THE RUSSIAN STEAM-ROLLER

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 8, Issue 42, 23 January 1945, Page 4

THE RUSSIAN STEAM-ROLLER

KNOCKING at the very doors of the German Reich, the fighting legions of the Soviet, have hitherto carried all before them. The chaos in East Prussia where the next ham-mer-blow assault is anticipated is, according to neutral observers indescribable. Fear of the Russian, is deeply instilled in the guilty conscience of Hitler's Germany; and the millions who have found themselves helplessly in the road of the probable advance: have only one objective in mind —to flee. Flee from the path of the avenging Russian hordes, whose country the arrogant armies of the Reich have devastated, plundered and destroyed. For the first time in history the might of the sleeping Moscovite is being "experienced in the fullness of its dreadful majesty. The pace of its advance has staggered the world. Major towns are captured by the score in a day's march. Forty and fifty miles mark its progress every 24 hours. To the Russian armies is attached the same legendry propensities as were attach" ed the German armies when they first swept through the lowlands —they are invincible. To the front, have rushed the last of the German fighting material —the Home Guard, has been in action for the first time. Its baptism of fire is only commencing, for a long bitter struggle lies ahead of these fifty year old veterans, and the pathway of retribution they must tread will be full of suffering and privation. f Possibly the German fighting machine will still make some fitful stands along the borders of its country. There may even be some, desperate bids for ascendency at the eastern barriers, as were shown at the Ardennes. But without air support, with inferiority in manpower, and with the growing shortage of munitions making itself felt daily, these intermissions may be termed mere postponements to the inevitable date of complete victory for the Allied arms and the unconditional surrender of the Reich.