No Pause

There will be no pause in military operations after the successful conclusion of the Balkan campaign, and all the enemy's vital points in the Mediterranean will be attacked.

This warning was part of the obbligato of talk which the Italians supplied all last week to the rumble of Nazi guns. It was broadcast over the Italian radio.

The German Army never talks, never warns. It leaves such things to propagandists and to Italians. But last week it gave a hint how this Italian warning might be implemented. Without waiting for the final cleanup in Greece, the German Army occupied at least six Greek islands: Samothrace, Lemnos, Mytilene, Thasos, Skyros, Melos.

The first three of these threaten Turkey. Samothrace and Lemnos can be used to choke the Dardanelles, and Mytilene lies very close to Turkey's west coast. The others threaten British shipping in the whole Aegean. Britain can have no power north of Crete now except naval power, and the occupation of these islands--and probable occupation of more later--threatens to clear Britain out of the whole region.

The corollary of this was that Turkey's Aegean flank was bare. Turkey's Black Sea flank was also bare now that Germany controlled the entire length of the Danube. So giant pincers on Turkey (see map) seemed to be in the blueprints. It might be no more than political pincers, to make Turkey come to terms. After the Balkan fight, Turkey might be induced to give in. But if necessary, the great pincers might be used militarily.

For beyond Turkey are two things Germany wants: the oil of Iraq and the Suez Canal. One arm of the final giant pincers on Suez was already moving in from Libya last week (see p. 28). How soon the other arm would reach across the Levant depended upon whether the Turks would fight.

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