TE AWAMUTU COURIER Printed on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays MONDAY, 20th APRIL, 1942 RUSSIA AND HER ALLIES

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 64, Issue 4562, 20 April 1942, Page 4

TE AWAMUTU COURIER Printed on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays MONDAY, 20th APRIL, 1942 RUSSIA AND HER ALLIES

RUSSIAN uneasiness about the United Nations’ presumed adherence to the view that offensive action on their part is a matter for the distant future has been apparent in recent statements by the Soviet Ambassadors to Great Britain and the United States. Speaking in London a fortnight ago, M. Maisky said the enemy was staking everything on 1942, and the Allies must do the same, and make a supreme effort now to beat him. There was no time to wait until the last button was sewn on the uniform of the last soldier. The decisive yeat was 1942, and the decisive place was the Russian front. The Allies must throw in everything they had, the time and place to be decided by the Allied general staff. In Philadelphia last week-end M. Litvinov spoke in similar terms, calling for united efforts by Britain and Russia,.with some upplementary aid from the United States, to smash Hitler into final defeat on the Russian front. He also urged simultaneous offensives on other fronts, emphasising that it was not enough to blockade Europe and bomb Germany. Like M. Maisky, he added a warning about deferring offensive action to the indefinite future. “ The sole path to victory may be blocked before we get there,” he said, “ if victory is not organised in time.” The significant point in both speeches is the emphasis on the Russian front as the one place where Hitler may be defeated. It is natural for each country to think its own immediate front the most important, but the facts of the present situation in Europe forestall the charge that, in making this appeal, the Russians are concerned only with their own safety. By now the Russian leaders, like those of the other Allied countries, must be convinced of the extreme difficulty, almost the impossibility, of presently opening another front in' Europe with much hope of success. It is noticeable that even M. Litvinov, in asking for action on other fronts, did not ask for any new front. So the possibilities of immediate action against Germany are limited to present fronts—to Russia and to North Africa. If Hitler’s armies cannot be driven back and destroyed on the Russian front, or at least held there in a conflict so expensive of German personnel and material that he will be unable to bring his forces into effective action elsewhere, the North African front may lose all significance. A German break through in Russia, overwhelming the Caucasus and bringing Hitler’s armies to the western gates of India, would be disastrous to the Allied cause. The consequences of Allied overthrow in Cyrenaica, bringing the Germans to the same goal by a southern route, could be almost as serious. In the speeches of both ambassadors the undertone of dissatisfaction with the nature and extent of British and American assistance to Russia is disturbing. It is not clear from either of them whether Russia is seeking merely an increase in the Allied supply of arms, or desires the active participation of Allied forces on the Russian front. They certainly suggest that Russia is concerned about the supply of arms, but the second interpretation should not be dismissed as unlikely. The wastage of Russian man-power and equipment in the bold and arduous winter campaign must have been very considerable, and the arrival of large bodies of Allied troops, bringing with them their own equipment, could easily make a considerable difference at vital points on the long-drawn-out Russian front, particularly in the south. Problems >f transport and supply would be difficult, but not insuperable, eithe? by

the southern route through the Persian Gulf or in the north through Murmansk and Archangel. Anticipation, of some such action, and not merely a desire to hamper the ordinary flow of supplies to Russia, may be the reason for the northward shift of German naval forces along the coast of Norway, and for the Japanese haste to acquire naval command of the Indian Ocean.