TIMOSHENKO

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 05, Issue 56, 22 May 1942, Page 4

TIMOSHENKO

WAR focus is once again centred on Russia where the celebrated Marshal Timoshenko, anticipating the Nazi spring offensive has launched the thunder of his legions against Kharkov, the Soviet key town of th,e middle sector of the two thousand mile front. The lull in the Pacific theatre has afforded us the space to take stock anew of the gigantic events now taking place in the European arena. Hitler s vast armies,, now massing against, the Russian lines and consolidating their rear as the grip of winter relaxes, have been forced to take a central offensive prematurely. The shock of the impact was so great that the German front crumbed, then finally broke. The Russian avalanche still fighting fiercely has entered the armed precints of Kharkov, while the German High Command frantically rushed reinforcements tv strengthen its weakened divisions. Timoshenko's offensive constitutes the first large scale Initiative taken by the Soviet forces during the present campaign. Hitherto Russia's war has been mainly one of defensive with certain natural advantages accruing with the approach of winter. To-day with the thaw of spring already achieved the Soviet commander has attacked the invaders and beaten them for the first time on equal terms. The consternation at the Nazi ■ headquarters can be better imagined than described for the Russian attack unless successfully countered:, might well mean the crumbling of the well ordered plans on which the Germans staked their all. In the south where the Nazisi took the initiative the legions of Hitler have accomplished their objective and but for the stubborn defenders of Kerch rniglit truthfully boast that the first step towards the Caucasus had been accomplished. The well-timed plan of attack might well have been put into operation along the whole front but for one man —Timoshenko. Who is this commander who from the outset has called the German bluff at all times, and whose identity prior to the of hostilities no one outside, and few inside, Russia, had ever heard of. Rugged and blunt, he is a typical product of revolutionised; Russia. Ex-officer of the last war, he joined the ranks of the Bolshevists after tasting the bitterness of defeat at the Silurian Lakes and seeing the overthrow of the Czarist regime. Advancing with the new school of military thought he personally sponsored the intensification of conducting war from the air—paratroops, and air-borne infantry. When most of the European military experts discarded the use of cavalry, he championed the horse as the most effective strategic method, of pursuit and shock tactics. How well his ideas have borne fruit is now known to the world. To-day he stands out as the most energetic and brilliant strategist of the Soviet military leaders. When the new Russian history is written after th * war one name perhaps will figure largely in its annals and that will be Timoshenko.