ALLIED STRATEGY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25799, 21 March 1945, Page 5

ALLIED STRATEGY

NEXT PHASE OF BATTLE COMMENTATOR PLANS CAMPAIGN (N.Z.P.A. Special Correspondent) LONDON, Mar. 19. The end of the next phase on the western front should see three Allied army groups on a 200-mile arc from Leipzig to Hamburg. This is the opinion expressed by the Daily Telegraph’s commentator. Lieutenantgeneral H. G. Martin. “If my surmises should have any base in fact,” he says, “ we should see the development of a situation something like this in a matter of days or weeks at the most: On the right the Allied Sixth Army Group and the Third Army, having thrown the remnants of the German First and Seventh Armies back across the Rhine, would thus have laid bare that other vulnerable sector of the Rhine between Mannheim and Mainz, where a crossing would lead them into the plain of Hesse and so to Frankfurt. Obviously the greater the confusion of the Germans the less would be the resistance to these new crossings, so the sooner the Allies are across the better it would be. “ From Frankfurt these Allied forces would advance presumably by two slightly divergent routes, the one up the valley of Kinzig, thence through Fisenach and Erfurt to Leipzig or Magdeburg, the other up the valley of the Wetter, thence through Kassel to Hanover or Brauschweig. Together it will be noted, these two routes constitute our ‘ high road ’ to Berlin. “ Leading through the hills not too difficult, the Allies would have this advantage over the low road by way of the plain—they would by-pass a whole series of great North German rivers, crossing nothing more formidable than their much diminished head waters. Moreover, they would have as their goal the great road centres of Leipzig, Madgeburg, Brauschweig, and Hanover —four of the major objectives in all Germany, seizure of which would paralyse resistance. “In the centre, meanwhile, the Twelfth Army Group would be crossing the Rhine at Bonn and Cologne to strike north-eastward through defiles in the Rhineland hills, and so out into the Westphalian Plain beyond Ruhy. There it would continue north-east-ward, with the axis of its advance along the autobahn which connects the Ruhr with Hanover, near which latter it would expect to regain touch with the Sixth Army Group. Finally, on the left, the Twentyfirst Army Group would cross the Rhine downstream of Duisburg, with the axis of its advance directed on, Munster, Bremen, and Hamburg. Indeed, one of its primary tasks no doubt would be to secure a North German port or ports, and so shorten the sadly lengthening land lines of supply, which would stretch back to Antwerp Initially, its task could be no easy one—to cross the Rhine at its broadest in face of its old enemies of the first parachute army. Moreover, here on the lofa road it would have three great rivers to cross —the Ems, the Wesel, and the Elbe.”

Thus General Martin expresses the opinion that General Eisenhower would have marshalled his three army groups at the end of the advance on the 200mile arc from Leipzig to Hamburg.