Foreign News: Model Armistice

Seven relieved Rumanians bowed out of the Kremlin last week, headed cheerfully back to Bucharest. They carried a signed armistice which the world considered generous. Rumania was officially out of her war against the Allies, into an approved war against Germany and Hungary. She had a promise of the return of northern Transylvania if she did her part in recapturing that rich, disputed region from the Hungarians.

Said the armistice delegation’s head, able, energetic Lawyer Lucretiu Patrascanu, longtime leader of Rumania’s Communists: “We have no right to be dissatisfied with the terms.” The delegation had been in Moscow 14 days—eleven of them waiting around while the Big Three ironed out last-minute differences, three in actual negotiation. It looked as if Rumania had timed her switch expertly. A group of worried Finnish negotiators moved into the Rumanians’ quarters in the Spasso Guest House as soon as they were vacated.

Under the first published set of terms to former allies of Germany (the year-old terms to Italy are still secret), Rumania undertakes, among other things, to:

¶ Place twelve divisions under Russian command, fight until Germany is defeated.

¶ Pay $300 million in kind in six years as reparation to Russia, honor damage claims submitted by the other Allies.

¶ Restore Bessarabia and northern Bukovina to Russia.

¶ Abolish all Fascist organizations, free all antiFascists, intern all Axis nationals, restore in good order all property seized from Allied nationals.

¶ Permit a Russian-managed Allied Control Commission to supervise the Government and press until a peace is signed.

This week the Rumanians handed over to the Russians ex-Premier Ion Antonescu, ex-Foreign Minister Mihai Antonescu (no kin), famed Nazi Balkan Expert Dr. Karl Clodius.

Just before they left Moscow, Lucretiu Patrascanu and delegates received the press, confided their plans: “We shall emerge free, democratic and independent. . . . Only through close alliance with the Soviet Union will we be able to rise again.”

Russia had showed her allies how to do the job they botched in Italy. The mildness of the Rumanian armistice terms was an invitation to all remaining German satellites to switch sides.

Peace and Paralysis. Next in line were the Finns. Minus their chairman, Premier Antti Hackzell, who had suffered a stroke four hours before, they marched up to the Kremlin to learn their fate. Without audible comment they sent the terms to Helsinki. Then the Germans, on orders from Berlin, went back on their agreement to evacuate Finland, began to attack. Angrily, the Finns said a state of war existed with Germany, sent Foreign Minister Carl Enckell to Moscow to give the Government’s answer. At week’s end there was no sure sign whether Russia’s terms to Finland would be stiffer, softer or about the same as those granted Rumania.

Swoop and Pounce. Nobody was more interested in armistice terms than the Bulgarians, whom the Russians had knocked in & out of a war by a sudden swoop and pounce last week. Delegates of Premier Kimon Georgiev’s new Government might be the next guests in Spasso House. The Red Army was already in Sofia.

It was also on the Turkish frontier. A fortnight ago Pravda had lambasted Turkey for not jumping into the war. Now Russians were harping on an old familiar chord—internationalization of the Bosporus and the Dardanelles. The last time Turkish Premier Sükrü Saracoglu saw Moscow was in 1939, when Russia vainly tried to persuade him to close the Straits to other powers. Premier Saracoglu had not had a very pleasant visit in Moscow. Well might he wonder last week if he would not soon again be a guest in Spasso House.