Will Turkey Fight
DAY, J. WENTWORTH
Will Turkey Fight Ankara Hardens Army and Navy for Battle On Axis, Despite German Encirclement By J. WENTWORTH DAY > Feature writer for "London Calling," overt eat journal of the British...
...No combined fleets which it might be possible for Hitler to muster in the Mediterranean could force the Dardanelles even if...
...Turks, therefore, are a world force to be reckoned with...
...Before the start of the present "incident,"- tfie opium trade was a three million dollar business in Shansi...
...Even'so, that total of Turks is only a fraction of what Turkey means in manhood, for there are nearly 50,000,000 Turks in the world...
...The English defeat at the Dardanelles is a lasting reminder of their courage...
...nERE is another aspect of this question * which for national reasons is not much publicly commented on...
...There are only 7,158 miles of railway in all Turkey...
...Jtradfc, This has brought about an increase in prices, but no . corresponding decrease in consumption...
...Whatever the Communist policy for the present situation was, we heard nothing about it during the election...
...The Communazis are conducting a strenuou* campaign for freedom of the press amongst all sections of the labor movement, but very few resolutions of support are being gathered...
...Both vessels have a maximum speed of 18 knots, but they would be of little use outside the Bladk Sea...
...but Britain could not find a way-to strike first without violating the cause for Which she was fighting—democracy and non-a%gression...
...She has received more than $240,000,000 in cash, credits, subsidies and guarantees...
...Today Turkey stands fully armed on/ all her frontiers...
...Britain has seen that her needs were supplied...
...Tank fighting must be conducted in extended order...
...Suppression," to date, has consisted in granting licenses to six^couotr^es of North China to p]#n*<g&,000 mou (4,167 acres) Off...
...Only the paper which is financed by a fordf* power in league with our enemies has had it» shutters drawn...
...Religiously, they are as powerful in the East as the Roman Catholics are in the West...
...Perhaps time will be on her side...
...Even jf he landed his army, they would have to fight their way across an almost roadless series of rolling, bleak plateaux, 3,000 feet above sea level, towards Ankara...
...The material today is modern and sufficient So much for the Turkish army: it can give a good account of itself...
...LONDON.—A year ago the unseeing said that Turkey would not fight Germany...
...URKEY in Europe extends to only 23,975 square kilo-* meters of the total 762,736 square kilometers which comprise the whole country...
...President,* are ready...
...Modern methods of warfare have been carefully studied...
...Wbat.is still more important, we should have been able to realize that the totalitarian habit of borrowing existing words to compose its own contrary vocabulary is just as true in war as in peace...
...The latest feeling of the rank and file was expressed in this banning of the "Daily Worker...
...It has " a first-line strength ofoTer 300 aircraft, which includes such modern fighter types as ^Hurricanes and Morane 406's, such bomber types as Blenheims, such reconnaissance machines as Westland Lysanders, and certain seaplanes...
...Karl Haushofer, recently arrested...
...He can be credited with the widespread anti-British propaganda in North and South America and the militant organization of German-Americans in Latin America which has attempted to blast cooperation among the 21 Republics...
...Delay in recognizing this is why one fallen nation after another learned only too late of the traitors among its own citizenry—that each Communist arid* Nazi is a potential Kuusinen or Quisling awaiting only an opportunity...
...The philandering Von Papen has spent the better part of the last ten years trying to seduce them to the side of Germany...
...It is surely understandable that in face of a threatened invasion, certain precautions against sabotage are justifiable...
...battlefields on which the democracies Were almost vanquished when the shooting actually started was called the international rules of wari 'Britain, for example, knew that Germany was going to strike at Norway at the first favorable moment...
...Every newspaper carries long articles on the various precautions to be taken by citizens in the event enemy troops land on our shores...
...In a private circular issued to their party-members appealing for funds, the Communist Party campaign committee explained that they required a great deal of money as they had brought into the constituency six full-time organizers...
...hand from the North China Opium, Suppression Board...
