January 16, 1940; BELLGUIM & NETHERLAND MILITARY ORDERED TO BORDER POSTS:

THIS WAS REPORTED TODAY, JANUARY 16, 1940:

Officials Declare There Is

No Acute Danger Just at
Present from Germany

Ambassador of Belgium Is

Ordered by U. S. to Rush
Back to His Post

AMSTERDAM, Jan. 16 (AP)—Despite official assurances that Belgium and The Netherlands are in no immediate danger of invasion, the new United States ambassador to Belgium hastened today to his post.

NO ACUTE DANGER
The envoy, John Cudahy, former minister to Ireland, left Dublin last night under urgent instructions from Washington to take his station at once It was understood in the Irish capital that the urgency was connected with tension in the low countries over reports of German troop concentration along the borders.

(Authorized Berlin sources declared the scare in The Netherlands and her neighboring fellow neutral, Belgium, was "made in Paris" and designed to provoke Germany into an aggressive step. They denied Germany planned any such move )

Cudahy was appointed ambassador to Belgium and minister to Luxembourg on January 4, succeeding Joseph E. Davies, now assigned as special assistant to the secretary of state.

In The Netherlands where all army, air force and naval leaves had been canceled over the weekend, authoritative sources declared there was "no acute danger.”

 

 

 

Close to one million Belgian and Netherlands soldiers were reported

at or ordered to positions along the borders of the Lowlands, ready

to meet any German threat. Observers estimated that Belgium had

600,000 men under arms and the Nctherlanders would soon have 490,000.

Berlin said reports of German military moves along the Lowland borders

were "so much nonsense." In Brussels (1), soldier-laden trucks

rolled toward the frontier

LONDON, Jan 16 (/P)—Prime Minister

Chamberlain and the man he removed as war minister on January 5, Leslie Hore-Belisha. buried an incipient ministerial crisis in guarded statements before parliament today which drew a nod of approval even from the opposition

NO CHANGE IN POLICY

Chamberlain, declining to give detailed reasons for the change in the war office, said that he "had become aware of difficulties arising out of the very great qualities" of Hore-Belisha "which in my view made it desirable that a change should occur." He said no change of army policy was anticipated. Hore-Belisha, saying he knew of "no conflict of policy with any of my colleagues," declared he was reluctant to believe" that high army officers would have made "representations" that led to Chamberlain's decision.

The prime minister in reply to a question said, "I deny that I asked the secretary for war to take another office . . on account of prejudice aroused by the fact that he was a Jew."