THE LATEST

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 63, Issue 309, 9 October 1943, Page 3

THE LATEST

NO RESPITE. GERMANS ON RUSSIAN FRONT. j SOVIET CROSSING OF DNIEPER THREE ARMIES SIMULTANEOUSLY. (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright. (Rec. 2 p.m.) LONDON, October 8. If the Germans, who for the last two and a half months have been compelled to retreat on the whole southern and central parts of the Russian front thought the Dnieper would give them a respite they have been speedily undeceived. Yesterday the German press suddenly began congratulating the High Command on having successfully escaped disaster and having brought the troops back to a firm line of defence, thereby increasing their strength for the next phase. The enemy publicists may have been unaware at that moment the Russians were throwing in three armies simultaneously across the Dnieper. Doubtless they were making the best of a bad job. The very real importance of this line to German necessitates the most strenuous efforts to prevent the Russians breaching it beore the autumn imposes certain restrictions on movement. By now, however, it is not bnly the Dnieper line and the Ukraine which are at stake, as the Russians have extended the scope of their offensive yet further north, and the whole territory between the Gulf of Riga and Leningrad is menaced by a double movement, the Russians pressing both directly against the head of the German salient on the Volkhov River line and also against its base at Neval, in the direction of the Latvian border. Of the three crossings of the Dnieper, that below Kremenchug threatens the German armies in the- bend from Dnepropetrovsk to Zaporozhe. The crossing 50 miles below Kiev is apparently directed at the whore western half of the Ukraine and the Crimea. The third offensive, north of Kiev, continues to be the axis of the main advance, which cleared all the area east of the Dnieper and is the most serious menace to the whole German front. The Germans are now fighting on their last favourable line of defence, with their rear on the Russian frontiers, and if this fails they will probably find themselves compelled to execute another rapid retreat to the borderland of the Baltic Republics, Poland and Rumania. Meaning of Latest Offensive. The latest Russian offensive will have made it even more painfully evident to the Germans that they cannot find enough troops to cope with the Russian situation, with the western Allies advancing in force in the Mediterranean and awaiting the moment to advance in even greater force in Western Europe. Quite apart from what may be brewing jin the west it is clear that the threat in the Mediterranean has assumed twofold form. In the first place powerful mechanised forces are pressing along the Italian Peninsula under formidable air cover and in the second place the heel of 'ltaly is like a springboard toward ithe Balkan coast, 50 miles away, where hundreds of thousands of patriots are awaiting liberation. It also must be remembered that Corsica, backed by Sardinia, projects like another springboard toward the heart of Northern Italy.