...The road, along which not more than two lorries can drive abreast, rises to more than 6,000 feet and could be defended with ease...
...and they are words which so many of our comfortable souls would like to leave unread...
...Ships Anywhere The following letter was r*» cently sent to President Root*, •velt: The President of the U. S., My dear Mr...
...They declared themselves, in ,a historic phrase, "Britain's foul weather friends...
...But in an emergency, a great deal of damage can be done while waiting on the rather slow process of the poison bringing its own antidote...
...In fact, even this expression—"in war as in peace"—has a different connotation for the followers of ¦• dictatorship than for the rest of us...
...It is not, therefore, an analysis of "America and Total War," in spite of its title...
...T\NE channel in whicJa the Communists carry on their agitation is in the parliamentary by-elections...
...we know wet the risks involved forua...
...The second and third merely wallow in sloughs -created by the first...
...In response to dictation from Moscow, they started various campaigns calculated to weaken the war effort The "Daily Worker" was not an organ of opinion...
...The majority are not more than four years old and they range from 9O0 to 1,300 tons —an excellent, up-to-date striking force...
...117E do not hear much of the Turkish air force...
...Tuxkey has had long experience jn coastal defense...
...The only difference which existed in the British Labor Party on this matter was whether the Communist poison would provide its own antidote and therefore didn't require to be shut down...
...There was a shortage of skilled mechanics, but steps were taken to remedy this more than a year ago and a flow of newly-trained ground staffs is in full swing...
...Hess was head of the entire Nazi movement for organizing Germans abroad, a task especially entrusted to him by Hitler...
...We all take this position fully await of all that it implies...
...Even when France was humbled, the Turks still stood firm...
...In actual fact, it was probably the most expensive election campaign our burlesque Bolsheviks have held...
...Now that definite action against this menace t» our democratic order has come, the sympathy and support of the common people is assured...
...Classical liberalism with its fine, unrestricted freedoms is a luxury of peace and security...
...Then came the war...
...It was a phoney election...
...Indeed, there is an easy confidence that any such invasion will be effectively checked by the various defensive forces at our disposal...
...Its flagship is the thirty-one-year-old, 23,000 ton ex-German Goeben, now named Yavuz...
...We know that if the Communist Party cam* to power in Britain, no one with any kind of dtf- • ference with them would be permitted to ei-press it, if indeed they were permitted to live...
...In the last war the British found to their cost that,' although the Turkish armies suffered severely from sickness due to food shortage and later from the influenza epidemic of 1918, they put up stubborn" resistahce...
...Even a motion in Parliament which asked that a public prosecution should be instituted instead of the use of an Home Office Order could not rally a dozen votes...
...Invade Nations Before Fighting Starts By EDWARD HUNTER ' ^ War Desk, New York Post 11IE alj know that the ism folk have created a , V...
...In present circumstances, where everyone is advised to carry a gas-mask, every home to garner some extra supplies against invasion, and myriad detailed instructions are being eagerly read and inwardly digested for an emergency, a more realistic and probably more ruthless rule is necessary...
...For them, peace is a tactic in totalitarian warfare, to be fought nust as viciously and desperately—only with ^different weapon...
...The Turkish regular officer has always been a close student of military theory and practice...
...The feeling against Communist assassin sheets is running high throughout the labor movement of Britain...
...This entire discussion has been brought about by a reading of Fletcher Pratt's fascinating new book, "America and Total War...
...Heavy tanks simply cannot follow each other...
...Jap Laws Hide Opium Drive To Dope China if -you want to go into the opium-business, you'll get a helping...
...Those of us who know the new Turkey and the tough spirit of her people know well that Turkey, like any wise fighter, was playing for time...
...The army itself has relied in the past on an excellent organization of light mountain guns, mostly 76s and machine-guns...
...The Turkish fleet, which before the last war was reorganized by the British Admiral Gamble, could deal with any invading fleet...
...This book is a'n excellent study of modern war after it reaches the state of actual shooting...
...no effort has been made to clams down on the free voicing of opinion during parliamentary campaigns...
