The Waterbury Democrat., 1937-09-20
BY MILTON BRONNER NAn sn.,in. Stan f,nrrn.nnr,herA


 London, Sept. 30-Once again, his- tory seems to be preparing to use the land locked Mediterranean Sea as a corridor to the future.
 Today the war fleets are masSing in the Mediterranean. England, Russia, Italy, and the rest of Europe wait, tense, fearful lest somewhere on that blue rolling sea there take place an unexpected accident, blum der or bit of rashness that will plunge hte world into @ new war. But if that happens, 1t will only be history repeating itself.
 For more than 2,00O years, vest ern civilization has periodically found itself settling It's destinies on and around this inland sa. Now and again it has been said that the Atlantic, or the Pacific, is the "sea of the future; but in the end 1t is the Mediterranean which pro- vides the stage for the showdown.
 Europe, Asia and Africa meet, around the Mediterranean And because they meet there giving sure dominion to the nation which can control that long, irregularly- shaped bit of water--the past and the future meet there too; the past, with It's grim record of bloody bat ties and momentous victories, and hte future, with its orninous hints of pending trouble.
 Early Greeks Made It Historic
 Far back toward the drawn of history, before there were civilized men in any part of Europe, Egyp- ton civilization was cradled along the. Mediterranean. A little later the adventurous Phoenicians from Tyre and Sidon turned the great sea into a highway for trade and adventure, sailing into every bay along its thousand of miles of shore line and spotting its coasts with trading posts and colonies.
 The early Greeks made the sea historic, too. They built an island empire at It's eastern ned, develop ed one of the finest of all human civilizations, and made possible It's continuance by defeating the Per- sians in the great battle of Salamis -one of the first of the endless series of naval battles of the Medi- terranean's record.
 Carthage, founded by the Phoe- nicians, grew great in the western half of the Mediterranean. Cartha- ginisn ships and sailors went out through the Straits of Gibraltar in- to the Atlantic, venturing far down the coast of Africa, and up north- ward to the British Isles. Infant Rome was overawed by Carthagin- lon sea power and 1t was Carthage's boast than no Roman dared so much as wash his hands in the Mediterranean unless Carthage gave him leave.
 Slowed Soil With Salt
 But the Romans developed fleets of their own, fought series of wars with the Carthaginians-and, finally, i46 years before Christ, destroyed the proud city utterly, blowing up It's site and sowing the ground with salt so that nothing might ever grow there again.
 The Romans now ruled the sea; with utter truth they called 1t mare nostrum"-our sea.
 The years passed, and stil! the Mediterranean was the highway of destiny. When Octavius and Mark Anthony fought for dominion, 1t was the naval battle of Actium that settled the contest--and, once more, made 1t possible for European civili- zation to develop along European, not Oriental, lines.
 When Rome fell before the bar barian .hordcs from the north and east. the Mediterranean was once more the main theater of the con- flict. .... ,. Empire of Islam Grew
 The empric of Islam grew up along the southern and eastern ssores of this sea. At the Straits of Gibraltar 1t crossed to Europe, to hold the Spanish peninsula for long centuries; at the other end of the sea 1t hammered at the gates of Constantinoule for generations, received in return the iron blows of the Crusaders-and, at last, lcaped the Bosphorus and made Constan- inople a Moslem city.
 For years thereafter the Turk was all.powerful on the Mediter- ranean; but in 1871 the great Don John Of Austria broke Turkish sea l