MORALE IN BALKANS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 79, 10 January 1944, Page 5

MORALE IN BALKANS

POSSIBLE LOSS OF PLOESTI OILFIELDS (Rec. 9.55 a.m.) Rugby, Jan. 9. The capture of Kirovograd and the Russian advance beyond the town in the general direction of Nikolayev places the Germans holding the Krivoi Ttog and Nikopol positions in extreme danger. It is still pointed out in London

I that there is no sign yet of the Ger- • mans abandoning these positions, despite what the Russians describe I as a break-through and what the Germans call an avalanche. Speculation in London Sunday newspapers is that Hitler is not concerned so much now with the loss of iron from Krivoi Rog or manganese, as with the disastrous effect of a wholesale evacuation of southern Russia on the morale of his Balkan satellites and the possible loss of the Ploesti oilfields. Military correspondents almost un-, animously agree that the loss of Kirovograd means that the German Dniepei bend defences are collapsing. The “Sunday Times,” while pointing out that the battle of the Ukraine is not yet over, says that General Mannstein must have more troops or he is finished. The whole scene recalls strongly those moments in battles of the past when fate hung poised between defeat and disaster. It seems to the onlooker that with a little more pressure the fabric of the German defence will fall to pieces. It has happened on the borders of Poland and is not far away, so far as one can judge from a distance, in the vital area of Vinnitsa Jmerinka. The “Observer” says that in south-east Europe the Russian advance created political turmoil and conditions bordering on panic in satellite countries —puppet governments and their followers are now watching the Russian advance towards Bessarabia and Bukovina as a shipwrecked mariner on a reef would watch the rise of the tide which will inevitably sweep him away. INSURANCE RISKS NOT ACCEPTABLE London, Jan. 9. Reuter's Istanbul correspondent says Turkish insurance companies have decided not to accept insurance on Turkish goods destined for Bulgaria and other Balkan countries.