THE RUSSIAN DEBACLE

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 4, Issue 125, 4 July 1941, Page 4

THE RUSSIAN DEBACLE

TERRIFIC major battles continue to mark the twelfth successive day since Germany launched her five-point drive into Soviet Russia. Millions of men, armed with all the weapons of modern warfare are locked together in a titanic struggle, the reason for which, apart from the possession of certain oil wells, remains a perpetual enigma. Negotiations could readily have brought about the supply of oil to the Nazi war machine, but it remained for the caprice of one man to decide upon peaceful trading or belligerency. The spirit of Mein Kampf,, triumphed and spurning her recently signed treaties of friendship, Germany has treacherously attacked the unsuspecting Soviet States in the guise of the deliverer of both Finland and Rumania from Soviet bondage. What has been the immediate result? It is estimated that the Reich has two and a half million men eating their way through the gigantic green bulk of southern Russia. Twenty of the celebrated panza' or armoured divisions are included, and over 2500 war planes. Pressure on England has been relaxed, and almost unopposed the R.A.F. go about their daily bombings of military objectives in Germany and occupied France. Can the Russians hold out? That is the question that is uppermost in all minds at the present time. Can they but keep the German armies occupied while Great Britain girds on her armour and prepares for the offensive. Along the whole see-saw line of attack, nothing approaches the ferocity of the fighting which is going on round the famous Pripet marshes, where the main drive to " Moscow has been launched. Can the Russians hold on? A nation with a boasted military strength of ten million front line troops and reserves to double that number is not to be under-estimated. But to offset Russia's superior numerical strength, we must recognise the Germans as master-organ-isers who are fighting a foe whose weakness in this direction is notorious. History tells of the disastrous Silurian Lakes battles in East Prussia in the early part of the last war, when the heroic Russian peasantry charged the wellarmed Germans opposing them, with sticks, stones and rifle-butts. All lines of Russian communication had failed. Commissariat had ceased to exist, chaos followed quickly in the steps of starvation and ammunition famine. If the modern Russian military technicians are true to type, having not profited by the bitter lessons of the past, the outcome of the present struggle will be even more disastrous. But who are we to foretell events. All we know for certain is that as a direct result of the German-Russo conflict a great burden has been lifted from Great Britain, the dreaded 'luftwaffe' having been checked very effectively. The Prime Minister's veiled hint of Britain assuming the offensive in the near future, gives ah inkling that the authorities are not dead to the opportunities which now present themselves. Can the armies of Soviet Russia keep the Nazi forces can they bring about a long stringing-out of the attacking Germans, can they divert more and still more German divisions away from garrison or defensive duties in Western Europe, while Britain prepares for a decisive stroke ?