APRIL CHOSEN

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25798, 20 March 1945, Page 5

APRIL CHOSEN

DECISIVE MONTH IN WAR FINAL RUSSIAN ONSLAUGHT (N.Z.P.A. Special Correspondent) (Rec. 10.30 p.m.) LONDON, Mar. 17. April is now regarded by military commentators as “ the decisive month.” By then it is thought that two great Russian Army groups will move on again westward and that American and British forces may be over the Rhine at several points in force. The Hanover-Magdeburg area is suggested as the region where the Allied armies will link up “ within three months at most.” Prudence and caution influenced the Russians in delaying the final surge into Germany. As “ Strategicus ” in the Spectator points out, they know how little rope the Germans can be allowed with safety, and as Captain Cyril Falls, in the London Illustrated News, says, it cannot be denied that in the long interval since the Red Army reached the Oder in front of Berlin, the enemy has had time to re-organise his forces and improve his defences. The fortifications which Hitler inspected recently may indeed be formidable by now. This is in keeping with the Russians’ more cautious strategy. Formerly, when they created a deep salient, they continued exploiting it to the utmost, and sometimes suffered seriously from German counter-attacks on the flanks. Now they have set themselves methodically to broaden their front on such occasions. A Vast Problem In the west the Allies are regarded as having reached the climax of their su PPly problem in the huge activity to bridge the Rhine. It is a vast problem and it is pointed out that no army has yet crossed a major river obstacle after a fighting ' advance in less than three weeks from the period of holding a considerable stretch of the banks in strength. It is stated that approximately 6000 tons of bridging material and about 7000 engineering troops are needed on each divisional front. “ Scrutator,” in the Sunday Times, sees the Remagen bridgehead as standing m a sense outside the time table yet now fits well into the scheme. It is now big enough to hold a large fighting force and it should become possible, in conjunction with a big push further north, to launch a strong thrust, perhaps a veritable breakthrough, which, acting as a hammer upon the northern anvil, might help to destroy most of the intervening German forces. Commenting on the eventual joining of the Anglo-American and Russian forces, the New Statesman and Nation says it is certain that the Nazi leaders have laid their plans to meet that eventuality. Their objective is dual—to delay as long as possible the end of hostilities and to create in Europe the maximum of economic chaos. The means chosen arc: First, to - concentrate within the defensible mountain perimeter of Bohemia, Austria and Bavaria the hard core of the German Army, with Allied hostages as additional assets; secondly, to obstruct the relief and reconstruction of liberated territories by intensifying U-boat activities and also by long-range V weapons, by fifth column sabotage, and by denying the Allies access to ports. Strategv Explicable In the light of these intentions German strategy is explicable. Even when Marshal Zhukov’s guns can be heard in Berlin, the Germans’ chief counter-measure is an offensive in Hungary, designed, if possible, to secure some 1945 Danubian wheat for the “ reduit." The Reich itself will doubtless be sacrificed to this strategy of immolation. Their hope is to sow discord between Russia and her western Allies, prolong on the Continent conditions of starvation and turmoil with which U.N.R.R.A. will be powerless to cope and in which surviving Fascist elements in all countries —outposts of the reduit —can defeat every effort at economic and social reconstruction. They must hope that a Continent, already disillusioned by the fruits of liberation, will increasingly turn against the Allies and that the Fascists and gangster groups still loose in Europe will be their underground auxiliaries.