COURSE OF THE BATTLE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23661, 21 May 1940, Page 6

COURSE OF THE BATTLE

Conftfsion, also described as "a veritable melee," is reported to exist in the main battle region in Northern France, extending southwestward from Mauberge to St. Quentin. The thickest fighting appears to be taking place across the main Paris-Berlin railway, which branches at Mauberge to provide the main Paris-Brussels line as well. The military situation thereabouts is stated to be so fluid and confused that it is impossible to define the actual front. Unhappily, however, the trend appears to favour the invading Nazi hordes. New place names appear in to-day's reports, indicating that the tide of battle still surges westward. Landrecies has given place to Le Cateau, and Guise to St. Quentin and La Fere. If the naming of St. Quentin suggests that the German thrust is directed down the Somme Valley to the Channel, the mention of La Fere raises'the alternative goal of Paris by a drive down the Oise Valley. Very soon, however, the true objective must be disclosed by events. Meanwhile no improvement can be discerned in the Allied position. The German Army continues to cut across their northsouth lines of communications. Nor will an anxiously waiting world be entitled to hope until the Allies succeed, not only in stemming the Nazi flood, but also in developing an effective counter-stroke. Local counter-attacks are frequently chronicled, but they have obviously not been on a scale seriously to affect the vast mass of manoeuvre set in motion by the Germans. Even the so-called "bulge" is almost flat and, the further it is elongated westward, the flatter it becomes, offering less and less opportunity for applying a pincer movement. In any case the left or southern flank is covered by the Aisne and now by the Somme, with La Fere as a strong outpost. Indeed the one visible opportunity of a counter-stroke at present seems to be a thrust up the Meuse Valley at the very gap at Sedan through which the Germans emerged in the first place, a thrust that would be securely based on the Maginot Line proper.