...The final figures were about 22,000 to 4,000...
...In addition, he was a well-bred, middle-dp** citizen who wouldn't kill a fly, and there was^jo Communist blood-and-thunder nonsense abyrt propaganda...
...It is not to discuss the prospects or success of an attempted invasion that I make these remarks, but rather to indicate the background against which all our political and other activities are based...
...Their papers castigate their opponsslti unmercifully, but there is no indication that thff are m danger of being banned...
...That was as weak as women's tsaWtraditional and cultural case for home rule for Scotland...
...propaganda weekly comes out s* usual, freely criticizing any part of the w*r effort it deems fit...
...This is just one more manifestation of .Japanese inscrutability...
...First of all, he would have to run the gauntlet of the Turkish fleet...
...The fight brought all the political freaks from the West of Scotland to our labor meetings...
...Not that anyone is visibly trembling at the prospect...
...TPHIS book should be read particularly by those * who believe in America and in our way of life, but do not understand how so large a pair of oceans as the Atlantic and the Pacific could have shrunk so much as to become an avenue for possible aggression against us, and who cannot understand how a nation of 140,000,000 souls could be endangered by any force in the world...
...What we do not realize is that much the same thing has been happening in military science...
...Two years ago Turkey had eight modern destroyers, averaging 1,300 tons each, built by Britain and ^Italy, each vessel nsounting four 4.7 guns and carrying six to eight torpedo tubes, with an average speed of 37 knots...
...In ordinary circumstances, it would merit an article on the latest tendencies in Communist policy...
...But being Oriental and wise, she has played for time...
...They were built for her by Britain, Germany, Spain, and Italy...
...Privately she told London her needs...
...Those who plant without license are penalized by negligible fines...
...The rest live in Russia, Iran, Afghanistan, and China...
...This was claimed as a victory for Communism, although there was no reference to revolution or Communism in any of their speeches or election literature...
...The*e*»-didate of the Communist Party had just recesrtf joined the party and therefore claimed that fc* could not be held responsible for the twists •** turns of that party on war and Fascism...
...3.00...
...Then comes a mixed fleet of motor torpedo boats, rrtSnelayers, minesweepers, gunboats, supply ships, etc., the whole queened over by the most sumptuous yacht in 4he world, the 5,750 ton oil-driven Savarona, built by the German firm Blohm and Voss in 1931 and capable of cruising for 9,000 miles at 15 knots, with a top speed of 21 knots...
...Although the Stalinites are as active as • squirrel in a revolving cage whipping up resolutions of protest, their activity is as futile *» that of the squirrel...
...But, strangely enough, there is very little weeping for our loss...
...To our inquiry if Latvia, Esthonia and Poland had historic, traditional and cultural reasons for independence, he—and the Communist Party—were as silent as Ailsa Craig...
...population is a little over 1,000,000, whereas the population of Turkey in Asia Minor is about 17,000,000...
...It is likely that this flotilla has been increased...
...The relations between officers and men very much resemble those in the late French army, with the difference that morale is high and the spirit of national pride invincible...
...an1* on the Black Sea, as well as on the coasts facingthe Aegean, are well provided with heavy artillery...
...If Hitler attempts a direct invasion of Turkey, he might conceivably do so by outflanking the almost impregnable defenses of the Dardanelles and rushing troops across the Black Sea from Varna and Constanza to the ports of Samsun and Trebizond, or putting them ashore on the lonely beaches in the Vilayets of Erzerum and Sivas...
...We are pledged to fiah* st dictatorships...
...She has been given arms, tanks, airplanes and munitions...
...Russia has expressed her friendship with them...
...f-most of os were not so conservative or so die-hard sentimental, we could have been able to tell' that from the very nature of dictatorship...
...Nor can we afford to ignore Pratt's warning that the national defense set-up must "make it clear to every citizen that in modern war he can expect to see his home burned and his children killed"— unless he carries the war into the enemy's territory...
...Thus our crippled Communist was considered in tft^public mind as a good, innocent Scotsman who merely desired that minority opinion should be allowed freedom of speech...
