NOTES ON THE WAR

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 75, 26 September 1944, Page 4

NOTES ON THE WAR

RHINE BATTLES

END NOT YET INSIGHT

The Rhine battles raging round Arnhem and Nijmegen and the long corridor leading to them through southern Holland are still undecided.. The Allied airborne troops beleaguered in the western suburbs of Arnhem across the northern branch of the Rhine, the Lek, have- received some relief from the British Second Army on the south bank of the river, but are still exposed to concentrated attack from the enemy and are therefore in jeopardy. The enemy also cut the "corridor" between Eindhoven and Nijmegen along which the Second Army is supplied and reinforced, but it was soon reported to have been, reopened. On the issue of this great struggle way justly be said to depend the duration of the war in the West. It is the toughest proposition the Allies have been up against since D Day.

For the first time since D Day the disparity in numbers between the Allies and the Germans seems, to have been rectified in favour of the enemy. In Holland the Germans have considerable forces in the west from the mouths of the Scheldt to the western flank of the corridor, while they hold 'all northern Holland, north of the Rhine delta, with unbroken communications with northern Germany, They also hold the tongue of land between the Rhine and the Meuse up to the point where the Allied corridor crosses it, just south of Nijmegen. The German forces will include the existing garrisons of western Holland plus the survivors of the divisions which held the "flying bomb" coast from the Channel to the North Sea at the mouth of the Scheldt. To these would be added any reinforcements that could be spared from Geirnany itself, and these might be fairly substantial, for the issue of the conflict at Arnhem is vital to "the continued defence of the Reich. Hence there might be a quarter of a million men, with full equipment, available for the defence of Holland and the gateway to Germany against the Second Army's audacious thrust. Strength of Allies. The Allied, forces immediately-, involved in this momentous struggle will consist of- the British Second Army and the Allied Airbbrne Army, including representatives of all the Allies, British, American, Polish, and no doubt others. What the numbers of these forces are in all is guesswork, but they are unlikely to exceed those of the enemy, and may be less: Many will be needed for the defence of the corridor, which, happily, according to the latest, news, has again been cleared. Nor is the junction of the Second Army and the airborne troops yet effective. They are on op«----posite sides of a wide and deep river, and commuiiication is mainly by assault amphibian craft, "ducks" and others, in the nighttime, the river crossings being under enemy fire by day. For the Arnhem battle FieldMarshal Montgomery has not at his disposal all the forces he had at Caen in the dour Normandy struggle, which lasted nearly 50 days. A substantial part of his army, including the Canadians and British divisions with the Canadian First Army, is still busy clearing the Channel coast at Calais and Dunkirk, and the motiths of the Scheldt —a job that may take some time yet. . . No Unequal Battle. The battle, which must include at v least the operations north and- west of Antwerp, is therefore by no means unequal in favour of the Allies. The Germans are fighting in the west, as in the east, where they are still holding the line of the Vistula, with a claim to have wiped out the Russian bridgehead at Sandomierz, with a tenacity and something of a concerted plan of defence not manifest in their months of disasters, July and August, on both fronts. It will be noted also how effective water barriers are everywhere in this final phase of the war in Europe, once there is a determined attempt at defence. Even the Orne and the Odon and the Vire and its marshlands proved formidable obstacles in Normandy, like the long list of Italian rivers in the year's campaign in the Peninsula, the Vultiirno, the Rapido, the Sangro, Garigliano, and, finally, the Arno and the petty mountain torrents between Ancona and Rimini on the Adriatic coast. First Test Since D Day. " So the Allies are now up against their first real trial of strength on the "Western Front since D Day: They have reached the Rhine at only one point and find it a formidable enough obstacle —and the Rhine from this point along its entire course from the frontier of Switzei'land is still Germany's main defence line in the west. It is admitted that the Germans have not now sufficient man-power to guard all the long frontier of the Reich, but they have enough to cover the weak points and'natural gateways, and these have nowhere been penetrated effectively, yet. It might be thought that the Allies are so vastly superior in strength that progress would become automatic. It is true that the Allies are immensely superior in material strength, in the air supreme, with far greater numbers of tanks, guns, and [mobile transport-r-in equipment of all kinds—but they have nothing like the same margin in man-power, with another war to fight in the Pacific. They must in Europe be reasonably. economical of their armies in the field, even at the expense of prolonging the war a little. With the Eastern and Western Fronts still unbreached there is a definite prospect that the Southern I Front will be the first to crumble and admit the Allies, representative, more truly here than elsewhere, of all the nations fighting against Germany, into i the heart of the Reich.