THE WAR NEWS

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 59, Issue 4186, 15 September 1939, Page 5

THE WAR NEWS

UNEXPECTED RESISTANCE IN POLAND. ACTIVITY ON 'WESTERN FRONT. During- the 1914-18 war the city of Lemberg (now known as Lwow) was the centre of much fighting, and apparently there is to be a repetition in the present trouble, for at latest broadcast advice the Nazis are paying particular attention to this strategic point in the campaign to subdue Poland quickly. Reports from, both sides claim extensive gains of territory, but each story lacks confirmation.

The Poles have been putting up a much stiffer resistance .to the invaders thah was possible earlier, and the French and British activities on the Wiestern Front have diverted attention from Poland to a considerable degree.

The Nazis claim to have captured Lodz and Gdynia, but the Poles declare that Lodz has been re-taken. The battle round [Warsaw is still raging.

It is claimed that the Allies are threatening the town of Saarbrucken, despite the heavy long-range artillery barrages. The Nazis are reported to have threatened to send 3000 aeroplanes to bomb the coastal towns and ports of Britain in answer to the British blockade measures.

Italy’s attitude on the score of neutrality is still indefinite. The Allied Supreme Council is preparing methodically to take. decisive measures on the Western Front, and a concerted attack on the first of the Siegfried Line is hourly expected.

There is little or no reference in the broadcasts to the Japanese and their intentions. The South American countries are expected to follow the lead of the United States in any definite move to apply strict neutrality. Meantime the British Government is pressing several of the countries to prevent overt acts by sheltering enemy vessels. The following extract from our files of exactly twenty-five years ago is interesting: The centre of attraction just now is the campaign in the eastern theatre. The Russians have assumed a vigorous offensive movement in East Prussia, and have heavily defeated a German army at MJawa, in Poland, a few miles below the German frontier, while the siege of Konigsberg, the great fortress on the Baltic, has begun in grim earnest. The Germans are reported to be hurrying troops by sea to Memel, their farthest northern port in the Baltic, with a view to moving a force on Tilsit, some miles south and to the east of Konigsberg. Details of the stupendous disaster which marked the culmination of the successful operations of the Russians against the AustroGerman armies in the vicinity of Tomaszow show that enormous captures of prisoners and war material were made, and the Austrian armies are reported to have capitulated.