NOTES ON THE WAR NEWS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 89, 16 April 1942, Page 4

NOTES ON THE WAR NEWS

RUSSIAN POSITION

WINTER CAMPAIGN RESULTS

The events today in the news are, first, the big and successful American bombing raid, with Flying Fortresses based in North Australia, on Japanese bases in the Philippines; secondly, the progress of the Burma battle, which will probably decide the issue of the road to Mandalay and the fate of the Burma oilfields, and, thirdly, the reconstruction of the Vichy Cabinet, with Laval as a member, which will determine the policy of France towards the belligerents. Overshadowing these in effect on the general outcome of the war is the position in Russia. It is clear, from a reading of American newspapers published in the last week of January and the first of February, that the "Manchester Guardian" is right in its summary of the situation in Russia, given in today's news: Though all her winter hopes have not been realised, Russia is confident this spring. Leningrad has not been relieved, nor has the German "hedgehog" system in the ' centre been broken. Russia, though confident, does not underrate the coming German offensive. Little Change Since January. On January 30 the "New York Times" published a map of the Russian front from Leningrad to the Crimea, showing the original German line before the beginning of the Russian, counter-offensive in the first week of last December, and the German line at the end of January. The old line ran roughly, without any great bulges or salients, from Tikhvin well to the east of Leningrad south-west along the Leningrad-Moscow railway to Kalinin, where it bent a little westward to pass on the outskirts of Moscow to Tula, where there was a bulge eastward, and then almost due south again, east of Orel to Kursk and on to Kharkov and Rostov, where again there was an eastward bulge. This line represented roughly, the high-water mark of German penetrations into Russia. The New Line. The new lineT.'at the end of January, after nearly ;twac mo nths' Russian counter-offensive, was a"much longer and more wavy affair, full of-.salients and re-entrants, with Russia~ far46.~.the west of the November line at'-some points, principally between Leningrad and Kursk. From Kursk to Kharkov the line was much the same as it was at the end of November. South of Kharkov there had been fairly substantial Russian gains, including the push towards the Dnieper at Lozovaya and the freeing of Rostov with the German line back at Taganrog. The Russians had also gained a good foothold in the Crimea and had enlarged the area held by the Sebastopol garrison. But the Germans still held Schlusselburg on the Neva east of Leningrad and a line running from there to Novgorod and Lake Ilmen, south of which the Russians had already "pocketed" Staraya Russa with thrusts extended westward to Dno on the Leningrad-Vitebsk north-south lateral line and to Toropets near Velikie Luki on the same railway. But the Russians had been unable to take Rzhev, 150 miles due east, and Smolensk and Vyazma were still in German hands. So they are still today. y j In the South. - -„ South of Moscow, or at least from Kursk southward to the Crimea, the Russian counter-offensive, though stoutly pushed and skilfully managed by Marshal Timoshenko, was less successful than in the north. There may have been several reasons for this. One is that there is less cover on this area on the treeless plains of the Ukraine and the Eastern Crimea than in the forest regions of the centre and north. This would make advance far more difficult over the snow. Anqttier reason would be the determination of the Germans to hold their line here at all costs for a spring offensive aimed at Baku and the Caucasus. The Russians made tremendous efforts here, in the Crimea and in the Sea of Azov, to isolate the German armies in the peninsula and between Taganrog and Kharkov. Very promising movements were in, progress at the end of January, but they seem to have failed in their ultimate objective. Gain in Attrition. But if territorially—for the line at the end of January is substantially the same as that in the middle of April— the results of Russia's winter campaign disappointed the great expectations of one stage, the results in attrition of German man-power and material through the effort to maintain the spearhead centres of the line have strained Hitler's Wehrmacht to a degree which may well cripple the vaunted "spring offensive" and leave the initiative still mainly in the hands of the Red Army. The losses on both sides in this greatest of all winter campaigns must have been extremely heavy, but it is not too much to assume that the Germans suffered the worse. The classic instance of this form of attrition is Verdun in 1916. Verdun! is usually regarded as a victory for the French, but actually the French losses at Verdun were heavier than those of the attackers, and the French Army; was never quite the same again. Similarly at Staraya Russa and in a dozen other places the Russians created Verduns by which they were able to inflict heavier losses than they themselves suffered. The Outcome. It is certain that if the Germans had not sustained such losses, they would hardly have stripped Western Europe of their garrisons and called on reluctant allies and partners for heavy contributions to the spring offensive. What the outcome of it all will be it is impossible to say. The attitude of Vichy is still undefined, but if the German bloodless victory there is complete and means the use of the French Navy-and ; French bases in France and North ; Africa and, possibly, Madagascar against the Allies, the prospect of a , long war, with further difficult problems, looms before the United Nations. - In war nothing succeeds like success, " and nations standing shivering on the ■, brink of the troubled waters and won- • dering which side is going to win will 1 often take the plunge on a calculation of the odds as they seem at the time. , This was the way with Italy, Rumania, Turkey, and Bulgaria, among others, ! in, the last war, and it may be the \ same in this.