OCCUPIED EUROPE: Heirs to Attila

Precedents there were aplenty. In 70 A.D. Roman legions under Titus destroyed Jerusalem, slaughtered 1,100,000, sent 97,000 into slavery. Attila the Hun sacked and burned all of Northern Italy, spared Rome only after Pope Leo I appeared in the Hun camp with an eloquent plea for the Holy City. Genghis Khan butchered the people of Samarkand, razed the city.

Last week Franklin Roosevelt and the Yugoslav Government-in-Exile were convinced that Nazi Germany had, not only precedent, but a blueprint for the destruction of Belgrade, pre-war Yugoslavia’s capital city. Belgrade, according to Berlin, is the operations center for the German-hating, fight-loving Chetniks, Serbian guerrilla fighters. Said a terse White House statement: “The city will be surrounded by troops and exposed to bombardment by artillery and from the air. . . .”

A spokesman in Berlin officially denied that the German Government plans to raze Belgrade or to exterminate the population. But a German military proclamation issued in Serbia declared: If German soldiers are fired on from any town, the town will be destroyed by fire, the male population will be taken prisoner, every second man will be shot and his property will be forfeited to the German Army.