The Timaru Herald MONDAY, JANUARY 11, 1943. RUSSIA’S OFFENSIVE

Timaru Herald, Volume CLIII, Issue 22476, 11 January 1943, Page 4

The Timaru Herald MONDAY, JANUARY 11, 1943. RUSSIA’S OFFENSIVE

few weeks ago a Moscow cor respondent of the :\eu' York Times outlined the strategy Russia would need to follow if the Germans were tn he routed. ’’Russia’s primary war aim is destruction of the enemy’s main forces and their consequent expulsion from Soviet soil.” he wrote. “This can only he achieved by falling upon him by surprise at a chosen moment. The timing and placing of the blow is what counts. To jockey the enemy into a position where he is fighting as far away from his bases as possible at a season when the greatest strain is placed on his transport, to strike when his men are weary, far from home and haunted by the spectre of the future, io press attacks from such directions that his retreating forces are likely to move a wav from their prepared positions.” This correspondent also declared that he had always traced in Stalin’s strategy a plan to fall upon the enemy from the north and to force him awav from the centre to the south, so that “eventually the roof will be brought crashing on his head.” Developments in the past few weeks prove that this New York Times correspondent had an accurate idea of the strategy the Red Army would follow in the winter. The winter is the best season for surprise attacks, but it could scarcely have been anticipated at the end of November that the Russians would be able to mount the large-scale offensives which are now harrying the Germans along large portions of the eastern front and also in the Caucasus. After the ruinously costly fighting of the summer and autumn the one thing the Germans required above everything else was a chance to rest and to reorganise their battered armies. This chance, however, has been denied them, and one of the main effects of the Soviet offensives is that the Germans cannot. depend any longer on their prepared winter lines. At first it might have seemed that the Russian gains might be little more than the Germans were prepared to yield to them, but this is obviously not so now. The enemy is under relentless pressure and he is being driven from points which it was necessary for Rim to hold if he was to have the best starting places for spring and summer campaigning this year. The kev to the present Russian successes was unquestionably the successful defence of Stalingrad. That the Germans attached preeminent importance to the capture of the city was shown by the boasts Hitler felt compelled to make to the German people. “We shall take Stalingrad, you may depend on that.” he declared. Stalingrad was not fallen and the Germans thus failed to secure the flank of the forces that had worked their way south across the Caucasian land bridge to Asia. By failing to take Stalingrad they also lost the supreme rhance of severing the Volga River route over which supplies came by wav of Iran and the Caspian Sea >o the Russian armies. Every available German resource of supplies and manpower was thrown vainly into the Stalingrad battle. In this war of attrition the Russians, cannot fail to win if they continue their present strategy. The Germans are powerful and the obvious device is to whittle down their strength. This is what was done in 1941; it was done last year, »nd it will continue being done until the last German has been driven from Russian soil. The Red Army is not being wasted in tremendous and costly summer drives. That style of fighting is left to the Germans. The Russians have perfected their winter strategy; winter offensives strike the enemy when he is at his weakest. This strategy must break the Germans in the end, for the Russians have the largest store of reserves to draw upon. Reserves are what count in a war of attrition, but the time will come when the Germans, because of an extension of their military commitments in Europe, Will not be so strong in coming summers as they have been in the past. When Russia can hold the initiative both in summer and winter the fatal outcome of Hitler’s challenge to Europe will be in sight.