PUSH AGAINST VIENNA

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 155, 29 December 1944, Page 5

PUSH AGAINST VIENNA

GENERAL ADVANCE BEGUN LONDON, December 28. As the siege of Budapest rises to full fury, powerful units of Marshal Tolbukhin's army are heading westward towards Vienna. This is the beginning pf a general advance into Austria, during which the Germans are going to feel bitterly the loss of their Budapest grouping. . Reuters correspondent says that the two Soviet spearheads both pointing to Vienna are emerging from the welier of local battles. The northern, fush, under Marshal Malinovsky, is developing towards the Bratislava gap, and the second thrust, under Marshal Tolbukhin, is driving towards Gyor round the Vertes mountains. Both groups are within 100 miles of Vienna.

The, Moscow correspondent of the British United Press quotes the Moscow military commentator, Colonel Akimov, as saying that Marshal Tolbukhin is now in a position to launch, an offensive on Austria across the eastern frontiers, through which run the main German communications to Italy and Yugoslavia. The Berlin radio commentator. Ma jot yon Hammer, admits that Soviet columns west of Budapest are threatening the German supply lines. "Russian forces operating west of Budapest deepened the breaches to --the north," he says. "So far it has been impossible to ward off the threat to the Germaa supply lines." SOVIET ANNOUNCEMENT. The Russian splitting of the Germaa defenders of Budapest was announced in last night's Soviet communique, which said: "Our troops in the Budapest area occupied; a number of suburbs on the eastern bank of the Danube. After forcing the eastern arm of the Danube north of Budapest our forces occupied an island with inhabited localities and linked up with units which occupied Saint Andre, on the west bank of the river, thus splitting into two the encircled enemy grouping in Budapest. "This offensive has driven one part lof the enemy grouping into the fores*-"

I covered mountains in the Danube fork [north of "Budapest, while the remain- ' i der is gripped in a vice in Budapest - ! itself. •• Our troops north-west and north : of Budapest took prisoner mpre than • 2000 Germans and Hungarians. "After stubborn battles north of I Szekesfehervar otfr troops captured the railway town of Felsogalla, 27 miles west of Budapest, and other inhabited ; localities." 3000 NAZIS KILLED. ! West of Budapest southern frosts I are riming thousands of German dead, whose bodies are glittering on the blackened hulks of scores of knockedout German tanks, says the Moscow correspondent" of "The Times."

A ' Moscow supplementary communique says that more than 3000 Ger- " mans were killed in the Budapest area yesterday, whiless enemy" tanks and" self-propelled guns were destroyed or disabled and 24 tanks were captured. Russian troops south-west of Sahy cleared the ground between the Ipel and Hron Rivers, capturing 1510 Germans and Hungarians, states the Soviet communique.