Sales Talks at Salzburg

To the pretty little resort town of Salzburg last week went delegations from three Balkan nations--but they didn't go there for fun. It was not yet known whether Germany or Russia (or both) was to be the master of their fate. In case it was Germany they had gone to get their German orders.

Rumania was first on the carpet, its delegation led by white-haired, monocled Premier Ion Gigurtu, who made his fortune in gold mining. Accompanying him was black-haired, swarthy Foreign Minister Mihail Manoilesco, who lost a fortune in coal mining. If anything good was coming to Rumania from Germany, Gigurtu was the man to get it. As a youth he studied at the Mining Academy in Freiberg, Germany, has kept his old German friends and made many more. He has long advocated closer economic cooperation between Germany and Rumania in the belief that they are geographically best suited to cooperate.

Onetime official in Rumania's Department of Industry and Commerce, Gigurtu helped form great Mica Co., largest Rumanian gold-producing concern (in a country which produced $6,204,961 worth in 1937) and a company which occupies in the Rumanian financial picture the same status that U. S. Steel does in the U. S. He is also a power in Rumanian aviation, publishing (the weekly Libertea), and Rightist politics.

After preliminary consultations at Castle Fuschl near Salzburg with German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, Messrs. Gigurtu and Manoilesco motored to Berghof for a talk with Herr Hitler, proceeded to Rome the same afternoon. With heavy rhetoric the Berlin radio summarized the results of the conference: "Germany today, less than ever, had reason to refrain from pointing out that the Reich is in favor of reasonable Bulgarian and Hungarian revision claims." The result of the Salzburg sales talks will not be made public until Bulgaria and Slovakia have had their turns on the mat.

But the Rumanian Government was reported willing to cede a "narrow strip" of Transylvania northwest of the Transylvanian Alps to Hungary; Germany had reason to believe that it had achieved a clean sweep in Rumanian internal affairs, at least as of last week.

More than a narrow strip of Transylvania was already out of Rumanian hands when sorely beset King Carol II acceded to the suggestion of roly-poly Colonel Gerstenberg, Hitler's capable and very persuasive Balkan bagman, and gave the 740,000 Germans in Transylvania the right to arm, immunity from joining the new Rumanian Party of The Nation and freedom from Army requisitioning.

Germany's biggest triumph of the week occurred when Rumania took over the British and Dutch-controlled vast Astra Romana oil company. Rumania expelled twelve French oil executives. Week earlier Rumania had ordered all tank cars in the possession of oil companies put at the disposal of the State railways. Allied-owned and chartered tankers on the Rumanian Danube were halted, a probable prelude to outright requisitioning. All this indicated that Germany would eventually receive practically all Rumanian oil exports (4,177,554 metric tons in 1939) except that from U. S.-owned wells.

Britain's comeback was feeble but ingenious. The Royal Navy picked up three Rumanian vessels at Port Said. And London hastily recognized "the fundamental justice" of Bulgaria's claims on Rumanian Dobruja.

Russian Angle. Not too subtle was Great Britain's sponsorship of the Dobruja claim. Russia would like to be the Big Brother and Sponsor No. 1 of Bulgaria, and Russia wants all (not just the old Bulgarian part) of the Dobruja for Bulgaria so that the two nations may establish a pan-Slavic frontier. Now that Britain is powerless to stop Hitler in the Balkans, anything that Russia can do to stop him is fine & dandy in London.

With Germany determined to settle the simmering Balkans, the Russian angle last week seemed to be to get them to boil over. Into circulation went rumors of a Russian-proposed three-nation block of Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Rumania. Also rumored was a Russian note suggesting the desirability of a "popular Government" in Rumania. Fortnight ago the Moscow radio stopped criticizing Rumania, began defending her title to Transylvania. And last week Soviet agents began distributing propaganda tracts, appealing to all Balkan workers to follow the example of the proletarians in the three Baltic States and "liberate themselves" by joining the U. S. S. R.

How long Russia and Germany could continue to get in each other's hair without getting at each other's throats became a matter for speculation. Conquered Poles hopefully set the date of a Russo-German conflict: Sept. 1.

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