NEW IMPORTANCE

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 239, 9 October 1942, Page 3

NEW IMPORTANCE

CAUCASUS THEATRE

Foiled Nazis Turn Weight Of

Armies South

United Press Association—Copyright

LONDON, Oct. 7.

Simultaneously with the intensification of the assault on Stalingrad, the German Command has launched a new large-scale offensive all over the Caucasus, which suggests that it is in southern rather than northern Russia that the final phase of Hitler's 1942 campaign will be fought out. The Caucasus attack is a reliable indication that the German Command can no longer afford to await Stalingrad's fall, but it is also a warning to the over-optimistic that Hitler's war machine is still very formidable.

For some weeks there have been reports of a concentration of troops and Panzers south of Rostov to a front which extends along the Caucasian Mountains from south of Novorossisk to Mosdok. Hitler's original intention probably was to overrun Stalingrad and then sweep southwards with two prongs, one based on Rostov and the other on Stalingrad. Thus the Germans would have avoided the Caucasus mountain barrier by landings behind the Russian lines from the Black Sea and the Caspian.

Stalingrad's resistance has upset the plan, and the Germans have not succeeded in reaching the Caspian coast south of Astrakhan—an alternative plan the near accomplishment of which once threatened to offset the Russian retention of Stalingrad.

The dogged Russian resistance— the more surprising because it came after the speedy retreat south of the Don River from Rostov—has pinned down the Germans around Novorossisk and Mosdok for two months and has baffled Marshal von Kleist and caused unexpectedly heavy German losses, particularly in Panzers. Failure at Stalingrad Now, strengthened by considerable reinforcements, the Germans are again attacking in force—doubtless hoping for a spectacular victory, with which, if not to explain away, they can at least partly disguise to the home front the failure at Stalingrad. Meanwhile Stalingrad's garrison continues to defy the enemy—losing a house or street here but recapturing a house or street there.

For three days since dawn on Sunday, General Hoth has thrown in wave after wave of Panzers and infantry against the north-western districts, deploying with maximum effort three divisions and 100 tanks.

The battle was still raging last night, when Moscow reported that the defenders' positions were substantially intact—words totally inadequate to convey the magnitude of the garrison's achievement.

Prisoners say that Hitler has ordered Stalingrad's immediate capture regardless of cost, and the next few days may be crucial, although both Moscow and Stalingrad, which have endured so much, are increasingly confident that the city will be held.