...and although the soil of Turkey is easily waterlogged by heavy rains, all-weather runways have been constructed on important airdromes while temporary landing facilities in the shape of iron network can be put down at the shortest notice...
...That is the connection existing between the British Communist Party and the Soviet State...
...No landing on the Black Sea shores of Turkey could be successful...
...This stand was taken hr the membership of the Weat Coast local national organisation cf Masters,'Mates and Pilot' fJ America, representing over 2.000 licensed deck officers, in regular meeting, May 21, 1941...
...TURKEY a year and a half ago had less than 200,000 * men under arms...
...the British Mediterranean Fleet was not there...
...By Fletcher Tratt...
...it had no opinion, its policy changed from day to day in line with the foreign policy of a country which is in alliance with our enemy...
...She was hit by mines five times in the last war...
...Dictators' Total War Dwarfs Oceans...
...The Communists wtre testing the strength of popular protest again** the suppression of their paper...
...It was a good selection, too, because he was * man with one leg, which ensured some sympUOtf-He came of a Scottish Nationalist family »*| until now nobody suspected he was anytahf else...
...Hess Created Dachau—The Prison Hell Although the excitement over the flight of Rudolf Hess to Scotland has subsided, the cause or causes are still unknown...
...The second is the ex-iRussian Prut, now the Mecidiyc, of 3,500 tons, mounting six 5.1 inch guns...
...But by achieving this, Pratt shall have contributed toward the defense of America, for as his book seems to make clear, an America fully awakened to the military realities of the world situation will be an America made impregnable...
...Our democracy is not so spineless...
...If so, it none the less lies to the everlasting credit of Turkey that she declared herself Britain's friend before France fell...
...They have a racial affinity' with the Finns...
...She finished a complete refit at the French Naval Dockyard at St...
...When history is written, it will be shown that one of the boldest, most far-sighted "strokes-of Britain's too-frequently abused foreign policy was the winning of Turkey to Britain's side...
...We can trace this" similarity in its^stfategyrvThe battlefield on which the democracies lost the peace was called freedom of sp^fecJ^ The 'totalitarian tactic here was to construe license as liberty, demagogy as democracy, confusing us into either abandoning true freedom of speech, or else making such a generality out of it that it lost its meaning, in both cases enabling dictatorship to take advantage of the privileges of democracy so as to bring about its destruction...
...All the splinter groups, academic revolutionaries, .Trotskyists, Anarchist*) etc., etc., still carry on with vigor their anti-war activity...
...None of the guesses so far made has taken into account one of his activities in Germany...
...Respectfully, Charles F. May, PresidnL British Anti-War Parties Enjoy Wide Freedom in Attacking Gov't Policies By JOHN DAVIS City Magistrate iT" LASGOW.—We here now live under the im-mediate threat of invasion...
...A study of dictatorship at war, or of our own defense capacity, cannot be considered realistic, therefore, or thorough, if it excludes the tactics pursued by dictators during what we have been accustomed to refer to as peace-time...
...That is why special attention has been given to anti-tank equipment in the Turkish army...
...Its peaks rise to 13,000 feet- The one pass by which any sort of transport could penetrate these snow-capped mountains is the narrow gorge known as the Cilician Gates...
...We ait slow to act, but when we feel the necessity to do so, there is no turning back...
...Total, in all things...
...The people of Britain still believe in a free press and even in this grave emergency stiH support the right of all minorities to expresi their views...
...Since Stalin joined with Hitler, the British Communists, who were supporting a Churchill-led popular government against Hitler, joined Hitler against the Churchill-led popular government...
...Her-fortress divisions, botn on" the Dardanelles...
...Thus, from no matter what aspect we look at totalitarianism, we find that total war is just that—total—with its political and military tactics merely two phases of the same thing—war...
...In that they are like the Poles...
...So people were asking what was the reason for his election campaign, and the only intelligible answer was that it was intended as a protest against the suppression of the Communist daily newspaper...
