NOTES ON THE WAR

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 45, 23 February 1942, Page 4

NOTES ON THE WAR

NEWS

THE RUSSIAN FRONT

PROSPECTS FOR SPRING

The news over the weekend has, on the whole, been good—nothing spectacular, but a balance on all fronts in favour of the Allies and , against the Axis. Resistance to' Japanese thrusts at many points in the vast Far Eastern front, mainly directed against Burma and Java, is stiffening and enemy progress is slowing down, accompanied by disproportionate losses. Further information is needed for any accurate assessment of the situation. In Russia the Red Army is fighting its way forward. Libya is fairly quiet. . It is no disparagement of the great! struggle that is raging in the East Indian area and of the conflict at sea that never ceases to hold still that Russia remains the real decisive theatre of war. If the Russians succeed in beating Hitler in Russia the whole problem of the war becomes greatly simplified. What are the prospects? For the past week or so the Russian communiques and other references in the news from Moscow have given few names of places, The idea is, no doubt, partly to withhold information that might be useful to the enemy and partly to keep good news for the celebration of the Red Army's 24th anniversary today. Thus tomorrow we may hear of* important successes reserved'for this occasion. But if anything really big had happened, such as the complete breaking of the German grip on Leningrad or the recapture by the Russians of places like Rzhev, Vyazma, Orel, Kursk, or Kharkov, the news could hardly have been concealed. These are key positions to which the Germans have so far hung on desperately, though the Russians in many places have advanced far to the west of them. If the Red Army could free the Leningrad-Moscow railway and its extension south from Moscow to Sebastopol from the clutches of the enemy, the position would be far more secure. Nazi Reserves. On the other hand, to hold the various places mentioned and most of the Crimea the Germans have had to throw in reserves scraped, together from all parts of occupied Europe and | to call on their partners, Italy, Hun- j gary, and Rumania, for further and heavier contributions of troops which j those countries are very reluctant to ] give. Germany itself seems to have been well combed of all its available mwi-power to supply the insatiable demands of the Russian front and to accumulate a striking force for a last desperate offensive in the spring. There is nothing so far to show that the drain on Axis reserves has not been greater than that on Russia herself, and unless the man-power and material are available to the Axis in the spring, the much-heralded spring offensive which ig to accomplish so much—push the Russians back to the Volga and the Caucasus, overrun Turkey and Egypt, and push on towards India—will never materialise. The odds are against it. If supplies to Russia from America and Britain can be maintained, Russia is more likely to retain the initiative than to lose it. There are no signs whatever of any weakening in the force behind the Russian push, and the stiffening of resistance to it at certain points has already been explained. A Japanese attack on Siberia in the spring, mentioned as possible by the Chinese War Minister at Chungking, would not help Hitler much/but would greatly improve the position of the Allies in the Fai East by giving them a base for direct attack by air on Japan itself. The more immediate' dangers to the Allied cause arise from the movements of the German navy, strengthened by the escape of the warships from Brest. The sighting of a German battle fleet, headed by the Tirpitz. steaming north off the coast of Norway, is, if the Stockholm report is true, a matter of some concern in the Battle of the Atlantic, but the fate of the Bismarck should be some assurance of the capacity of the British Navy to deal with the menace.