THE EASTERN FRONT

Evening Star, Issue 24007, 4 October 1941, Page 3

THE EASTERN FRONT

THE QUEST FOR OIL A RAILWAY WAR RAGE AGAINST WINTER [By Sekf.x.] The German strategy in the drive against Russia has become painfully apparent as the Nazi panzer forces have bitten ever deeper into the J!at and vulnerable Ukraine, and to-day it is obvious that the Nazis are racing -winter in the effox-t to bring the eastern campaign to ah end by denying their enemies oil. After underrating the Russian forces at the beginning of the war and being forced to make the distant and difficult mobilisation for a drive against the most remote part of the front, the Germans have at last pushed the Hoffmann

plan some distance towards success. This plan, as was pointed out by this writer some weeks ago, apparently was adopted by the Nazis only after their earlier bludgeoning tactics failed to bring victory. It calls for a two-pronged offensive through the Ukraine and aganist Leningrad, thus winning the w-ar on the two flanks of the Soviet Union', as it were. The penetration in the Ukraine was made easier by the persistent blows delivered elsewhere which forced the Russians to transfer men and material to the more immediately threatened front, and also by the fact that the Russians’ defence- zone was neither so wide nor so strong in that region. It could not be, because of the topography and also because of the extent of the zone to be defended. It was the measure of the impatience

of the Nazis and of their miscalculation that they did not seek to penetrate this “ soft spot ” earlier, but hit an underestimated foe at his strongest point. It may, of course, cost them the war. Meantime, however, the effort is to deny the Soviets oil and to move the available German forces astride the oil lifeline of the Soviet Union before, the winter sets in. This means that the Germans have still some distance to travel, and it has thrown greater emphasis on the fact that this is largely a railway war. The Nazis have already paralysed the network of railways which serves the southern and western Ukraine and comes together at the focal point of Kiev. They are now striving to cut two more routes. The first of these comes from the coastal point of Mariupol, 200 miles west of the isthmus of the Crimean Peninsula, and runs up through Stalino, and afterwards in a double track over the Don and up to Kharkov and finally to Moscow. The second comes from the key city of Rostov, which in turn is linked with Baku, the oil centre, and also p-ith Moscow. And while doing this the Nazis will be overrunning an area which gives the Russians 60 per cent, of their coal, iron ore, and pig iron, aboiit half thejr rolled metal, 70 per cent, of their agricultural machinery, and huge proportions of aluminium (70 per cent.), sugar (68 per cent.), soda (80. per cent.), and superphosphates (40 per cent.), to say nothing of grain, of which its supply is about one-fifth the Russian total, porbably making the difference between sufficiency and scarcity. This goal can be achieved if the Nazis can push ahead about another 150 to 200 miles from their advanced positions. They must, of course, contrive to hold many of these key points, because, in winter, when .aircraft are grounded by the snow they cannot hope to prevent communication being maintained, as they did in Poland, by use of their air force. And they are now committed to a grim race against time, with less margin to spare than they have overbad before. Hence the great British efforts to supply Russia with tanks, which are evidently heavy ones, and thus capable of standing up to the worst that the Germans can do. For if the Nazi offensive can be parried this time there will be weeks in which supplies can bo shipped to Russia and accumulated against the spring, and there .will be long months in which Nazi morale can be battered and Nazi war production impeded by the efforts of the Royal Air Force. That the Russians are now desirous of obtaining all possible aid is shown by the more candid statements which have been made lately, the admissions of M. Maisky, the Soviet Ambassador in London, and the very presence of the Allied delegation iu Moscow. There is no doubt that earlier the Soviet maintained its curious secrecy, that secrecy which is apparent in its laconic communiques even when it has successes to reveal, and which led to the loss of much valuable time before the British and Americans knew (if they yet know) the whole truth about the position of the war and about what has happened in the fro n't lines. That the Empire’s newest ally is also relying on the winter may, despite M. Maisky, be also accepted as a fact. European Russia, and much of Asiatic Russia, form a great plain broken only by the low reaches of the Ural mountains, which are the border between two continents. Because of this flat uniformity, Russia has a relative uniformity of climate in much of its western area. From north to south the snow is very deep, the summer is very hot and there is relatively little rain. After the short but hot summer, the winter closes in early. In the Urals the temperature drops to freezing point in the first part of September. In Western and Southern Russia the frosts will have come ttiis week, and by midNovember most of Russia will be locked in ice. By a few days before Christmas virtually all the rivers will have been frozen solid ; groat winds will blow from the present month until March. In the Ukraine, the snows may fall

later, and they will not be so heavy. But the lack of special troops, such as ski units, and the deep snows will immobilise tanks and aircraft and leave the Russians free to devote much of their energy to checking the Nazi thrust iu the south. Only at river crossings will the winter help the Nazis, and this slight’ gain will not go far towards atoning for the severe disadvantages which they will suffer. For, just as every gain means a drain on their oil reserves and a strain on their technical resources and man power, so the coming of winter will mean that the long lines of communication will be frayed and strained and the troops in the front line will face privation ami death and disease in large numbers. There is not the slightest doubt now that the Nazis in their earlier campaigns managed to turn the clock back. They managed to get much of their