NAZI GAMBLE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 10, 12 July 1944, Page 5

NAZI GAMBLE

BIG RISKS IN RUSSIA

COMMENTATOR'S VIEWS

(Special P.A. Correspondent.)

LONDON, July 11.

Expressing the opinion that the Germans' are embarking on one of the most extraordinary gambles in military history, Captain Cyril Falls, the wellknown military commentator, writing in the "Illustrated London News," suggests that they are taking enormous , £ risks in Russia in order to defeat the Allied invasion of France, because they } see in this the only glimmer of hope r of avoiding utter defeat. 1 At a time when the Russians would i be far advanced in their preparations £ for their most powerful offensive, the < Germans actually sent troops from Russia to France. "It is for them," he says, "all or nothing. Therefore their ( strategy, if I have read it aright, is f probably justified, but the risks are' ] very great for one reason: because , their previous defeats and deep re- r treats nad deprived them of most of : what was their greatest asset in Russia, the space they had gained in their previous offensives." Commenting on the position in France he says: "It looks as though we must be prepared for a tremendous struggle, far surpassing in magnitude and fury anything which has already occurred, a struggle in which some of the finest troops still remaining in the German army will take part. My own reading is that up till now neither of the combatants has been prepared to go all-out for a decision, but that each is attempting to wear out the other while "strength in men and material is massed on both sides. "Either the Germans still nourish the hope of being able to defeat and ruin the Allied expeditionary forces in France before the Russians reach the soil of the Reich, or they are even prepared to submit to the risk of their crossing the frontier provided they themselves can carry out their project in the west. My present impression is that the Germans have miscalculated and that we may presently see them reinforcing the Russian front once again instead of withdrawing further upon it. But the reinforcements can come only from France, Italy, Norway, or the other occupied countries. "The troops in these last-m?ntioned countries are now of poor quality. There are no great central reserves ,as the Germans pretended." STAGGERING BLOWS. "The Times" says in a leader that Vilna and Caen are two staggering blows at the heart of the German defences. Commenting on the position in Russia, it says the Germans always argued that the Russians' main summer offensive was likely to be launched between the Pripet Marshes and the Carpathians. It is possible that they weakened their front in White Russia in order to secure this more vital front, but if so they must now be repenting their rashness. "It is clear that, not for the first time in Russia, the Germans have made a gross miscalculation which may considerably hasten the end of the war. Any other strategy would have paid them better than choosing to meet the shock with forces too weak to contain it, yet so large numerically that their disintegration amounts to a catastrophe. "Had the German commanders used their remaining reserve of space for a voluntary withdrawal, the Russians might at least have been seriously disconcerted, but they evidently considered they could contain and muffle the shock while confining their losses in space and men within reasonable limits. Now the reserve of space is practically gone and a great part of the army group of Field-Marshal yon Bosch has gone with it. "Their boasted central reserve, long regarded in this country as a myth, is clearly shown to have no existence. Reserves can be found only by drawing on the other fighting fronts or the

forces of occupation. The Russian front is intimately linked with the fighting front in France and Italy and with the growing strength of the underground resistance, which keeps the German armies of occupation on tenterhooks all over Europe. "The German Supreme Command has never before had to face so gloomy and so desperate a prospect."