FURTHER RETREAT RUMOURED.

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 70, 20 September 1943, Page 5

FURTHER RETREAT RUMOURED.

The Madrid correspondent of the Associated Press of Great Britain says that reports are circulating widely in Berlin to the effect that the Germans may retire from Russia to the powerfully fortified "eastern Siegfried Line" along the Polish frontier. All reports from the Balkan capitals indicate heavy German troop movements from the north to the south; says Reuters Ankara correspondent. Troops and equipment are moving to Salonika and southern Greece by three main routes. The Germans are also continuing to pour troops with increased speed into Italy. Ten more German divisions recently moved into Italy, where the total German strength is estimated at 35 divisions. These divisons for Italy and for the Balkans are being drawn from France and from essential reserves in Germany, also to a lesser extent from Russia.

"The Times" says there are perhaps still seven or eight German and Rumanian divisions holding Anapa and the marshy, fever-stricken delta of the Kuban. The fall of Novorossisk further imperils their hold on the Caucasian bridgehead. The Russian Black Sea fleet is likely to play an increasingly active part in further operations. "The Times" concludes that the German retreat between Bryansk and Mariupol may have been planned in the sense that a decision to retire was | taken after the costly failure of the great armoured offensive on the flanks of the Kursk salient, but says it is incredible that the German High Command proposed to retreat so far during the two months following that disaster. OTHER GAINS MADE. A further Russian advance southward, towards the lower Dnieper is announced in a second Order of the Day which states: "On September 17-18 our troops in the Ukraine' captured Priluki, Romny, Lubni, Romodan. Mirgorod, Piryatiri, and Krasnograd. A third Order of the Day, announcing a new crossing of the Desna south of Bryansk, states: "On September 17 our troops forced* the river Desna on a wide front, captured Trubchevsk, and are successfully developing an offensive westwards." Priluki, 80 miles east of Kiev, had lately been by-passed by the Russian advances towards Kiev itself, and Mirgorod. Lubni is another place on the KievPoltava railway 30 miles west of Mirgorod. The capture of Krasnograd, half-way between Kharkov and Dnepropetrovsk, shows that the Germans are now being cleared out of the salient formed by the Russians west of Kharkov and those in the Donets Basin. . The new crossing of the Desna on a wide front 50 miles south-south-west of Bryansk leaves the Germans little, if any, foothold remaining on the west bank of the Desna between Bryansk and Chernigov.- ""