The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1941. THE EASTERN FRONT.

Evening Star, Issue 24016, 15 October 1941, Page 6

The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1941. THE EASTERN FRONT.

The fact that the battle in the central sector of the eastern front is moving swiftly to a climax, with the fortune of war for the time being favouring the Germans, need cause only that apprehension. which is associated with a temporary reverse. At one time the Germans appeared to be on the verge of capturing both Leningrad and Odessa; yet the Russian defences around those places have so far proved equal to the task of keeping the invaders at hay. The fortifications around Moscow are bound to be as formidable as any the Germans have encountered; and it may he that their frenzied war machine in that area will batter in vain at the gates of the capital. In any case, the gallantry and determination of the Russian resistance will exact so heavy a toll of the enemy that future operations should he considerably hampered. According to United States Congressional sources, President Roosevelt believes that the Russian army will continue to resist the invasion for a prolonged period, even if Moscow falls. The President’s opinion that the Red Army will try to draw up a defensive line in an are swinging behind the Volga River and protecting areas in which 40 per cent, of Russia’s war industries are located has a convincing ring, much in harmony with M. Stalin’s own pronouncement early in the war that, if necessary, the Russians would continue to fight beyond the Urals. Russia’s industrial wealth is not all in the Ukraine or the areas so far occupied by the Germans. Beyond the Ukraine lies the Caucasus, the region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, with its great oilfields. And beyond that and beyond the whole of the immense battlefront along which the Nazis are striving for mastery lie other great industrial developed areas. One alone of these areas, the Urals, would satisfy the needs of most countries. It is hardly conceivable that either Great Britain or the United States, whose representatives have recently conferred with the leaders of the Soviet Union, would entertain for one moment giving aid on a large scale to Russia if there was the slightest doubt regarding that country’s resolve to continue the fight in all circumstances. Mr Coates did not exaggerate the seriousness of the outlook in the thought-compelling address which h© gave to the Dunedin Manufacturers’ Association last night. Yet actually the situation, if properly handled, could bring about a predicament for the Germans of a sort like that now facing the Japanese aggressors in China. The fate of Moscow is not so important as the sanctity of the oil well zone in the south, to which point British aid by land can be taken with increasing regularity and speed. Mr Joseph C. Harsch, an American writer, who until last January was the Berlin correspondent of the ‘ Christian Science Monitor,’ has no very high opinion of the Nazi organisation except as a winner of local military successes. He cannot believe in it as a world conqueror, if the Allies do not suffer their spirit of resistance to flag. In a book now published by him, ‘ Pattern of Conquest,’ he writes: “ Instead of being increasingly impressed with the Nazi contention of inevitable Gorman victory, I grew increasingly convinced that the whole impressive fabric of Nazi military power was a brittle structure which rested primarily on the ability to win actual military victories, and that it lacked the internal validity and moral stamina which are necessary to give it more than superficial strength. I became convinced that it possessed little more validity than its victories on the field of battle, and that if these were ever denied it would fall apart and vanish, leaving only a wonder that the world had ever been so impressed by its appearance of validity.” Faced with the combined resources of tho British Empire and the North American Continent, Germany, Mr Harsch says, will he defeated, even if all the resources of the European Continent arc operating for German benefit, even if Hitler controlled the Ukraine, the Caucasus, the Mediterranean, and French North-west Africa. Germany would remain a land Power surrounded by tho sea power of Britain and America, and her collapse would bo inevitable.