BUDAPEST BATTLE

Greymouth Evening Star, 14 December 1944, Page 5

BUDAPEST BATTLE

GERMAN STRONG DEFENCE

AUSTRIAN FRONTIER MENACE

LONDON, December 13.

A British Associated Press corre--spondent at Moscow says: Russian artillery is drawn up on northern and southern outskirts of Budapest, and is within easy range of any big target in the sprawling city. The German garrison, however, is apparently well dug in for a siege, even at the price of the capital’s destruction. Marshal Malinovsky appears reluctant to attempt to smash frontally into the flat crowded zone of Pest on the east bank of the Danube, while the hilly Buda on the west bank, where the Germans have commanding observation over Pest, is still not completely encircled. Russian observers do not minimise the military problem of the reduction of the fortress city, where the Germans apparently are prepared to make a suicide stand. Reports reaching Moscow indicate the seriousness with which Germans regard the threat to Vienna and southern regions of Germany created by the Red Army’s break through north of Budapest. Red Star says: After emergence oi the Russians on the Danube north of Budapest, Germans have begun 0 a hurried evacuation of military and industrial objectives from near the frontier areas of Austria. Reuter’s correspondent at Moscow says: About 85 miles now separate the Red Army from Bratislava and the Austrian frontier. The intervening country consists of the broad flat Danube valley crossed by tributaries of the Danube. Reuter’s Agency, says: Only 450 miles now separate General Eisenhower’s armies driving against Germany from the southern part of the Western Front and Marshal Tolbukhin’s armies advancing towards Austria from the south-east. All but 50 miles of the territory between these western and eastern armies is in Hitler’s Greater Reich. By comparison 1300 miles separated the Red Army front, and the Allied Armies’ Normandy front on D Day.

BAYONET CHARGES

(Recd. 12.30 p.m.) LONDON, Dec. 13. Following the capture of Godollo, 10 miles north-east of Budapest Russian spearheads are stabbing into the northern suburbs of the capital, says the British United Press Moscow correspondent. Savage hand-to-hand fighting is going on between Godolla and Budapest. Russian infantry are charging with bayonets to hurl _ the Germans from their last strongpoints. Reuter’s correspondent reports that fresh deluges of rain made heavy going for Russian storm troops on, the outskirts of the city. The mud clings to their boots and clogs tractor-plates to tanks and mobile guns. The Germans have linked hamlets and houses into a tight network of strongpoints making a Russian advance of even one mile a considerable success.

CAPTURES CONTINUED

(Rec. 1 p.m.) LONDON, Dec. 13. To-night’s Soviet communique says: Russians in Hungary to-day continued the offensive north-west and north of Miskelez, and occupied a number of inhabited localities. The Red Army, north-east of Budapest, captured eight place and three railway stations. The Russians m the Miskelez-Budapest areas yesterday took prisoner 1700 Hungarians and Germans. “Red Star” states that all military and industrial establishments in the remaining parts of Hungary are being feverishly evacuated, and those which moved from Hungary to within the Reich frontier, when the Russian advance in Hungary became dangerous, are being moved deeper into German territory. “The Germans realise that the danger hanging over Hungary is a danger for all the southern provinces of the Reich.” The German News Agency broadcast to the forces: “The slogan of the people of Vienna is* ‘We would rather died gallantly than be cowards. Vienna has become a cilv of work. Nothing is left of the gay Vienna that used to appear on the cinema screen. Men and women for weeks past have been digging trenches.”