Manawatu Evening Standard. SATURDAY, JULY 19, 1941. RUSSIA’S GALLANT FIGHT.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXI, Issue 195, 19 July 1941, Page 6

Manawatu Evening Standard. SATURDAY, JULY 19, 1941. RUSSIA’S GALLANT FIGHT.

From the Karelian Isthmus to the Black Sea (there is very little news of operations around Murmansk) the war between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia is being- waged with greater intensity as the full weight of the second Nazi offensive is thrown into battle. The coining days are vital for the Russian defence, but there is very good reason to believe that the Stalin Line mostly remains intact, and that the Germans have made no vital gains. In such warfare, with tanks driving forward and Russia counterstriking against the enemy, there is no definite line of battle, and the situation will remain confused until the latest fighting slows down. The Germans realising the need for a shattering blow have thrown a tremendous force into the battle, but have yet to report a decisive gain. Of particular importance is the view of correspondents that nothing lias yet happened to disorganise the Russians. Both Leningrad and Moscow are being stubbornly defended “in the outermost defence rings,” many miles from either city where a German victory would open the way to a swift smashing advance. Smolensk is the main German obr jective for the moment in the central sector and its fate as yet appears to be uncertain, both sides claiming possession of the city. The Russians have astounded the world by their gallant resistance.

The agreement lately signed between Soviet Russia and Britain makes the former our ally. It is common-sense action because both are fighting the same enemy, and in his broadcast speech on June 21 Mr Churchill enunciated the principle on which the pact rests so far as the British Empire is concerned: “Any man or State who fights against Nazism will have our aid. Any man or State who marches with Hitler is our foe.” Each country has pledged itself to help the other to the best of its ability to crush the menace which threatens both, and neither will conclude an armistice or agreement with Germany except with the consent of the other. There is no need at the present moment to worry about the unbridgeable gulf in the ideologies of the two allies. They are bonded together by their agreement in a common cause—the defeat of Nazism, which M. Stalin has declared to be Russia’s most perfidious enemy and with which she has entered a death struggle. The pact may well be regarded as a powerful instrument for hastening Hitler's defeat if maintained in the full spirit in which it has been entered into.