NOTES ON THE WAR

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 47, 24 February 1945, Page 6

NOTES ON THE WAR

INNER FORTRESS

ASSAILED ALL ROUND

The Allies are beginning to close in on the inner fortress of Germany itself, Hitler's last big stronghold. The Russians are already battering at the main eastern defences on the OderNeisse line, far behind which they have at last, after a siege of over a month, captured the old fortress and main communication centre of western Poland, Poznan (Posen). The days of Konigsberg, Danzig, and Breslau are also numbered, and when they fall large forces will be released to strengthen the Russian front for the final assault on the eastern defences. The southern front in the Carpathians and Danube Valley is quieter, but the Allies seem at last to be on the move in Italy towards the key city of Bologna. On the Western Front there are signs now of a widespread offensive beginning on a large scale towards the Rhine from the Saar to the Maas-Rhine enclave south of Goch. Over all the greatest air offensive of all time is pounding the heart of Germany.

The battle of the Neisse, following : the battle of the upper Oder, is the most critical for Germany of all the operations at present proceeding. If Koniev breaches the Neisse defences, there is nothing to stop him before the Elbe, which runs through the heart of central Germany from Dresden to Hamburg, with a lot of important industrial centres like Leipzig, Dessau, and Magdeburg* on it or near it. Berlin lies halfway between the Elbe and the Oder, here not mora than 100 miles apart and joined by a system of canals and lakes on which lies Berlin itself. The fall of Poznan clears Zhukov's lines of supply and should enable the concentration of sufficient forces for a direct drive on Berlin from the elbow of the Oder between Frankfurt and Kustrin, and a flanking crossing of the Ofler towards Stettin. The stage is being set in the east for dramatic developments. Attack in the West. Operations on the Western Front are by no means so far advanced. Montgomery's preliminary clearance of the Rhine-Maas "Mesopotamia," between Nijmegen and Goch, was delayed a month by Rundstedt's Ardennes offensive, and this, period would fairly accurately represent 'the average delay m resuming the Western Front offensive of the early winter, grievously interrupted by the German counterblows in the Ardennes and Alsace. It will be remembered that Montgomery had all ready for his attack on January 8 to time in with the • Russian offensive which began on January 12. The sector on which the Anglo-Ameri-can offensive is being launched is the only one on the Western Front which seems to offer a prospect of something like early results. It is closest to the Rhine covering the Ruhr, it is not so difficult country as that further south, and it will help, if successful, to liberate northern Holland. The first main objective of the Allied offensive must be to reach the Rhine, and that will be no easy job, if the Germans stand up and fight as they are doing. It is a' defensive zone all the way, and at this time of the year the weather favours the defence. But a good start has been made by crossing the Roer now running nearer normal after the floods caused by the release of waters from the' big dams on the upper river. An Allied advance here will help Allied operations north of Roermond, past vVenlo, to the Canadian First Army's vital conquests between the Maas and the Rhine, giving them an approach behind the Siegfried Line. The Blows from the Air. When the story of the war comes to be told, with material from both sides, it will probably be found that the terrific widespread air assault on the heart of Germany in the past week has contributed the largest share to the task of shortening the war. It is the unfortunate characteristic of air wartare that only the enemy sustaining it can assess at the time the damage done and the extent of its effect. The figures ol the fprces engaged, some 6000 machines m action (sorties), and 40,000 men aloft, and the bombloads dropped, thousands of tons, on scores of targets! stagger the imagination, and suggest that hardly anything, could survive such an impact, not once and over, but repeated hour after hour and day after day for a week or more. One wonders how a nation could suffer it and sur-r-S.«je t effects are not immediate at least for the armies in the field Wtyf^. a oe#their^ suppl?es available at Tw + l or a f^ w days—it is only later &S nf fr6S2 ltS Will appear short! w t£i f°9i d ' and fuel 2?nV? ThS" 6-!?',. enforcements to 2fffii That wIU be the time for the wf^fhi Eres?ure 0f the Allies t0 burst the barriers round the "inn^r fortress" of Germany. .