INEVITABLE PAUSE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 31, 6 February 1945, Page 5

INEVITABLE PAUSE

IMPORTANCE OF FLANKS

(Special P.A. Correspondent.)

LONDON, February 5. The "Sunday Times" correspondent, Alexander Werth, writing from Mos80w, says: "It was obvious that no one acquainted with the elements of the problem could have expected the Red Army to do Warsaw-Berlin In one hop. There was bound to be some slowing down before the final assault on Berlin, but the amazing thing is that this has not happened half-way there but more than four-fifths of the distance."

He goes on to say that some consolidations and liquidations have to be carried " out in the enormous rear. There is East Prussia to dispose of finally, particularly Konigsberg, and there are also Posen and Schneidemuhl. Before the final assault on Berlin the tanks must be overhauled, reserves moved up, large quantities of ammunition brought up, and the bases brought nearer.

Mr. Werth also says that it looks as though Marshal Zhukov wishes to strengthen and widen the flanks of his narrow salient pointing to Berlin.. A break-through across the Oder may occur at any of several points simul-

taneously or in succession. Once this arc is consolidated the big blow against Berlin will come. It may be expected in the next two or three weeks, and possibly sooner. DARING STRATEGY. The London "Observer's" military commentator "Liberator" pays a tribute to Zhukov's supreme daring, saying that he and the Soviet leaders who agreed on the continuation of the offensive must know that they have entered a danger zone. With their own experiences at Moscow and Stalingrad they know what powers reside in an army fighting virtually with its back to its base against an attacker at the end of an exhausting period of constant movement. It must be said that during the latter part of last week the defensive crust before Berlin hardened, "Liberator" continues. But the decisive issue at the moment is not whether the German commander has been able to pack a screening force between the head of Zhukov's advance and the outskirts of Berlin. The decisive thing is who now holds the initiative on the flanks of the Soviet salient.

In this great crisis of the greatest of all offensives the decisive events are taking place not so much in the small sector between Kustrin and Frankfurt, but on the 70-mile stretch of the Oder to the south of Frankfurt and on the SO-mile stretch towards Stettin in the north.

"Liberator" considers that the Germans are failing in an attempt to regain the initiative on Zhukov's flank. The salient, which had become narrowed at its head before Kustrin to a bare 30 miles, is again over 70 miles in width, and it provides Zhukov with elbow room and security against sudden inroads from his flanks. THE ENEMY'S RESERVES.

Captain Cyril Falls, writing in the "London Illustrated News," discusses the switching of German forces' from the west to the Eastern Front. He says that forces from the west can be moved quicker than those in Norway or the other fronts, and he assumes that the large road and rail movements ob-

served recently behind the German * Western Front signify a move of armoured divisions to the Eastern Front. He thinks it improbable that more than 10 divisions will be sent across, and says that a more important means of reinforcement will be the switching of the stream of drafts from the west to the east, together with that of the latest material. The Luftwaffe, he adds, seems to have moved in some strength. No reinforcements that are available in the near future, however, will compensate the Germans for their losses in the first Stage of. the Russian offensive,