ANXIETY ABOUT BALKANS

Press, Volume LXXX, Issue 24152, 11 January 1944, Page 5

ANXIETY ABOUT BALKANS

GERMAN RETREAT IN SOUTH RUSSIA DEFENDING RUMANIA (8.0. W.) RUGBY, Jan. 9. The capture of Kirovograd and the Russian advance beyond the town' in the general direction of Nikolaev place the Germane holding the Krivoi Rog and Nikopol positions in extreme danger, but it is pointed out in London that there is no sign yet of the Germans abandoning these positions, in spite of what the Russians describe as a break-through and what the Germans call an avalanche. Speculation in the London Sunday newspapers is that Hitler is not concerned so much now about the loss of iron from Krivoi Rog or manganese, as with the disastrous effect of the wholesale evacuation of southern Russia on the morale of his Balkan satellites, and the possible loss of the Ploesti oilfields. Military correspondents almost unanimously agree that the loss of Kirovograd means that the German Dnieper bend defences are collapsing. The “Sunday Times’’ says that Marshal von Mannstein must have more troops or he is finished. “The whole scene recalls strongly those moments in the battles of the past when fate hung poised between defeat and disaster,” it says, “It seems to the onlooker that with a little more pressure (he fabric of the German defence will fall to pieces. It has happened on the borders of Poland, and it is not far away, so far as on? can judge from a distance, in the vital area of VinnitsaZhmerinka.” The “Observer” says that in southeast Europe the Russian advance has created political turmoil and conditions bordering on panic in the satellite countries. It comments: “The puppet governments and their followers are now watching the Russian advance towards Bessarabia and Bukoviha as a shipwrecked mariner on a reef would watch the rise of the tide which will inevitably sweep him away.” Defence of Balkans “Hitler is believed to have given orders that the Russians must be prevented at all costs from breaking into the Balkans,” says the diplomatic correspondent of the “Sunday Express.” “He is determined to keep Rumania in the war, even if it means new Russian gains in Poland. Apart from their desire to prevent the Russians taking Balkan airfields and the Rumanian oilfields, the Germans the penetration of Poland by the Russians will make mischief between the Allies. “Hitler is reported to have sent the following message to German officers from his headquarters: T order you not to yield a single inch of ground without making the enemy pay a terrible price. Every inch of ground yielded brings the enemy an inch nearer German soil.’ • “There are already persistent rumours that King Michael and his Minisisters want peace at any price. Informed diplomats in London , believe that the Balkan countries will not remain in the war very long. Reports reaching London state that the political turmoil in.the Balkans is bordering on panic. “To bolster up prestige and keep the enemy from the Balkans, the German High Command took very big risks in south Russia,” says the correspondent. “There is no indication that the German armies there are anything like trapped, but at any rate something greater than another defeat seems to be in store for them." One well-informed London commentator considers that the German decision to stand in the Dnieper bend regardless of consequences will compel Marshal von Mannstein to choose between defending southern Poland and defending Rumania, and that the Russians intend to compel him to choose the Rumanian alternative, leaving a gap of 200 miles between the Pripet Marshes and the Carpathians. “Assuming that the Germans retreat from the lower Dnieper, they presumably now have no alternative but to do so towards Rumania, relying chiefly on the mediocre railway across the Dniester, where the front would be deviously supplied through Hungary,” says the commentator. “The most immediate crucial question is whether the Germans, while holding at Vinnitsa, are able soon to amass sufficient reserves to deliver another counter-offen-sive from Rowno and Tarnopol along the railways to the east.”

NEW SERVICE AWARD

1939 1943 STAR

CONDITIONS ANNOUNCED BY WAR OFFICE

(8.0. W.) RUGBY, Jan. 9. Provisional instructions for the award of the ribbon of the 1939-43 Star have been issued by the War Office. The Star will rank after the Africa Star, and no one may receive both. The ribbon is to be dark blue, red, and light blue, in three equal vertical stripes.

The Star is to be granted to all officers and other ranks of the United Kingdom and colonial forces, nursing officers, officers and other ranks of the Women’s Auxiliary Territorial Service, and to Voluntary Aid Detachment officers and members.

Recipients must have an aggregate of six months’ service in any of the following operational commands;— France, Norway. Belgium, Holland, North-west Frontier, and India, before the end of 1942; or have seen service in Greece, Crete, and Iraq, in April and May, 1941; Syria, in June and July, 1941; Persia, in August, 1941; Hong Kong, in December, 1941; Malaya, from December, 1941, to February, 1942; China and Burma, from December, 1941, to the end of 1943; New Guinea, from March, 1942; Madagascar, from May to November, 1942; Sicily, in July, and August, 1943: or in Italv, from September, 1943, to the end of 1943. Time as prisoner of war in any of the above commands also counts. There are exceptions to the six months’ qualifying rule. The Star is also to be awarded to those who have done six months’ sea-going duty in dangerous waters, in the maritime artillery, with the anti-aircraft defence of merchant shipping, or as anti-aircraft light machine-gun troops for the defence of ships in the Government’s service.

Service on certain unstated operations and in commando raids will also be a qualification. .....