FUTILE ASSAULTS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 61, Issue 249, 2 August 1941, Page 5

FUTILE ASSAULTS

GERMAN STRENGTH WANING. BEING FOUGHT TO A STANDSTILL PREMATURE REPORTS ADMITTED (United Press Association—Copyright.) LONDON, July 31. The Russian and German war has resolved into a battle of attrition, with the Rod Army’s masses slowly sapping the strength of the Germans, according to observers in Moscow. No territorial change is reported from the Arctic to the Black Sea.

The Stockholm correspondent of the “Daily Mail’’ says that military circles in Moscow declared: “The Germans have been fought to a standstill, wearing themselves out in futile assaults,” The Red Army spokesman, General Cliodin, said: “The Germans lost the war in the first few days. Millions of soldiers and thousands of tanks and planes have taken up their positions, and the Red Army’s resistance is passing from defensive to offensive.” / The Stockholm correspondent of “The Times” says the Germans claim to have begun the extermination of the Russians westwards of Lake Peipus, but there is nothing to indicate appreciable progress. The swoop against Leningrad has lost its impetus, similarly the attempt, to reach Moscow, via Smolensk. Neither plan lias apparently been abandoned, as the Germans are collecting their strength for new assaults. Experts doubt whether the impending third German offensive—although backed by the desperate conviction that they must now do or die —can have such weight as its predecessors owing to losses of supplies and the battering of -the German manpower. Forty-two Assaults. The Moscow correspondent of the Associated Press of America reports that the Germans have launched 42 assaults against Smolensk without success. . . The Berlin radio’s official commentator says that any other European army would have collapsed under such heavy losses, but the Russians so far have always been able to throw in new reserves. It is hoped that the reinforcements will soon diminish. The German propagandists are now admitting that their earlier claims that the Red Air Force had been annihilated were somewhat premature. A German military doctor, talking over the Berlin radio, admitted that the German casualties were so heavy that Ukrainian women and girls were being employed to assist the Nazi medical staff. “There is an incessant flow of wounded to our hospitals, and all our field hospitals are overcrowded. The medical staff is totally insufficient, and it is impossible for us to deal with all the cases.”

A Moscow report states that the Russian Fleet Air Arm sank an enemy destroyer and damaged two large transports in the Baltic. The Air Force also inflicted heavy blows on enemy supply lines. Waves of German planes attempted to raid Moscow during the night’ bur anti-aircraft guns and night fighters dispersed the raiders before they reached the city. One or two pierced the defences and dropped a small number of incendiaries, but the fires were quickly extinguished. There was no damage to military objectives. Communists Shot. The Belgrade correspondent of the Berlin News Agency reports that 90 prominent Communists in Banat province were shot to-day for sabotage. The Moscow radio broadcast a report from Ankara that Schiilenburg, the former German Ambassador to Moscow, was placed undei* house arrest soon after his return to Berlin for. it is reported, his attitude before Germany attacked Russia. The Lisbon correspondent of the “Daily Telegraph” says that Dr. Karl Boemer, a high official m the Berlin propaganda department, has been arrested. He was Goebbcls’s spokesman in communications to the foiVgn press. Dr Boemer disappeared from the Ministry some time before tlie correspondents learned that he had been arrested for the reason that he had been guilty of an “indiscretion” at a diplomatic gathering. The indiscretion is believed to have referred to the Russian campaign. Fierce and stubborn fighting prevailed throughout the day in the great battle for Smolensk, according to a Moscow communique, states an earlier message. The Russians, it states, launched several counter-attacks and hurled the Germans hack with heavy losses.

Forty-two attacks have now boon made by the Germans' on Smolensk, according to a Moscow report. Every one of these attacks, it was stated, had been repelled and the Russians were still holding the town.