THE CAPTURE OF POLTAVA

New Zealand Herald, Volume 78, Issue 24085, 2 October 1941, Page 8

THE CAPTURE OF POLTAVA

History repeats itself; historians repeat each other. The witticism, like so many others, is not wholly true and has been given the lie at Poltava. Here the Germans have won a victory where other invaders, in June of 1709, suffered at the hands of Peter the Great a crushing defeat. Then as now the Russians had retreated, laying waste the country behind them. The enemy was that brilliant and eccentric gpnius, Charles XII. of Sweden, who, despairing of reaching Moscow, turned south into the Ukraine. There, after one of the worst winters in history, his gallant army turned on the Russians at Poltava and after an heroic struggle was well nigh annihilated. The town is part of a famous story about Napoleon. The Tsar was justly enraged when the French army crossed the Niemen without a declaration of war and thus furnished a precedent which Hitler was not slow to follow in June of this year. A Russian emissary came to Napoleon's camp to know the reason for this blatant aggression. The great Emperor was impudent enough to inquire the best route to Moscow and received the admirable reply: "One way, sire, is through Poltava."' These are different days when the speed of mechanised warfare give? advantages to an invader of Russia which were denied to Charles XII. and

Napoleon. The terrors of a Russian winter are infinitely less perilous to the legions of Hitler who now drives his forces to the great industrial city of Kharkov, but 85 miles from Poltava, and seeks to cut the oil lines which run from the Caucasus to central Russia: Hitler is playing for the stakes which eluded his predecessors in aggression. He may go further than they, but his mounting losses make it open to doubt whether in the long run he will achieve any more permanent victory in the vastness of Russia.