The Press TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 1941. The Crimea

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23447, 30 September 1941, Page 6

The Press TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 1941. The Crimea

For more than a week a large part of Marshal von Rundstedt’s forces in the southern Ukraine has been engaged in a costly effort to force the four-mile w r ide neck of the Crimean peninsula. The attack is not, as might seem at first sight, a mere siege operation against an already isolated position, having little bearing on the main battle for the Ukraine. On the contrary, upon the result of the struggle for the Crimea must depend the nature of the all-important German drive against the Caucasus and the speed with which that drive can be developed. The Crimea is something more than a fortified position; it is a self-supporting military district, much too large to be bypassed like Odessa. As long as it holds out, its air and land forces can harass German land communications in the southern Ukraine and its air and naval forces can command the Black Sea and help the garrison at Odessa, Conversely, if the Germans can take the Crimea they will deprive the Russian Black Sea fleet of its main harbour at Sebastopol and gain possession of bases from which the Russian defensive positions in the Caucasus could be taken in the rear. It was the destruction of the Turkish fleet at Sinope in November, 1853, by a Russian squadron operating from Sebastopol which first impressed upon Europe the importance of the Crimea as a centre of Russian strength in the Black Sea, and, indeed, in south-eastern Europe; and the Anglo-French campaign in the Crimea which was the outcome of this episode showed the strength of the peninsula’s natural defences. England and France and their allies had 175,000 men in the- field at the height of the Crimean campaign; and the casualties on both sides were more than 200,000. Owing to the strength of the Russian Black Sea fleet, the German attack has so far been confined to the narrow isthmus, at the head of which the railway terminal of Perekop, .60 miles east of the mouth of the Dnieper, has been captured. Whether this means that the Crimea is now cut off from the rest of Russia is not clear, since the main line linking Sebastopol with Kharkov crosses an arm of the Sea of Azov further east. Forcing the Crimean isthmus is likely to be an enormously costly operation, since the Russian soldier rises to his greatest feats of endurance and heroism in defensive warfare of this type. But in view of the Russian advance on the Karelian isthmus in the last stages of the Finnish war, and of German successes against fortified positions in Belgium and France, it cannot be called an impossible operation. It is merely a question of the price the German high command is prepared to pay in men, material, and time. Once the isthmus defences give, the defenders will have to retreat across the high, open plain which constitutes three-quarters of the peninsula to the mountainous country along the southern coast. Time is perhaps more important to the German high command at this juncture than either men or materials, for which reason the Crimea may see some of the bloodiest battles of the whole war. (A map of the Crimea appears on the opposite page.)