Evening star., 1941-03-05
Protest by Moscow
Seriously Dents New
Bulgarian Policy
Country Is Surprised
To Find Moscow Is
Critical of Action
By GEORGE WELLER,


Chicago Daily News Foreign Correspondent.
SOFIA, March 4. delayed IL
hours by telephone breakdown) -
Timed with a political nicely that
gave a thunderclap effect, the
sickle-shaped question mark of the
Soviet Union was written in the
Bulgarian skies over the German
drive today (TueSday) with a
hammer clearly diScernible behind
it. The Russian shot of warning
came as predecessor to the over
hanging severance Of relations by
the British, scheduled for tomor-
row, which is itself co-ordinated
with a British ultimatum to Ru-
mania expiring the same day. Re-
lations were severed today-Ed)
Although the censored Bulgarian
press conceals from its readers all
but a single indirect hint that the
smile with which Stain was sup
posed to have blessed the entrance
of German troops had suddenly
wrinkled into a frown, the word ran
quickly from mouth to mouth that
Grandpa Ivan," as the BulgarianS
call the Communist state of brother
Slavs, was displeased.
To Balkan peoples, it sometimes
appears as though the Soviets, after
months of denials, silence, Cancelled
speeches and false leads, wait until
every augury, including the stars
and the weather, is fovaroble for
single devastating blow, and so it
has been with this electric an
nouncement. The Bulgarian man in
the street after spending yesterday
celebrating the SD anniversary of
Bulgaria's independence by examin-
ing the armored cars, tanks and
campaign trucks of the German mo-
tored invasion, secure in the sup
posed approval of the same Grandpa
Ivan" whose CZarist troops won Bull
garia her freedom from the Turks,
awoke this morning finding that
Grandpa Ivan was actually very
uneasy about the slow-motion blitZ-
krieg and Bulgaria's part in it.
The Moscow rebuke did more than
spoil Bulgaria's independence day;
it left a shining new foreign policy
badly damaged, and wrote the ugly
word war" in the margin of the
tripartite pact.
Apparently the Germans had some
premonition that the Balkans cross
roads had been reached, for story
in yesterday afternoons Belgrade
Politika, sent from Berlin and re-
layed here during the night from
Belgrade, is the first hint that the
WilhelmstrasSe had already caught
the change of Soviet expression be-
fore the Sphinx spoke.
Politikas correspondent said SIM
ply that the foreign press had been
told in Berlin that the Russians
knew all about the Bulgarians sign
ing the tripartite pact before it was
ever undertaken, and that the
membership of Bulgaria was not in
any way directed against the
U. S. S. R.
This oblique plea of good faith
on the German part is all the
Bulgarian public has officially been
told about RuSSia's dissatisfaction,
and rather accentuates the whisper
ing uncertainty here about the
Soviet's next move.
The mention of the tripartite pact
by name in the Berlin Dispatch
though it is not specifically named
in the original Moscow statement,
as broadcaSt-ShoWS that the Rus
SLAMS are objecting not so much to
Bulgaria'S cooperation with the
Nazi machine-whieh the London
radio calls studied subservience"-
but to the fact that Bulgaria had
to go and sign a pact about it.
This is essentially the position taken
by the British Minister, George w.
Rendel, in his Commute conversa-
ton with King Boris, though the
British want not only the pact
explained but also the general mo-
bilization of Bulgarian troops.
War of Nerves i'm New Phase.
What price the British had to
pay Stain, if any, for this stimuli
taneous warning to Bulgaria and
Germany is not yet clear, but diplo-
mats here believe that word of it
was brought from Moscow by British
Ambassador Sir Stafford Cripps to
Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden's
Ankara conference last week end,
and that it is largely responsible
for the exceptionally harmonious
course of the Anglo Turkish CONVEX
sations and the prompt reinforce
ment of Turkish troops at the
Greek frontier.
AS long as the Damoclean sword
of the Nazi drive hung undecided
between Turkey and Greece, the
Russians withheld their hand and
Premier Foreign Commissar Vaches-
laff M Molotof postponed his much
heralded speech. But once the deli
cately manipulated Bulgaro-Turkish
treaty of friendship had immobilized
both countries with respect to each
other and so protected the Darda-
nelles, and the Nazis had been
obliged to tip their hands toward
the Salonia drive, the Moscow silence
was broken thunderously.
There are signs that the war of
nerves is entering a British as well
as Russian phase. The Russians are