NOTES ON THE WAR NEWS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 27, 2 February 1943, Page 4

NOTES ON THE WAR NEWS

STEP BY STEP

RED ARMY'S OFFENSIVE

Step by step the Red Army is steadily driving back the invaders in Southern Russia, encircling and destroying the enemy in groups large and small, capturing huge quantities of booty and recovering wide areas of some of the most fertile land in Russia. Few campaigns in history have been so well planned, organised, and carried cut, with the attainment of maximum results at minimum cost, all against the heaviest initial odds. The Russian achievements so far this winter open up vast possibilities.

The main fightir.g in Russia is in. the whole region south of Moscow, but the Germans report a continuance of the battle which relieved Leningrad, and also of the battles north-west of Moscow from Rzhev to west of Velikie Ltiki. In all this area north of Moscow the nature of the terrain, wooded and undulating, together with the severer climate, makes progress much less swift than in the south, where the ground is generally flat and free of timber, and this winter so far unusually mild. Here the Russian advance over, a front extending from Voronezh across the Don to the Caucasus has been remarkable indeed, showing a mastery of the art of war the Germans at their peak never excelled. The preparation of the various drives from different points has been so complete and the timing so perfect that the total Russian losses are not likely to have been large, certainly small by comparison with the results obtained. Two Main Drives. There are two main drives now in this great southern offensive, one in the Western Kuban to cut the remnants of the German Caucasus army from retreat via Rostov, and the other from Voronezh, fanning out west and south-west, to cut the main Axis line of communication with the north and j separate the enemy in this region of the Eastern Ukraine from their comrades to the west and south. It serves the purpose of the Soviet High Command to hold the Germans east of Rostov on the Don and Donets so that their retreat also may possibly be cut off by Red Army advances to the rear of Rostov. By the capture of Kropqtkin and Tikhoretsk, the important railway junctions mentioned in these notes last week, and by the cleaning up of the last relic of the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad, the Red Army will have reopened railway communication between Stalingrad, the Caucasus, and Baku. Meanwhile several columns, with the help of Cossack cavalry, are moving towards Krasnodar, the refining centre of the Maikop oilfield and the last important base of the enemy in the Kuban. It: lies on the Kuban River less than 100 miles from its mouth just south of the Straits of Kerch, the channel between the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. Krasnodar is also connected with Rostov by a branch line of railway which rejoins the mam line <v Kuschevka, with a fork running to Yeisk. a small port on the Don estuary below Rostov. On the map there does not seem much hope for the German Caucasus army—what is left of it—to get away. Greater Prospects. The Red Army's Voronezh offensive offers even greater prospects. It is approaching westward the original German line, secured in the summer campaign of 1941 and held against the Russian counter-offensive of the winter of 1941-42 and Timoshenko's anticipatory attack in the spring of 1942, which almost reached Kharkov. This original front has for its main bastions Kursk and Kharkov, and for its mam I line of communications the section south of Kursk of the Moscow-Crimea main line, one of the great trunk railways of Russia. The front south of Kharkov ran through the Donets industrial region down to Taganrog on the Sea of Azov, about 50 miles west of Rostov. One of the possibilities of the Red Army's Voronezh offensive is the recovery of the whole of the Donets Basin, the chief coal-mining and steel and iron centre of European Russia, and at a time when the rest of Russia is short of fuel a very great prize of war. Such a move would compel, oi course, an Axis withdrawal from Rostov to avoid the risk of encirclement. Possible Axis Collapse. Much will depend on the progress of the Russian offensives north of Moscow from Leningrad and Velikie Luki. If they bring about the collapse of the German front there, running due south from Leningrad, then there will be a temptation to the Soviet High Command to exploit the situation to the full and push westward all along the line, cutting behind the German armies and leaving them to be mopped up. But so far the Red Army's operations have been conducted with prudence as well as enterprise, and the current offensives have been limited to the attainment of certain definite objectives before anything more ambitious is undertaken. It should be stated, however, that the tone of the German broadcasts is sombre enough to suggest that a general Axis withdrawal to a defence line much further west than the 1941-42 front is in contemplation, if things get much worse. In this connection, too, General Giraud's survey of the general war situation in Europe is worth noting. Giraud is a competent soldier, who admits to periods of pessimism in the present war, but is now supremely confident of the final result not only in Tunisia but in Europe. The balance of power has turned against the Axis, but those who advocate "second fronts" against the Western Wall of Europe should remember that a considerable military disaster to the Allies, which might easily follow any rash venture, would even the odds again and prolong the war indefinitely. With Japan •still to tackle in the East it would be folly to imperil golden chances in the West by premature "second fronts."