NOTES ON THE WAR NEWS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIV, Issue 66, 15 September 1942, Page 4

NOTES ON THE WAR NEWS

THE FIRST FRONT

EVENTS IN RUSSIA

During a phase of the war when it is less possible to see ahead than ever before Russia still presents the first front on the development of which in the next few weeks will depend, to a large degree, the course of events elsewhere. If Russia can hold out at vital points, such as Stalingrad, until winter comes, the Allies can definitely look to passing to the offensive almost everywhere next year. If Russia is overwhelmed at such points, there will be repercussions in other theatres. The Axis Powers, held up at many points, may be expected to resume the offensive with renewed vigour, with other objectives possible both in the Far East and in the West. The position in Russia, due to rigid control of'the news and the reticence of. the authorities, has seldom corresponded exactly to the picture presented, to the world. Sometimes the reality has been better and sometimes worse than could be made out from what was published over the air or in the news or divulged by representative Russians like Messrs. Molotov, Maisky, and Litvinov. Stalin himself seldom speaks except to urge the defence to stick it out when hard pressed. Hence it is difficult to know accurately what the published news really means. What, for instance, are the prospects of Stalingrad's holding out till winter immobilises the attack, first in the preliminary rains and then in the snows and frost? Would it be too much to put the position at about fifty-fifty? There are no signs yet of the German attack slackening and no signs of the Russian defence collapsing. Withdrawals here and there to new lines are mentioned in the news, but there is nothing to show that the enemy has yet at'any point penetrated to the city itself. .The outcome of the struggle, therefore, seems to depend on which side can outlast the other. , Keypoint in Defence. The strategic importance of Stalingrad is that it is the keypoint in the best defensive line protecting the region of the Volga and Russia's last remnant of firsti-class grain-growing land west of the Volga—the black-soil plains between Voronezh on the Don and Saratov on the Volga. If Stalin-1 grad falls, and with it many of its defenders, there is no other natural defensive line for many miles north, and the Germans might decide to strike here to the rear of Moscow. More probably they would drive south for the Caucasus oilfields of Grozny and Baku, with their rear defended by a fortified line between the Don and Volga, including Stalingrad, which might well become their winter quarters. How strong such a defensive line could be made is shown by the difficulty the Russians are having in releasing the German grip on Leningrad along the Volkhov River and the southern shore of Lake Ladoga at Schlusselburg where the Neva emerges on its course through Leningrad to the Gulf of Finland. Schlusselburg the Germans have now held for over a year and by it have cut off Leningrad from railway communication with the south. Supplies during the winter have come across the frozen surface of Lake Ladoga and in the summer time have been ferried across. There are awkward periods of shortage during the freezing of the lake in the early winter and the break-up of the ice in the late spring. Slow Progress. Soviet progress against the German fortified lines in the Leningrad and Moscow sectors is inevitably slow and probably fairly costly. The process of the offensive here is reminiscent of the methods used against trench systems on the Western Front in the last war. Only a complete break through a fairly wide gap would give the Red Army the necessary freedom of action to deploy and sweep forward with full tank and other mobile equipment. Such breaks have not been achieved in this phase of the campaign either round Rzhev or south of Leningrad. But they are always possible and, if accomplished, might play havoc with the whole German front in Russia. Brighter Side. So far as communication between the north and south of Russia goes, if Stalingrad should fall, the position is not quite so bad as might appear. Baku, the *hief source of Russian oil, is still a long way from the nearest German advance at Mozdok, and there is water communication from Baku up the Caspian north to the port of Gurev at the mouth of the Ural River about 250 miles north-east of Astrakhan, the Volga port on the Caspian. From Gurev there is a pipe-line to Orsk, at the foot of the Ural Mountains, connected by railway with Moscow and the trans-Siberian system. On the western slopes of the Urals are. the smaller oilfields of the Volga-Ural district with an output of 27,500,000 barrels in 1941, or about 11 per cent, of Russia's total production of 240.000,000 barrels, 71.2 per cent, of which came from Baku. The Volga-Ural oil is refined at Ufa in the Urals, a junction of several lines of railway. There are pipe-line connections. South-east of the Caspian in the provinces of Turkmen and Uzbekistan are new oilfields with potential high production, but at present lacking refineries. There is rail connection with Krasnovodsk on the Caspian opposite Baku and via Tashkent with the main system at Orenburg. Threat by Air. If the Germans are threatening Russia's sources of oil, the Russians have struck a serious blow at Germany's main natural supply in the Rumanian oilfields with their centre at Ploesti. A few more raids like that reported today on Ploesti and the Rumanian capital, Bucharest, would very soon curtail to the limit the Reich's already inadequate supplies. So far it is the air offensive from the east as well as the west that is doing most damage to Germany's war effort. Carried out on a co-ordinated systematic plan this should go far to prepare the way for a decisive second front whenever in the west it should be decided to strike. In the meantime there are critical weeks ahead in which events might change the whole situation for better or worse.