The Grey River Argus SATURDAY, August 19, 1944. PARIS IN SIGHT.

Grey River Argus, 19 August 1944, Page 4

The Grey River Argus SATURDAY, August 19, 1944. PARIS IN SIGHT.

If the Germans appear to have reinforced on the eastern front and to have turned for a stand they seem, on the western front to have changed over to the tactics of retreat which until very recently they had been following in the east. A leading critic sayc they now can probably write off as virtually, dost the whole , of France south of the Biver Seine. The southern invasion sceihs to be revealing something the ord'.n ary person had scarcely imagined. France south of the Seine appears largely to be a vacuum so far as enemy forces are concerned. The invaders from the Mediterranean are advancing in nearly every sector, the opposition quickly having begun to crumble. No doubt, the Germans are equally as anxious about their rear as about their front in the south, for the French Forces of the Interior have taken the of tensive in various places. Along the eastern frontier they are giv ing the enemy a bad time, holding nearly all Haute Savoie, cap luring garrisons, and engaging in new battles. In the extreme north the British and Canadians are continuing an advance that has goire beyond Falaise and Troarn, and in the pocket, the mouth of which the Poles have reduced to a couple of miles, British and American forces are said now t>> have gone in for a kill. The gains on the extreme north are important as being won against, the enemy’s greatest strength. However, the really sensational news is that of the rapid American onset towards Paris taking the four large centres of Orleans, Chartres, Chateau d’ Un. and Dreux in their stride. Certain!',’ opposition has been insignificant in the earlier stages, and an American spearhead is now between Dreux and Paris, perhaps less than thirty miles from Paris. But it is stated a siege of. Paris is not the immediate object. Apart from wiping out more of the enemy Seventh Army, the Allies aim to drive the enemy over the Seine, and this means pressure, not towards, but north of Paris. The Germans now may get out of the rest of France as quickly as they can. Dijon, rather above and east of the centre of the country, is named as the probable Objective of the southern Allied forces, where they might force the Belfort Gap, one of the half-dozen passages from France into Germany, and where they could co-operate in an invasion of the Reich. Such an invasion from both east and west now seems near, as ■ the Russians are on the East Prussian border, but must still allow for the enemy stand at Warsaw. In the last war, the Reich was invaded not only from the northern part of the western frontier, but also from the southern part, where Americans were stationed. It is’Americans and French that again are approaching the frontier in the more southerly quarter, and the British in the more north, erly. Yet the Seine is indicated as the next great cockpit. I. he enemy is scarcely showing sign; of there holding out, though h.< ! . has great forces yet to deploy His air inferiority is telling its tale, and his morale must tend to

weaken under the influence of a losing campaign. The crisis must already have reconciled a great proportion of Germans to the in evitability of defeat, and hasten among them the conviction that they have something to gain and nothing to lose by acknowledging defeat with the least delay.