The Press TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1942. Stalingrad

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23749, 22 September 1942, Page 4

The Press TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1942. Stalingrad

The realisation that the defences of Stalingrad are slowly being battered to pieces, that the great Volga waterway is already out of action, and that it is probably too late for the democracies to start a diversion in the west has produced a severe reaction in Britain and the TJnited States, where official propaganda has in the past unwisely buoyed the public’s hopes with assertions that the German advance is “ behind “ schedule ” and extravagant estimates of German losses. Unfortunately, too, there has been a strange willingness on the part of official*information services to draw comfort from the “ admissions ” of German propaganda, which for three months has been emphasising the stubbornness of Russian resistance, reporting Russian offensives which are not mentioned in Russian communiques, and at times even accusing the Russians of exaggerating their own losses. What German propaganda says, it says with intent to mislead. In this instance, it may be suspected, the main purpose of Dr. Goebbels is to persuade the democracies that •Russia’s plight is not so very serious and that therefore there is no justification for precipitate and costly efforts to set up a diversion .in the west. After the fall of Stalingrad the tune will probably change; the democracies will be told, not that Russia is exaggerating her plight, but that she is no longer strong enough to be worth aiding. Another source of unwarranted optimism has been the opinion, popular among war commentators at the beginning of Hitler’s 1942 campaign in the east, that 1942 is the “ year of destiny ” and that unless Germany knocks' Russia out of the war before next winter her ultimate defeat is certain. The most widely-circulated' of British news letters, for instance, was emphatic that September 15 was the latest date on which Hitler could hope for victory. It is now clear that 1942 is most unlikely to give either side certainty of victory. Assuming that the German armies capture Stalingrad and the oilfields of the north Caucasus before winter, the next stage is likely to be a mass transference of German forces from east to west and the launching by Berlin, though probably not from Berlin, of the most intensive “ peace offen- “ sive ” of the whole war. How many divisions Germany would need to maintain a defensive line in Russia is a matter of guesswork, but there is some guide in the estimate of military experts that last winter she held the whole 2000 miles of her western front with 40 divisions. There is thus little likelihood of the war reaching a grand climax in 1942. Failure to encircle and crush the main Russian armies before next winter will not end' Hitler’s chances of winning the war; nor, on the other hand, will the fall of Stalingrad be (as an American newspaper has asserted) a blow to the United Nations comparable to the fall of France, The jquestioh facing the United Nations in the European theatre of war at the end of 1942 will be whether the decline in Russia’s military strength owipg to her enormous casualties and the loss of economic resources will be compensated for by the expansion of the United States war effort—German v/ar production being past its peak and British near its peak. And it is a safe assumption that the margin of advantage on this account to the United Nations will not be large enough to justify the hope of decisive results in 1943, The Idss of Stalingrad, therefore, means neither victory nor defeat; it means a long war.. There is some reason to suppose that this is the sort of situation envisaged by the German Government, for the neutral channels which Dr. Goebbels uses to prepare his “ peace offensives ” are now putting out the view that the war cannot be ended in any reasonable time by a German victory. The year 1943 will make heavy demands on the peoples of the United Nations —demands on their courage, ’their endurance, and their intelligence, But chiefly it will demand of them an unwavering determination to accept nothing less than complete and final victory, however remote it may seem. •