ALLIES' SUM PROGRESS

Evening Star, Issue 25005, 26 October 1943, Page 3

ALLIES' SUM PROGRESS

BRITISH PUBLIC TROUBLED LONDON, October 24. " The battle on the Fifth Army front is going very slowly," says the correspondent of the 'Daily Express,' Mr Alan Moorehead. "There is hardly a half-a-mile'gain a day,'and Rome is still over 100 miles away. "The armies are stuck as though in a bottleneck. Wherever wo striko we find resistance. Since the first landing we have taken only a handful of prisoners, and now they have practically stopped coming in. Many people argue that the German plan is to lure us into pockets along the front as they make a general withdrawal towards Rome, but we are taking the offensive less and less. The ■ whole Allied push has been allowed to slow down." *

The ' Daily Mail' says editorially that the news from - the Italian front is disappointing. The British public is increasingly troubled at the different rates of advance in Italy and Russia. The public misses the Alexander and Montgomery touch about the recent operations in Italy. After suggesting that the sense of frustration may be due to the scanty news filtering out through the censorship, the 'Daily Mail' says that judgment should be reserved for the present. It adds: "It is difficult to believe that the Allied Command intends footslogging its way hundreds of miles to the Po River or even to the Brenner Pass. Vast diversionary operations iis the Balkans or elsewhere may be nearer than we think."

The ' Mail' concludes by stating that the British and A'nencar Command is entitled at this stage to implicit confidence, but it must see that that confidence is not let down by over-caution or clinging to outmoded methods ol warfare.