NOTES ON THE WAR NEWS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 67, 20 March 1943, Page 4

NOTES ON THE WAR NEWS

TUNISIA

PRELUDE TO BATTLE

The position in Russia shows . little improvement in the south, where the Germans have the initiative from Kursk to Taganrog. Russian resistance all along the line is stiffening, but the danger is by no means over. German panzers are probing the defences for weak spots everywhere, but with the advance of the thaw their difficulties will increase as they pass into the no man's land of mud with regular communications disrupted by the conflict. Similar difficulties face the Red Army to the northward on the central and north central fronts. It looks as if the general thaw would soon immobilise operations except on the Arctic front, where the Russians are reported on the offensive towards Fetsamo.

In Tunisia, the time is drawing nigh for the decisive battles or series of battles which- will decide the question of an early or late "second front in Europe." There are distinct signs of the prelude to stern fighting. Ber- j lin reports the Eighth Army on the move towards the Mareth Line, and Algiers announces, that the Allies have retaken Gafsa and are advancing in the direction of the Gulf of Gabes to the rear of the Mareth Line. Some such concerted move to encircle Rommel in the south or dislodge him from the Mareth Line is obviously sound j strategy, for direct frontal attacks are always dangerous and costly, and therefore to be avoided if there is any i other way of doing the job. At Alamein there was no other feasible alternative, but Montgomery managed his attack so skilfully as to inflict greater punishment on the enemy than j he received himself. This time in front of the Mareth Line the Allies have i the advantage of the "strategy of indirect approach," as Liddell Hart calls it in his book of that title, covering, cursorily enough, the whole of military history. It was for skill in winning inexpensive victories by this form of strategy that students of war, like Field-Marshal Wavell and Liddell Hart, give the palm for supreme generalship to Belisarius, who, with a "corporal's guard," defended the Eastern Roman Empire against all-comers—Goths, Persians, Vandals—in a series of extraordinary campaigns in the days of Emperor Justinian, 483-565 A.D. Curiously, one of the most brilliant campaigns of Belisarius was against the Vandals in the very region of Tunisia where the British First Army has been fighting. Here, with only 5000 cavalry and 10,000 infantry—picked troops, for he preferred quality to numbers—Belisarius in 531 A.D. completely routed the Vandals," with their 100,000 men, and reconquered Roman Africa, restoring it to the empire. Belisarius was an absolute master of the art of warfare, and there is no knowing how far he might have gone to re-establish the Roman Empire, then far gone in decline, had not Justinian, with petty jealousy of his general's fame, cut off his supplies andT forced him to abandon the task. The Position As It Is. On the map the Allied position in Tunisia is not as good as it was at the end of January, on the eve of Rommel's great sweep in the south-centre, which at one moment threatened Tebessa, the main railway junction and Allied base in that area. Most of the ground has now been recovered, and the Americans, after retaking Gafsa, are now not far from Sened and Maknassy in the direction of Gabes and Sfax. Bad weather is again slowing up operations, and again favours Rommel, who is operating in an area with better roads and some railways. The luck of the weather has gone to the Axis in Tunisia as well as in Russia. Drew Middleton, the "New York Times" correspondent on the Tunisian front, was quoted on the radio by Raymond Gram Swing last night as attributin gthe American defeat in February to a blunder of the Intelligence Seryice, which reported an Axis concentration at Pichon to the north instead of at the Faid Pass. Apparently, Rommel played the old trick of concentrating ostentatiously towards Pichon in the daytime under Allied air observation and then of swiftly withdrawing to the Faid at nighi The classic example of these tactics was Allenby's complete deception of the Turks in Palestine in 1918. Amid clouds of dust and all the other signs of an army on the march, Turkish air reconnaissance was allowed to see an apparent intention of Allenby to attack on his right flank in the Jordan. What the enemy was not allowed to see was the marching back of these weary troops in the late afternoon and through the night. Dummy horses and horse lines and empty camps in the Jordan Valley all added to the deception. Then Allenby struck with all his force on his left flank north of Jaffa and in a few days destroyed the entire Turkish army, but for a few remnants that struggled back to Damascus. It is not likely the Americans will be caught napping again, and they will probably have a few tricks up their sleeve for Rommel. Meanwhile, the First Army has had to give some ground in northern Tunisia in the area north of Beja and west of Sed Jenane to persistent Axis attacks. But, all in all, the odds are on the Allies.