CAUTION ADVISED

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 65, 18 March 1943, Page 5

CAUTION ADVISED

FUTURE ON CENTRAL FRONT

LONDON, March 17.

Describing the difficulties in the Russian advance on the central front, Reuters Moscow correspondent says that General Koniev's forces have been fighting continuously for nearly three weeks. Marching 20 miles a day through snow and slush, they have fought dozens of minor and many major engagements, including the battles of Rzhev, Gzhatsk, Sychevka, Byeloi, and Vyazma. The troops advancing south of Byeloi are working through miles of marshes which offer no protection from wind or enemy observation. Those from the east are fighting in dense forests three feet deep in snow, where tanks cannot operate effectively. The Germans west of Vyazma dynamited a river dam, causing the waters to rise six feet above the ice, but the Russians crossed this obstacle. The strain of the fighting is terrific. The German forces in retreat : are thickly mining their wake, and one Russian unit cleaned up 2000 mines in one day. Correspondents of "The Times" advise caution regarding the future of the campaign on the central front. The Moscow correspondent says that though substantial progress has been made towards Smolensk there is much difficult and strongly-fortified country ahead. The Russian newspapers have not yet mentioned Smolensk as an objective. It is realised that Smolensk is as important to the Germans as Bryansk and Kharkov, and possession of it will be stubbornly contested. The Stockholm correspondent of "The Times" says that assertions that Smolensk is immediately threatened are premature. It can safely be said that the Russians have no chance of capturing the heavily-fortified Smolensk zone before summer, because the Germans have the advantage of positions in the Smolensk-Orsha-

Vitebsk railway triangle with excellent rear communications, whereas the Russians are struggling forward mostly in a sea of mud.