AXIS DISORDER IN CAUCASUS

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 110, 3 February 1943, Page 5

AXIS DISORDER IN CAUCASUS

New Coup Threatened (By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright.) LONDON, February 1.

After the annihilation of the vast German armies at Stalingrad, the Russians in the Caucasus are menacing Hitler with the loss of yet another quarter of a million Germans and Rumanians and more vast quantities of equipment. , , .Military observers in London believe that the German forces in the western Caucasus nitty amount to about 2-1 divisions, including three panzer divisions. The forces are thought to comprise the First Panzer Army, the 17th Army and probably four Rumanian divisions. Their front in this area comprises' roughly an ore following a line of 250 miles from Hie confluence of the Don and Douetz Rivers in the north, then south to Tikhoretsk, then along the railway to. Krasnodar, and ultimately to Novorosswk, Moro Towns Fall. Moscow reports that the Russians have occupied Uelorechcnskaya, 15. miles north-west of Maikop, and the junction of tiie railway from Maikop with the Tuapse-Armavir railway; also Ryazanskaya, which is 25 miles east of Krasnodar. Reuter's Moscow correspondent says that, the Russians, by-passing Krasnodar, captured Goryachiikylucb, 30 miles Io the south, indicating a drive to Novol’uSsisk. the important Black Sea port. The Russians' progress to the Black Sea is less hampered by the disordered enemy than by the dillicult terrain., says the Stockholm correspondent of ‘‘The 'l'imes,” but the Russians are employing Transcaucasians, who know the country, thereby facilitating the outflanking and 'solation of the enemy.

The Russians on the congested railways are collecting copious quantities of war material which the Germans, not believing (hat they would have to retreat, had conceittrail'd for battles in the spring.

Tim Moscow correspondent of ‘‘'The Times” reports that the t.'aueasian armies throughout the campaign have recovered 50,1)00 square miles of country. Every square mile tak'-n augments the Russian assets by some of the Soviet's richest farming country, and the people are now being called on to make an immense effort o prepare for the spring sowing.