Strategic Map: The Battlefield of Grain

In the spring of 1938 Hitler took Austria. In the fall of 1938 he conquered Czecho-Slovakia at Munich. In the fall of 1939 he took Poland. If Britain and France had not called for a showdown at that time he would not have attended to them until later. His next step would logically have been to carve himself an empire in that part of Europe which is mapped on the two following pages.

For Germany cannot be in prime condition to fight wars of conquest until she is blockade-proof. To be blockade-proof she needs adequate supplies of food for her people and oil for her machines. She did not have those things when World War II began and all her conquests of 1940 have not won them for her. The logic of conquest is that at the first convenient opportunity Hitler must turn to get them, turn southeast into the granary of Europe.

Laced as it is with mountains, this area is larger than it looks. Vienna at the western edge of the map is no farther from the Atlantic Ocean than it is from the Crimea in the eastern half of the map. The Hungarian Plain—the fringes of which are shared by Germany, Yugoslavia and Rumania is roughly as large as the northern half of France. After the Danube escapes from this plain through the Iron Gate it emerges into another plain, the northern part of which belongs to Rumania, the southern part to Bulgaria. But the biggest and most fertile plain of all begins at the eastern slopes of the Carpathians and rolls eastward across the black soils of the Ukraine to the steppes east of the Sea of Azov. The size of this farm belt can be judged by the fact that the Black Sea beside it is about twice as long 25 Lake Superior. It compares in size to the combined area of Indiana, Illinois, Iowa and Nebraska.

Besides these major agricultural areas, there are other small but very productive districts, notably the mountain-locked valley of the Maritsa in Bulgaria—famous for its tobacco and its roses—the plains of Macedonia just to the south, the valleys of brace north of Salonika.

In minerals and industry the resources of these regions are small or undeveloped. Even Rumania’s oil bulks large only because of the shortage of oil in Europe. (Rumania’s production is about equal to that of Ohio, 16th in production of U. S. oil States.) Moreover, wars, repeated invasions since early Roman times, and political oppression have kept the people of southeastern Europe an impoverished peasantry. Yet in their possession are the greatest agricultural riches of the Old World. Today, the permanent ownership of those riches is vital to Europe’s big three dictators.

Hitler’s Problem. Geographically the invasion of the Ukraine is now no more difficult for Germany than the invasion of Poland was a year ago. The Ukraine, like Poland, is almost entirely flat so that motorized columns can romp over it at will unless they meet their military match. The only major obstacles of terrain are the great rivers which flow southward into the Black Sea. While the Ukraine looks flat, it is actually underlaid by layers of rock sloping slightly upward to the east. These layers overlap one another like shingles and the rivers run beside the overlaps, with one low bank subject to flooding and one steep bluff on which most of the big towns lie. But the high bank in each case is on the west so that it presents no obstacle to an invasion from that direction. It offers an actual advantage, for when troops reach the bluff at any point their artillery can command the far bank and protect their crossing.

With Hungary largely under German domination Hitler might be able to launch an attack on the Ukraine from the new Hungarian frontier which lies in the passes of the Carpathians. From there his Army would have a downhill run to the plains. With a friendly totalitarian government in Rumania he might be able to launch his attack on the plains themselves.

Last summer the Russians annexed a piece of Rumania, thereby advancing their frontier from the Dniester to the Pruth River, thereby putting one more river barrier in front of an invader from this direction.

But from the part of Poland which they have acquired the Germans can march southeastward to outflank both these rivers. In fact it would be practical and might (Continued on third page following) be politically advantageous for them to undertake the entire invasion from this direction.

In the Balkans, Hitler would have a different military problem. No Balkan State has an army which could offer serious opposition to Mussolini or Stalin, much less Hitler. Two Balkan States, Hungary and Rumania, are already largely under Germany’s thumb. But if Russia (already on excellent terms with Bulgaria) or some other power should take a hand in the Balkans, Hitler might have pressing reasons for intervening. Moreover, if Hitler is to pick up some of the French, Dutch and British possessions in the Far East his route in that direction leads through Istanbul and Bagdad. That also is his route to the oil fields of Mosul.

To reach Istanbul against opposition, a German Army, by any route it took, would have to fight its way through mountain passes. One set of passes leads through the mountains of Transylvania into the plain of the lower Danube, the route General von Falkenhayn took when he conquered Rumania in 1916. But the main route to Istanbul leads through Belgrade to Nish and thence through Sofia and down through the rich Bulgarian plain and the Maritsa Valley. From Nish through another pass is a route down the Vardar River to Salonika on the Aegean, a port which would serve as one terminus of an alternate route, by sea, through Suez to the East.

