Evening star., 1941-02-26
Germans Take Over
Bu|gar Monastery;
Railway IsCIosed
Will House 5000 Troops
Line Leads to Gornu
And Greek Frontier
By GEORGE WELLER.

Chicago Daily News Foreign Correspondent.
SOFIA, Feb. 26.-The famous Rila
Monastery in the planned German
headquarters area, south of Sama-
kov, has been taken over for military
use and the press admitted today
that the narrow-gauge railway con-
Meeting 1t with the main line at
Gorna had been closed to the public.
Located in a valley in the midst
of beautiful tree-covered mountains,
5000 to 5000 feet high, the sprawl
ing monastery is one of the most
ample edificeS in Bulgaria and can
house at least 5000 soldiers. Both
road and railroad, which are eX-
cellently kept, lead from the monas-
terry by way of Gorna to the Greek
frontier at Petritisch, distance of
about 70 miles through a narrow
valley.
The situation is excellent for de-
fenSe as we'll as attack. The forces
in the monastery can cover any at
tempt by the Greeks to apply their
famous Albanian mountain-and-
valley technique. Tschankouria, the
ski resort directly south of Samakov,
which has been put aside for Ger
man headquarters, is hardly 10 miles
away by mountain trail from the
monastery, but any considerable at
tacking force would have to 60 all
around Ria plateau and capture the
town of Dupnica and city of Sama-
lyn hafnro could toln tho rnSnrt
whose villas and pensions have been
requisitioned for German staff use.
Must Transship Supplies.
The theoretical German attack on
Greece, however, will probably have
to be made by motorized columns
alone because the 6O-centimeter-
gauge lumber railroad from the
monastery to Gorna, like the 75-
centimeter line from Gorna to
Greece, is useful only for transport
of minor supplies, transshipments
from the wide gauge being necessary
at Gorna.
Further particulars regarding the
penetration of German tank and
motor car columns, not accompanied
by uniformed soldiers, have been
received, and confirm that armored
equipment is still coming in by road
and rail from the Rumanian into the
Bulgarian Dobruja. Some tanks
have been seen aboard the railroad
passing through BaZargic en- route
southwark. and another armored
column is somewhere west or south
of Silistra, the Danube port.
King Boris has still not granted
an audience to all the opposition
leaders who Monday requested the
privilege of conferring with him on
foreign policy. However, it is ascer-
tanned, although officially denied,
that Nikola Moushanoff and
Ataneas Bouroff, both Anglophile
politicians and the latter a former
foreign minister, did confer with
Premier Bogdan Philoff on Satur-
day.
Anti-NaZiS Still Held.
The anti-Nazi Macedonian lead
ers. arrested Saturday, have been
sent to a concentration camp at
Stanimaka, southeast of Plovdiv. The
anti-Nazi agrarian leaders and men,
bers of the military society, zveno,
are still held in Sofia. Police have
seized the printing plant of the
Macedonian, Lazar Poupovisky, one
of those on the way to the concen-
tration camp, and have arrested the
manager and an assistant. This
printing plant had been used by the
British for their publicity material.
Bulgarians who kept their ears
glued to their radios all yesterday
afternoon, anXiously listening to hear
whether Russian Premier Foreign
Commisar Vyacheslaff M. Molotoff
would give the Germans the signal
for acceleration of the slow-motion
blitZkrieg, prepared themselves today
for another period Of anxious eX-
pectancy.
Press advices from Moscow left it
uncertain whether Molotoff would
actually speed the Germans in the
direction of Greece and away from
the DardanelleS, or would exploit the
exposed German communications
and heighten this suspense by treat
ing the invasion with the delphlc
ambiguity which the Balkans have
come to associate with Russian
policy.
(Copyright, 1e41, Chicago Daily News, Inc)