ADVANCE TO LAKE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 135, 5 December 1944, Page 5

ADVANCE TO LAKE

ENEMY FORCES SUNDERED Rec. 12.15 p.m. LONDON, Dec. 4. Commenting on the Berlin radio report that Russian tanks and troops are standing oh A the shores of Lake Balaton, the British United Press Moscow correspondent says that the in*plications of. this, new drive are tremendous. Tolbukhin has now thrust a wedge between the German armies in Yugoslavia and those in Hungary, ihe German forces are separated by Lake Balaton, which is 45 miles long and 10 miles broad. They will now have to stream back north and south of

The correspondent adds that major twin battles will have to be fought around the German bastions protecting the passages north and- south of the lake, which are Szekesfehervar and Nagy Kanizsa. When these twin battles are won "the fate of Budapest

will be irrevocably sealed and Tolbukhin's tanks will be well on the way to Vienna.

Reuters Moscow correspondent says that one of Tolbukhin's objects is to cut in to reach Vienna ahead of the German central Hungarian group whose inevitable retreat must start soon. •

The Moscow correspondent of the Associated Press says that the west bank of the Danube below Budapest is swarming with German and Hungarian prisoners taken in the twin drives against Budapest by Malinovsky from the east and Tolbukhin from the south. He adds that it is expected in Moscow that the next 48 hours will see a decisive blow against Budapest. The British United Press correspondent at Galatz says that 100 miles of the Danube area completely under Russian control, enabling supplies to be brought up to the fast-moving front by an easy waterway. Several convoys have already left Bulgarian and Rumanian harbours on the Danube carrying tanks,' munitions, and food to the Red Army.