Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, JANUARY 9, 1941. THE RUSSIAN RETURN BLOW.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 January 1942, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, JANUARY 9, 1941. THE RUSSIAN RETURN BLOW.

WHETHER. the Germans have prospects of establishing a stable defensive front in Russia remains more or less an open question. Evidence is mounting up every day, however, that limits are far from having been set to the defeat they have suffered on account of their failure—perhaps their inability—to prepare in good time for a winter campaign in the Eastern war theatre. The Russians are striking with shattering force and effect along a great part of their enormously extended front and the facts of the German disaster are written large in the Moscow and Leningrad sectors and in other areas.

Nowhere is the victorious onset of the Soviet, armies of more commanding promise and significance than in the operations that are in progress in the Crimea. Although their withdrawal has nowhere been economical —tremendous losses of men and material having been suffered at many points—the Germans, when their offensive failed, no doubt planned to make a limited withdrawal on some parts of the Eastern front. There is every reason to believe, however, that they have not yielded willingly a single foot of ground in the Crimea. It is so much the more important that the Russians have now recovered a. substantial part of that famous peninsula and are threatening a large proportion of the invading forces with envelopment.

In the history of war there have been few more dramatic transformations than that which has occurred within the space of a week or two in the Crimea. Even when they had been driven out of Rostov on Don, the Germans, holding the whole of the Crimea with the exception of Sebastopol, were still in a position to threaten the Caucasian oil region by way of the .Strait of Kerch. Besieging Sebastopol in strong force, they were at the same time striking at the last good base available to the Russian Black Sea Fleet. Completing their conquest of the Crimea, they would have been able, by putting pressure on Turkey and in other ways, profoundly to influence the total position in and around the Black Sea.

It has now become at least a question whether the Germans can hope to escape overwhelming disaster in the Crimea. The Russians are not only advancing from Kerch, which they recaptured in a bold and successful landing operation, but have effected another landing, apparently on a large scale, at Eupatoria, on the western side of the Crimea, well to the north of Sebastopol, and still another at Yalta on the south coast. It is reported also that the garrison of Sebastopol has taken the offensive, and at time of writing it is stated to have penetrated several miles into the positions of the besieging German forces. The full outcome has yet to appear. There can be no doubt, however, about the strategic importance of the Crimea. Neither can there be any doubt that the intention of the Germans was to maintain their grip on the Peninsula and to complete their conquest by taking Sebastopol. If, therefore, the Russians gain in the Crimea the decisive victory of which there are now at least fair prospects, most impressive evidence will be provided of the failure and weakening of the German military machine.