Foreign News: Black Clouds, Black Sea

A new German Fleet of small submarines and torpedo boats, floated down the Danube or shipped in pieces by rail, was assembling last week in Bulgarian ports. Only rumor announced the news, but for once rumor had support. Berlin papers carried a photograph of no less a Nazi seaman than Grand Admiral Erich Raeder conversing with Bulgarian officers. The Russian Government sent a sharp note accusing its old friend Bulgaria not only of harboring Axis army and air force units, but of letting Axis warships gather in the ports of Varna and Burgas (on the Black Sea) and Ruschuk (on the Danube).

For Russia, already neck-deep in the world’s greatest battle, this meant that another battle, perhaps another enemy, soon would have to be faced.

Vital to the defense of Russia is her Black Sea Fleet, which has played a part in the defense of Odessa and dominates the rest of the Sea. Last week Turkey stoutly refused to allow Italian ships to pass through the Dardanelles, and the Black Sea was still a Russian lake. But Russia was obviously worried.

It would be a large order for the Axis fleet to sweep Russia’s cruisers, destroyers and submarines out of the Black Sea. But the Nazis would hardly have sent so big a shot as Admiral Raeder to Bulgaria for his health.

Many observers thought that the Nazis were planning, not a Battle of the Black Sea, but a Battle for Batum and its oil. Remembering the swift air-&-sea invasion of Norway, they pointed out that Transcaucasia is only 700 miles across the Sea from Bulgaria, less than three hours by troop-carrying plane.

Not to be ruled out was an attack on the Dardanelles. For months reports of German and Bulgarian troops concentrating on the Turkish border have kept the Ankara Government jumpy. A land offensive, synchronized with attacks by Admiral Raeder’s fleet on Istanbul and the Italian Fleet on the Mediterranean end of the Straits, might win the Axis control of the Dardanelles, enable an Italian naval force to push into the Black Sea.

Whatever the Axis plans for the Black Sea, Russia was not caught napping. Soviet bombers began pounding Rumanian ports. If it should also be necessary to bomb Bulgaria, Russia’s note, next thing to a declaration of war, cleared the way.