...Turicey has a small but highly efficient submarine flotilla which numbered 13 before the war and has probably been since increased...
...In point of fighting valor, they are the equals of the Scots ,or the Australians...
...Further, as leader of the National Socialist Party, Hess controlled the Nazi "Auslands-Or-ganisation" which functions as ideological ' supervisor of the Volksbund branches...
...How far the fear is justified by the facts I have no means of knowing, but that it is widespread is certainly true...
...II/E have banned two Communist publications ™ and our great liberal tradition has been broken...
...The general equipment of her army is far above that of any other Balkan army...
...His election address told us of the bistfifc...
...The Japanese have imposed licensing, restrictions and heavy taxes on every aspect of the ojiinm...
...Mates, Pilots Pledge to Sail U.S...
...We are aware, moreover, that ships carrying material to" "help defeat the dictatorships may t» attacked and their cargoes lott Hence whatever decisior, yon sad the members of Congress mrti to safeguard the delivery of on promised aid will be supported by our organization 100 per cant Many of our members wht loyally and faithfully served tM» country in the first World War are still able and efficient anc willing to do so again...
...Actually, the, acreage devoted to poppy-growing has increased since, fhe"$1ew.Order" went into effect...
...AMERICA AND TOTAL WAR...
...She was short of light mechanized vehicles, desperately short of small arms ammunition, deficient in airplanes, lacking in' light guns...
...When Sir Wyndham Deedesreturned from his tour of the devastated regions of Northern Turkey last year, he told me that, after 20 years' absence, he found the railway service unbelievably good and punctual...
...There can be no peace for a Communist and a Nazi except total victory...
...Publicly she avowed her friendship...
...poppies...
...This is the totalitarian approach...
...Pratt's book is of inestimable value at this time, for even when we limit ourselves to a study of military tactics, it shows us that we are not isolated, neither are we safe from invasion...
...It doesn't go deeply enough into a study of the political phase of total war, and when it does refer to this, seems to underestimate it...
...For that we must thank General Sir Tim Harington, whose tact saved us from war with her over the Chanak incident in 1925...
...These are strong words...
...President: Wft, the members of the Wat Coast local of the Masters, Matea and Pilots of America, affiliated with the American Federation <n" Labor, will sail ships to any pert in the world to which the govern, ment of the United States, acting through democratic procem, wishes them to go to carry aie for the democracies...
...W« take this position because ow members and their co-workers in the other American Federation of Labor maritime unions are determined to make their contributions to help preserve those traditions...
...Opium-smoking is more a,habit . of the wealthier classes who are willing and able to pay a premium for the drug...
...W#-should have been able to tell, too, that for a dictatorship there can be no line of demarcation between political expression and military action...
...Turks are excellent airmen, daring to the point of recklessness...
...Today, the Turkish navy, although not first class, is better than anything that her possible Balkan enemies can muster...
...But Glasgow and the Clyde area have been blitzed since the election and we spend most of our free time preparing for the raids and cleaning up after the bombs have fallen...
...Turkey is determined that this blunder should not be repeated...
...political vocabulary of their own by using the -same old words, only giving them different meanings...
...There was a shortage of anti-tank and anti-aircraft artillery before this war began, but that shortage has been more than remedied...
...Soldiers of the old school and arm-chair strategists are able to be quite convincing about 3,000 miles of protective ocean and America's splendid isolation, just as liberals of the old schdol: arid political theorists think they have reacHe*""-^'starting point for cooperation with Communists and Nazis who say that- they, too, believe in "Teal democracy...
...The busy little gentlemen from across tb*.'China Sea Have found that opium is a very lucrative business, so they have decided to "suppress" it on paper and supervise production in practice...
...As Pratt says, "there is no real defense but public awareness," and he adds, "the attainment of an ability to take punishment without murmuring...
...When this war began, Turkey was just beginning to get into her stride as a new and virile country: she was stepping into a new life, smaller territorially but vastly stronger in spirit and endeavors...
