The Russian Front

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23802, 23 November 1942, Page 4

The Russian Front

The events of the last three weeks in Egypt and French North Africa, greatly encouraging for the United Nations in their menace to the Axis grip on the Mediterranean, have overshadowed the equally important Russian front. Although the Mediterranean and Russian fronts may be related only at several removes in the grand strategy of the war, yet there are signs that what has been happening in North Africa, in Egypt, and Cyrenaica may not have been without some effect at Stalingrad and in the Caucasus. Three weeks ago the Russians seemed to be in a serious position in the eastern Caucasus, where the German break-through at Nalchik threatened the Groznyi oilfields and the mountain roads across the Caucasus, and looked as though it might ultimately open a way to the Caspian. At Stalingrad the situation was little better. The renewed German attacks, even if on a smaller scale than previously, and still resulting in heavy enemy losses of men and material, were making small gains each day, so that the Russians were holding a constantly narrowing strip of territory on the west bank of the Volga. It seemed only a matter of time before that strip would disappear. But the Russians still hold most of the strip, and there has been no news of anything approaching the scale of former German attacks against Stalingrad, and in the central Caucasus it is clear from the communiques of both sides that the Russians have won a substantial victory. At the Black Sea end of the Caucasus the position is no clearer than it was some weeks ago, but the important fact is that the Russians still hold Tuapse. Some reduction of German air strength on the Russian front has been indicated in reports from Moscow, and these, taken together with other reports of the appearance in Egypt of German aircraft and air crews, suggest that the Bth Army’s offensive had some repercussions, even if only on a small scale, on the Russian front. If such transfers were needed to help Marshal Rommel in Egypt, they are likely to be made

even more necessary by the North African campaign in Tunisia, where the Germans have to find aircraft for a new front on which air strength may be a deciding factor. In spite of reports of the capture in Egypt of German soldiers transferred by air from Russia, it is hardly likely that the new campaign will help the Russians by drawing off German land forces. In Russia now the onset of winter snows, slowing up all movement, must produce changes in the disposition of forces on both sides. The Germans as well as the Russians are likely to be able to concentrate greater strength in the south. Whether the Russians will be able to mount a winter offensive, as they did last year from Moscow, can only be a matter for conjecture. They lack resources and reserves of men they then possessed, but their loss of productive power is offset to some extent by the material aid they have received and are still receiving from the United Nations. Certainly Russian fighting spirit has not deteriorated. The Germans, in facing a second winter campaign, are likely to be benefited by the lessons of last winter, although the German troops are not likely to welcome the need to apply those lessons in winter fighting, made necessary because Russian resistance has continued so long and at such great cost in German manpower. Some reports suggest that the Russians may be planning an offensive in the Volkhov region, designed to improve the position round Leningrad. The winter may bring changes at Stalingrad, favouring whichever side is best prepared to take advantage of the freezing over of the Volga for the development of Hanking attacks. For the Germans the most favourable winter campaigning ground still appears to be the eastern Caucasus, where forces released from the northern fronts may be thrown into a major attempt to drive down the northern side of the mountains to the Caspian.