RESERVES LACKING

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 16, 19 January 1940, Page 8

RESERVES LACKING

Having disregarded the .question, of communications in four of his a> tacks, Stalin moved ahead in complete defiance of military history in the south-east.- The'attempt there,seems to have been to smash the Mannerheim Line by direct .assault, using . tanks and heavy artillery, attacking round the northern end of Lake Ladoga and across the Karelian Isthmus. • What happened . here - was. further, proof of the poor planning., of; tha Soviet leaders. ' When .the attack*, nagged there were no reserves-avail-able to push into the gaps. -When the reserves were finally rushed-up < they proved to be second-class .unite obviously hurriedly assembled, and their shortages of equipment and p.oy? erty of ability seem to have fur-, / ( nished the basis for the disparaging statements about the quality of tha' Red Army which began to be telegraphed about this time. Later, however, first-line troops, some .of them recalled from the Polish frontier,, began to be thrown into the campaign, and while they achieved little because of the bad leadership under which they fought, they were* far- tougher adversaries than- the- units- earlier in action.. Yet had it. not been for. the fact that the P'inns have Surprised Europe both by their courage and. ; their skill, the Russians .might have succeeded rapidly, despite the barren strategy of their high command. That i high command is now estimated to have lost three-quarters of its personnel sirice W37. ' Today much depends on what tactics Stalin means to adopt in the.air. Hurried and roundabout reports of the first bombings failed to^give an accurate picture of what \occurred. .. In \ those first raids there does-not appear to have been any deliberate attempt . to bomb Helsinki proper, though objectives in the suburbs, and the~city airport were attacked. Some bombs, it is true, fell in civilian areas; "they may have been badly aimed. Fear of reprisal against nearby Leningrad may have a sobering effect upon the Russians', though at present it seems that they are moving towards indiscriminate air warfare If that course is adopted it may help to shorten Finnish resistance, though the country is more decentralised than most, and the defensive war against Russia was evidently undertaken by people wlio were prepared to stand up to severe ' punishment from the air.