The mountains through which German Armies would have to pass on either of these excursions are excellent territory for guerrilla warfare. If a first-rate or even a second-rate army defended the passes, they might prove serious obstacles.

Stalin’s Problem. Soviet Russia has two objectives in the Balkans. One is to protect herself from German invasion. If she could advance her frontier from the Pruth to the summit of the Carpathians she could deprive Germany of one jumping-off place into the Ukraine. Since the danger would remain of this line being outflanked by a German advance southeastward from Poland, the risk of war with Germany in order to seize the Carpathians is probably not worth it in Joseph Stalin’s calculating mind.

Russia’s other Balkan object is age-old: an exit from the Black Sea. Russia’s only other outlets to the world are through Vladivostok, the Baltic and the Arctic Ocean. The U. S. would be in a similar position if its only outlets to the world were through Alaska, Hudson Bay, Newfoundland, and the mouth of the Mississippi, which was held by a foreign power (the Turks). Since the 18th Century the Russians have hankered to possess the Bosporus and Dardanelles. When they tried to get them in 1854 the British, the French and later the Italians joined the Turks rather than let the Russians obtain a foothold in the Mediterranean. This campaign (the Crimean War) produced the Charge of the Light Brigade, Florence Nightingale and the beginnings of the Red Cross but left Russia still landlocked.

For Stalin to have Turkey, a secondary power, control the Bosporus is bad enough, but to have one of his rival dictators, Hitler or Mussolini, dominate the Straits would place him in an economic strait jacket. With them around, his chance of getting it for himself is small but he has every reason for cooperating with Turkey and Bulgaria to keep his rivals out, chiefly by lending the use of his Black Sea Fleet based on Nikolaev and Sevastopol. If Hitler and Mussolini are seriously weakened so that he does not have to fear war with them, he might well attempt to extend his control down the west shore of the Black Sea, but that is an opportunity he can only wait and hope for. His major problem at present is defensive.

Mussolini’s Problem. With Hitler already in a political and military position to dominate the plain of Hungary and Stalin in possession of the Ukraine, Benito Mussolini can hardly pretend to be one of the big three dictators unless he controls at least a part of Europe’s granary. Furthermore, Italy has not adequate food supplies at home and has for years depended on maize from Hungary to help feed her people.

The dictators may be friends but their deals are of a kind the U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission would approve—at arm’s length. Not only because of Hitler’s stronger army did Mussolini have to yield dominance of the Hungarian Plain to Germany. The Dinaric Alps which cut off that plain from the Adriatic Sea and Mussolini are not the highest mountains in Europe but some of the most rugged and impassable. The Pindus Mountains in Albania and northern Greece are considerably higher (they include Mt. Olympus, 9,730 ft., with Ossa and Pelion handy for climbing) but much easier to traverse with an army. There are actually two or three roads through them.

So Mussolini’s most practical route into the Balkans lies across the Strait of Otranto, on one side of which he has a base at Brindisi and at the other the fortified island of Saseno. In April 1939 he took Albania, which gave him a jumping-off place on the far side. Thence an Italian Army, unless it meets opposition from the forces of some real power, could make its way through Greece, or via Monastir in Yugoslavia to Salonika. From that point it could either ascend the Vardar River Valley towards Nish, or if that route is blocked by Hitler, make its way into Bulgaria up the Struma and Maritsa Valleys, or along the coast toward the Dardanelles.

Such a drive would cut Italy in on the game that the dictators are playing in this area. More important it would keep the other dictators out of the Mediterranean which the Italians like possessively to call Mare Nostrum. If Mussolini took Bulgaria he would also have to have the port of Dedeagach on the Aegean Sea to give him access to his conquest without going into the Black Sea.

The chief unknown quantity in all these calculations is Turkey, which, holding the Dardanelles and the Bosporus, has the most strategic position of all. The Turk is a good soldier but the Turkish Army has outdated equipment. In Europe Turkey is only a second-rate adversary although if she were forced to retire to the mountains of Asia Minor she might become more difficult to deal with.

Early in World War II, to strengthen her position, Turkey made a passive alliance with Britain. What part she will henceforth play depends on who and how strong are her future partners.