has long found the most companionable, was putting terrific pressure on him to throw in with them, and there were plenty of signs that he soon might. Little Caesar sent a birthday wire to the Berlin Big Shot expressing "firm confidence that the German people will victoriously stand the test to which they have been subjected." He mobilized his entire Navy, and sent six battleships, 19 cruisers and about 75 destroyers into the Aegean Sea conveniently close to Salonika. His submarine fleet, estimated at 135 (the largest of any country in the world), went to the midMediterranean and lower Adriatic. Rejected reservists of the 1911, 1912, 1913 and 1914 classes were called for service. "Laborers" in steel hats continued to arrive in Albania. The Scandinavian campaign was represented in the press as one long succession of Nazi victories, and German and Italian joint military missions began surveying all phases of armed cooperation.

At this point the Reynaud-Chamberlain mob, whose guts Mussolini despises, got tired of greasing Italy with talk about cooperation and compromise in the Mediterranean. In Sheffield one of Neville ("Hardware") Chamberlain's most formidable torpedoes, Economic Warrior Ronald Cross, turned on the heat. "We are plain-dealing and plain-speaking people," he said, "and we should like to know where we stand with Italy." If Italy is neutral, said he flatly, she will have to act like it.

Back from a two-month vacation with wits sharp and eyes clear, U. S. Pundit Walter Lippmann succinctly analyzed the Italian problem:

"A Nazi victory, obtained without Italian help, would be supremely dangerous for Italy. Therefore, Italy's only chance to save anything from this desperate situation is to join the Germans if they are winning, to join them before it is too late to contribute anything important to the Nazi victory, yet not too soon to be fatally hurt by the Allies. . . . [Mussolini's] real danger is that the one side or the other, or both, may tire of his vacillation between unfulfilled threats and unfulfilled promises, and push him overboard."

As betting odds in London went from 50-50 to 40-60 that Italy would soon openly declare for Germany, the greatest annoyance to Little Caesar remained the fact that he was still not at all sure about the trigger value of his own mob. Italians who cheered scenes in a war film showing the Allies to advantage had to be slapped and kicked in the pants by Fascist militiamen. The Roman Stock Exchange took a sickening 50-point dip at signs of Nazi-Fascist military cooperation.

One of Italy's highest-ranking officers, Marshal Enrico Caviglia, chose this critical moment to give Il Duce and his undernourished country some sound advice. In a sensational preface to a book, Totalitarian Warfare and Its Conduct, he declared: "The European political leader conscious of his responsibilities will not launch his country into a war with a great nation unless he has the power of continuing it until the exhaustion of his adversary. In his calculations the military forces will not have the primary place, but rather the economic and financial forces." If Italian cinemagoers, stockbrokers and generals were uncomfortable about Italy's lashing out in a war on Germany's side, the areas in which the lashing would take place--the Balkans and Near East--were positively panicked. To a man, these little fellows began scurrying around looking for protection from other mobs, even those that had previously scared them most.

Yugoslavia, where Italy would probably move first, discovered after 22 years that the Soviet Union existed as a State, began to dicker for mutual diplomatic relations, sent a large delegation to the Moscow mob to negotiate a commercial agreement following three months of secret conferring in "a third capital."

The Yugoslavs arrested former Premier Milan Stoyadinovich, an old hunting companion of Field Marshal Hermann Goering, and spirited him away to the Serbian mountains, where, as police officials remarked cryptically, "even an airplane cannot land." The signature of Prince Paul's onetime right-hand man was found on papers which gave 50 German agents permission to "prospect for oil" along the fortified frontier between Yugoslavia and the Reich.

Hungary. Searchlights swept the skies of Budapest and air-raid protection squads in steel helmets patrolled the streets. The French Legation hastily removed important files to Belgrade and a speedy truck stood ready in the courtyard of the British Legation for a quick trip to the frontier. Believing that a former archenemy might have sufficient interest in balking Germany to the extent of lending at least moral support, Hungarian statesmen also discussed the best way of approaching the Soviet Union, hoping to ward off a German invasion that will certainly come to the landlocked Magyars if Hitler finds himself in need of an easy, uncomplicated "victory."

Greece, which endured a civil strife, armed invasion and blockade before she was persuaded to enter the last war on the Allied side, again faced the prospect of losing her strategic base Salonika, which lies just 100 miles from the Albanian border. Her premier and dictator, John Metaxas, who was deported by the Allies in 1917 as a German political agent, is an admirer of Hitler. His people, grown poorer under totalitarianism, prefer the Allies, particularly France. Given a chance to choose her side, Greece would probably have a revolution deciding. But her opinion would very likely not be asked.

Rumania. Following a week of tough talk, King Carol weakened and came to terms with Germany's tougher trade negotiator Dr. Karl Clodius. In return for promises of "huge quantities of munitions and squadrons of airplanes," Rumania amended her trade treaty with the Reich and agreed to deplete her own reserves in order to deliver the $8,000,000 worth of wheat ordered by Dr. Clodius a few days before an export embargo was declared. Under Allied pressure, Rumania refused to increase her monthly oil shipments of 130,000 tons to Germany or to re-evaluate her currency to favor Germany.

Meanwhile Rumanian police made a belated attempt to do something about 40,000 German "tourists" who came for Easter and stayed. Germans who had lived for generations in the Rumanian Banat passed the watchword, "Hitler will soon be here." In view of the general peril, Rumania and Russia were reported to have agreed to reduce tension on the Bessarabian frontier by removing troops six and a quarter miles from each side of the line. In the oil fields preparations were made to pump the oil wells full of concrete if Rumania is invaded by anybody.

Turkey. If the rival mobs began to shoot it out in the Southeast, a good deal of the gunplay would take place in Turkey's front yard, the Dardanelles. With Italy's fleet on the prowl, Turkey sent her 23,000-ton, model 1911 battle cruiser Yavuz (the onetime famed German raider Goeben) and other naval units into the Sea of Marmara lying between the Dardanelles and the Bosporus. Russia began maneuvers in the Black Sea after having laid mines off her main port Odessa and the oil port Batum.

Turkey, on the alert for quislings, arrested a former member of Parliament, one Siri Bellioglu, who had spent his time lobbying against the Anglo Turkish mutual-assistance pact and writing anonymous letters to ministers. Guns were mounted on the decks of passenger ships and the training period of reservists was extended to keep more men under arms.

The first hand to a shoulder-holster would cause lead to fly in the scarred and scared old Mediterranean world.

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