MR EDEN VISITS MOSCOW

Southland Times, Issue 24630, 30 December 1941, Page 5

MR EDEN VISITS MOSCOW

TALKS WITH STALIN AND MOLOTOV FUTURE COLLABORATION (8.0.W.) RUGBY, December 28. The Foreign Office announces: “In the second half of December 1941, there took place in Moscow between M. Stalin and the Soviet Foreign Commissar, M. Viacheslav Molotov, on the one hand, and the Foreign Secretary, Mr Anthony Eden, on the other, an exhaustive exchange of views on questions relating to the conduct of the war and to the post-war organization of peace and security in Europe. The exchange of views on questions relating to the post-war organization of peace and security provided much important and useful material which will facilitate future collaboration in concrete proposals on this subject. The conversations constitute a new and important forward step towards closer collaboration between the Soviet and Britain.” In Britain widespread attention is focussed on the proceedings of Allied war conferences in Washington and Moscow, which are expected to produce an agreement between the great Powers and their associates on the prosecution of the war throughout the world, A

fundamental agreement on strategy is recognized as essential for the most successful distribution of the supplies at the Allies’ disposal, particularly during the present period before American production is fully developed. HEAVY AXIS DEFEATS Before any major decisions have been taken in Washington heavy defeats have already been inflicted on the Germans in Russia and on ‘the combined Axis forces in North Africa —achievements which appear to justify the decisions to reinforce both the Russians and the Allied armies in Egypt even at the temporary expense of Far Eastern defence. A new phase now opens on both fronts. By capturing Kaluga and neighbouring towns the victorious Russian armies have crushed German hopes of stabilizing a shortened line during the winter. At the same moment General Sir Claude Auchinleck, having inflicted heavy losses on the enemy armoured forces and infantry and reached the western end of Cyrenaica, is now in a position to

jeopardize the whole Axis position in the rest of North Africa. Attention, nevertheless, has already been fixed on the prospects of successfully defending the Far East against the Japanese. This, it is felt, must be the immediate preoccupation of the Allied statesmen and their staffs in Washington.