GRAVE POSITION IN EAST

Southland Times, Issue 24565, 14 October 1941, Page 5

GRAVE POSITION IN EAST

OPINION OF LONDON NEWSPAPERS (8.0.W.) RUGBY, October 12. The situation on the Eastern Front dominates the London Press today. Everywhere the extreme gravity of the situation is mentioned and although without exception the question whether Russia will be able to resist this latest and greatest German offensive and continue the campaign into the winter is answered in the affirmative, there is nowhere any doubt expressed of the heavy sacrifices, both in the geographical sense and in equipment and men which she would have to endure.

The general opinion appears to be that Hitler has put all the resources at his disposal into the present offensive in an attempt both to capture the Soviet capital and annihilate the Russian forces before the real winter sets in. His losses mean nothing to him so long as he is successful in these two aims. The majority of writers are less certain of Russia’s power to prevent his achieving the former than the latter aim, failure in which, in spite of the possible necessity of evacuating Moscow, they express considerable confidence. RUSSIA’S PERIL After giving an unsparing picture of Russia’s peril, J. L. Garvin, in The Observer, discusses the favourable aspects of the situation. He says: “Our eastern allies are resolved unto the death in their supreme battle for national freedom and against racial slavery. They know this is the direst emergency in the whole history of the Russian people. They fight with desperation in the elementary sense, but not for a moment do they despair. In the heart of Russia at a fearful cost to themselves, but matched by German losses, they are holding back the enemy’s pressure across all the approaches to Moscow. There has never been a greater flame of national spirit in the world. The brains and resolve of their leaders are equal to the endless courage and endurance of the rank and file and of the whole people.”