Can Germans Stage Fight on Siegfried Line?

Manawatu Times, Volume 69, Issue 211, 6 September 1944, Page 6

Can Germans Stage Fight on Siegfried Line?

WHAT IS LEFT OF ONCE INVINCIBLE WEHRMACHT ? (Special Correspondent.) LONDON, Sept. 3. This is a great week-end in Britain. After a week of almost breath-taking advances in France, the people to-day, with church bells summoning them for the day of prayer, cast their minds hack to that other Sunday five years ago when they listened, to Mr. Chamberlain’s fateful words and anticipated the future with gloomy foreboding. Now to-day they can scarcely realise that with the Battle of France won, the final battle of the war—the Battle of Germany—is beginning. To-day the people of Britain are quietly proud and Hopeful, proud of their soldiers, who with the Canadians defeated the flower of the Seventh German Army in the battlefield around Caen, one of the decisive battles of the war, even though it may not have been spectacular in the initial advances, and hopeful that the war may soon be ended.

chief attention is now focussed on wL ether the Germans can fight another battle in the west before the Allied troops march into Berlin, whether or not they can stage a last fight, perhaps on the Siegfried Line. Some are of the opinion that Germany has fought her last battle in tae west because General Eisenhower is succeeding in his immediate aim of piercing the German frontier defences before any part of the Wehrmacht can get back to man those defences.

“Liberator,” in the Observer, declares that there are no battle front reserves left in Germany for into the gap, but only garrison troops, police units, and hall-trained emits, and that the arsenals of the Ruhr and Saar lie virtually open to the victorious Allies. He points out that the German armies, like chess pieces, are pinned down and immobilised in every corner of the European board and unable to intervene while the checkmate i 3 being administered in the centre.

“Liberator,” asking, “Where is what is left of the Wehrmacht?” replied: Four to five divisions are bottled up in the ports of Brittany, six to seven are struggling to escape from the Rhone Valley, eight to ten are immobilised on the Atlantic Wall, over 20 face the Gothic Line, while General Patch’s advance guards seep into the Lombard Plain behind them, 165 are scattereu up and down the Eastern Front, a dozen are idle in Norway, and seven in Noith Finland. There is an army in Greece and two divisions guarding Crete. 4 It is the most fantastic picture that can be imagined.”

The Sunday Times’ military correspondent (Brigadier E. C. Anstey) says: Whether the Germans try to hold the Siegfried Line or the Rhine they will have to defend every inch of 400 miles and their army of the west, with its great concentrations of panzer divisions, has ceased to exist. There is no nucleus on which to form.

DRAMATIC RACE Brigadier Anstey adds: “The race for Germany between the Allied armies and the German fugitives from France is one of the most dramatic ever run. “If the Allies have the stamina to

stay the course, if the administrative services can repeat again and again the miracles they have already performed, and if in consequence the Allies can forestall the enemy in his Western Wall wherever it may be, the last phase of the war will have arrived—the war will have been carried into Germany.” CHILDREN’S COLDS. It is so difficult to keep children dry and warm, especially their feet, and colds frequently develop. Don’t forget their dose of Baxters Lung Preserver at bedtime. “Baxters” is a palatable preparation that children will take readily. “Baxters” gives relief froru the first dose. Baxters, Ltd., CO2 Colombo Street, Christchurch,