...pHERE is the same intimate relationship all * along the road between peace and war in totalitarianism...
...Smith & Durrell, Inc...
...It also made clear-that any peace with Hitler would be an unpardonable crime...
...Will Turkey Fight Ankara Hardens Army and Navy for Battle On Axis, Despite German Encirclement By J. WENTWORTH DAY > Feature writer for "London Calling," overt eat journal of the British Broadcasting Co...
...But if responsibility is the basis of a democratio order, it is our duty not to pass them by unread...
...An instructive less** is the recent three-weeks' campaign in the Dumbartonshire...
...Xazaire in 1930...
...She may not have to fight after all...
...If the Japanese" put "their feet down hard enough, At may move into the-billion dollar class...
...In the last war Turkey realized that the Kaiser's dream of an empire stretching from Berlin to Baghdad merely allowed Turkey a place in that dream as a vassal State, a corridor through which Germany could transport troops and technicians to exploit the oil wells of the Near and Middle East...
...Above all it should never be forgotten .that he was the organizer of Dachau, the most notorious of all the German concentration camps, in which thousands have suffered and hundreds, have perished during recent years...
...Her high commanders include a number of forceful, experienced generals who led the army during the Great War and her subsequent War of Independence...
...Indeed, it developed into a fight to save the election deposit of $750, and it cost them many times that figure to accomplish this...
...For this she had to thank Kemal Ataturk...
...Britain today knows—every military observer knows—that at a decisive moment, .probably in an attempted invasion of England, Germany is going to use poison gas on an un-precedentedly ruthless scale...
...This will be a disturbing book, indeed, for those ladies and gentlemen who do not like to be disturbed, 'for it shall shatter their sense for security...
...But we do not believe that freedom of press should in all circumstances, no matter the dangers, be given to dictatorship groups who would ruthless crush out all other opinion...
...Then there are two thirty-eight-year-old cruisers, the first the Hamidiye of 3,830 tons, mounting two 5.9 and smaller guns...
...Hess was responsible for the subversive activities of Germans abroad which again and again have been the precursors of the downfall of those nations which Germany has overrun...
...She'mounts ten 11-inch guns, ten 5.9s, carries two torpedo tubes, and is capable of 25 knots...
...Today more than 1,500,000 of the world's toughest soldiers are under arms, trained in the methods of mobile, guerrilla warfare, which the defense of the country demands...
...But there is not much of it...
...She possesses a highly efficient force, equipped and trained to fight a war of maneuver...
...Even supposing that Anatolia was overrun, and Ankara, the capital, taken, the Turks could still retreat to the grim and forbidding range of the Taurus Mountains which stretch right across the country from Ardana on the Gulf of Alexandretta to the shores of the Black Sea...
...thsr* was no serious opposition...
...The coastal batteries would defend the beaches...
...iB>t •"exactly-> as democracy means something wholly different to the isms fanatic than the dictionary says it means, so do the battlefields used* by democracy's battalions differ from the battlefields on which the regiments of totalitarianism do their fighting...
...Western ' Anatolia possesses a nuniber of excellent airdromes...
...In European Turkey the Chatalja Lines, lorrg-estab-lished and brought right up to date by Marshal Fevzy Chakmak, present a Siegfried Line to the frontiers of Bulgaria and Russia...
...Britain knows that, I repeat, yet Britain again can not find a way to use gas first without doing violence to the humanitarian principles for which she is fighting...
...Graft, corruption, excessive taxation, and the exploiting of the country to pay for an overwhelming debt had given way to a new, realistic, and Spartan spirit for regeneration...
...In this capacity, he was in permanent contact with the "Volks-bund fur das Deutschtum im Ausland" headed by Dr...
...As a piece of careful political rigging, tb* Communati campaign is hard to beat...
...The I.L.P...
...The Germans would have to fight in country where the roads are mere earth tracks, the soil is crumbly, and in wet weather becomes a bog...
...Half the armies of the world might hammer at the Taurus Mountains indefinitely...
Vol. 24 • June 1941 • No. 24
