MORE OPTIMISTIC VIEW

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXII, Issue 254, 25 September 1942, Page 5

MORE OPTIMISTIC VIEW

time factor important. (Special Correspondent.) LONDON, Sept. 23. For the first time since the Germans launched this year’s attack against Russia there are notes of ' very cautious optimism being sounded. It would bo rash to place any hopeful reliance on them at this stage, but at the same time they should bo observed. . , Stalingrad as the key point of the Nazi offensive still holds after a two months’ offensive started towards it, and the slaughter of Germans has been so great and the Nazi programme so delayed that there is a growing feeling that even if the Germans take Stalingrad, which is still doubtful, they cannot mount another offensive this year For that reason one deduction which can legitimately be drawn is that they will not have their back free m 1940.. Meanwhile, the Germans defensive position in Russia has deteriorated. The capture of Stalingrad would make a pivot of a flank for protecting the Caucasian armies and unless such a flank can be constructed there remains the threat of an attack from tho rear. . , Reports from Stockholm indicate that a change of the utmost significance is perceptible in the Berlin accounts of the Stalingrad position, find that where the spokesmen once were confident of the they nrc now reticent. The Frankfurter Zeitung has made the extraordinary suggestion that “for the time being Stalingrad is of no urgent importa"Stockholm reports that von Bock has been dismissed for the second time—he was removed from the Moscow front last year—for two reasons, for protesting against the withdrawal of the Black Guard divisions fc\ from Stalingrad and the Caucasian S front lines; and, for warning Hitler j|A |) ul t unless fresh divisions, including

S.S., were sent to Stalingrad the city might not he taken and there was a risk of wrecking the army’s morale.

In London one view is that the Germans have three weeks loft to tako Stalingrad. This is based on German military writers who stated before the attack that October 14 was the latest that von Bock could attack. After that he would have to seek winter quarters. Reports from Stalingrad already indicate a deterioration in the weather. Can tho Russians hold out? GRIM WINTER AHEAD. Meanwhile, reports from Moscow indicate that Russia is faced with a grim winter while there is bitterness against the Allies for not starting a second front.

Mr P. .Winterton, the News-Chron-icle’s Moscow correspondent, states that three things dominate the Russian mind in view of tho approaching winter—casualties, food, and fuel. There is hardly a family throughout the length and breadth of this wido land which is not either mourning the death or mutilation of its man, or living day after day on the razor edge of apprehension. While there will be no shortage of necessary nourishment on the military or industrial fronts, millions of Russians faco a winter of very great privation. The shortago of fuel is due to the loss of mines and lack of labour and transport. While there will bo enough for essential services there will not he enough for the people’s homes. “There will -ho no collapse, but is it any wonder that they resent relief being so long withheld. They are bitter and they do not think much of their allies,’’ he says Mr It. Mktthows, the Daily Herald's Moscow correspondent, also says that tho Russians do not think of us as allies in the full sense of tho word. They will not until a second front is opened.