COMMENT AND REFLECTIONS

Evening Star, Issue 24286, 29 August 1942, Page 5

COMMENT AND REFLECTIONS

Gferman gains of the week in South Russia add up to an expressive and rather daunting total, and it seems clear that if von Bock has the capacity to maintain his drive at its present colossal weight, Stalingrad will be closely invested within a few days, in developing this attack, the German general confronted Marshal Timoshenko with several simultaneous thrusts, 'i’liere was the direct frontal' attack foiled by the Soviet’s determined stand, the drive froin Kotelnikovo south-west of the city, which at one stage looked like achieving speedy success, but later faltered to a halt, and now, with the Russian armies stretched thin to hold tiiese attacks, the crucial and crushing assault on the bend of the Don River, north-west of Stalingrad. Once the Germans succeeded in establishing and maintaining a footing on the oast side of the river at this point, they flung in such masses of armoured infantry and tanks, and provided so overwhelmingly strong air and artillery adjuncts that they have at last (apparently) driven a wedge separating the Russian armies, and stultifying in one week the aim for which Timoshenko has subordinated everything, for which he has yielded all the important wheatfields, coalfields, and industrial belts of this rich economic area—viz., the preservation of his armies intact and undivided, with homogeneity, equipment, and fighting spirit unimpaired. The latter, indeed, has suffered no diminution or dilution in these reverses, but it does begin to appear that the Red Army is not strong enough to hold the assault of an army a million strong, in which close-meshed, overflowing combinations of tanks, planes, infantry, and artillery are thrown in with the smallest regard for casualties so only the objective be reached. Nor does the weighty Russian counter-offensive in the Moscow sector afford any real hope of relief in the south. It is a splendid diversion, which acutely threatens the German hold on Rjev, but it is unlikely that the enemy will allow even a substantial reverse in this area to deflect his deadly blow at Timoshenko. Stalingrad must stand or fall by the strength available at present, and such reserves as are doubtless massed in the city’s rear. The steel city is protected by river and canal obstacles and an olaboratelv-firepared defenco-in-depth, and, if beset, is likely to prove as costly an obstacle to the Nazis as did Sebastopol. A complication of its situation which may later have heavy bearing on its fate is German'occupation some weeks ago of the town of Elista, some 100 miles due west of Astrakhan, at the mouth of the Volga. The steppe country here is easy going for armoured forces, and von Bock niav seek to paralyse the defence of Stalingrad by a direct drive to the southern city to sever 1 all links between the Caucasus and Central -Russia via the Caspian Sea.

It is a pity to have to paint the Russian picture in terms of almost unrelieved gloom; but it is necessary to add that the situation in the Caucasus area is scarcely less precarious. On the Black Sea side the powerful Soviet defences of the Kuban have been taken in rear, with immediate threat to Novorossisk, the sole remaining workable base for Russia’s fleet. Little news filters through of the laud attack upon the port through , the mountains behind >t, but it is without doubt proceeding, since it is a important phase of the whole operation. Reduction of the port would lose Russia control ,of the Black Sea and might facilitate enemy landing in the Transcaucasian province without undertaking the arduous feat of crossing the mountain barrier. It is difficult to glean from the cable news any reliable evidence as to the actual situation among the foothills of the Caucasus, but the obtrusion of certain place names seems to' indicate that the enemy is staking everything u pon_ a motorised and mechanised blitzkrieg over the high passes concomitant with the lowland thrust for the Grozny oilfields and the Caspian, and the drive for the Black Sea ports. During the week the Germans have claimed the' capture of Mozdok, which is about 60 miles from Grozny, and affords direct access to the great Georgian military highway through the high mountains; and since in the same breath there was mention of bitter fighting for a pass at an elevation of 9,000 feet, it seems a legitimate inference that the .enemy has actually embarked upon the enterprise of breaching the ranges. This is rather surprising when the present situation seems to indicate early opportunity of by-passing the obstacle. However, the cable accounts are so fragmentary and disjointed that his general situation in this area may be less favourable than they imply. At any rate, if the Re’chswehr bas be°n committed to this opoi-at’on, it is likely to prove the most d : fficult task ever it. Winter sets in early at these altitudes, the distances and obstacles are enormous, and the Russian defences reputedly formidable. ,

All that we have reviewed does not imply that Russia can he permanently knocked out or wholly devoured by the German hordes. Indeed the Soviet leaders, even in the present parlous situation, seem to have a firm belief in their capacity to hold Stalingrad < and the Caucasus, and to establish winter lines on the Volga River. But oven Supposing the worst to happen, Stalingrad to he reduced and the mountains breached to the oilfields, could still retire to the great industrial reserve of the Urals, which mountains form now an impregnable line of economic defence, stretching parallel with the present battle lines, but separated from them by 900 miles. The point, of course, is that while Russia would still he unbeaten and indeed unbeatable, her lines of communication with her allies would be severed, and she would constitute no great threat to Germany which could hold the whole winter front with 25 per cent, of

present concentrations, releasing for. service in the west a huge mass .of material and men.

The deadlock on the Egypt front was broken this week with a surprise attack upon, an Italian division by the New Zeaianders It was a highly-successful enterprise on a limited scale, but apparently not the prelude to general attack. It is most difficult to assault a strongly-entrenched enemy along a short front ot 35 miles, protected on. one flank by the sea and on the other by the formidable ' obstacle of tha Qattara Depression. Attack must necessarily assume a frontal form and the issue resolve itself into a direct clash of guns, armour, and men.' The emphasis on reinforcement becomes greater. daily, and cable admissions of large additions to Rommel’s forces compel the reflection that an unduly protracted lull may tip the balance of resources in his favour. He is still there at the mouth of the El Alamein funnel, and still largely intact despite the damaging effect of his vain 11-day attempt to force the bottleneck. Moreover, he has a growing army of parachute and glider troops in Crete, only waiting lor his signal to assist by an assault in our rear. To remove once and for good the potential and growing danger of a German break-through to Alexandria our new G.0.C., 'General Alexander, must force a way through the funnel to country, where deployment of armoured forces and warfare of open type are possible.

There is satisfactory evidence in the reticent United States communiques about the Solomons enterprise to indicate that the Japanese are having forced down their tnroats a goodly dose of the same bitter brew they submitted to us in December last, and that their reaction may be seen in a growing recklessness that may presently deliver them into our hands. When we attribute to Nipponese the qualities of mind that govern Western reactions to a, situation we miscalculate the width of the gap that separates the Occidental from tue Oriental outlook. Japan devised her plans on the best European model (Germany’s), and executed them "faultlessly with a skill and cold-blooaed treachery that even Hitler could nos have bettered. Everything went web. Ihe Americans were - orippied at Rear! Harbour, the British were ignominiousiy ejected from ■ Hongkong anti Malaya, the Dutch from the Ease Indies; even the Indian Ocean was under, the threat of Japan’s fleet. She attained enormous prestige among tha natives of the places she occupied and despoiled, and even achieved a certain degree of popularity with some by clever use of the colour propaganda. But then the wheel was reversed, and Japan began to “ lose face ” as rapidly as she had gained it. She has had to swallow the humiliation of complete defeat in the Coral Sea, at Midway, and now in the Solomons, which the Americans have largely wrested from her, beyond chance of recovery. She is being compelled to hazard her semi-crippled navy in increasingly reckless fashion to regain “ face,” and if the Americana can continue their hammer blows w» may early see her put all on the table in one reckless gamble. The partial occupation of Milne Bay, at the southeast tip of New Guinea, while it has the strategical justification of being on the flank of Port Moresby and outflanking the Solomons, is never-' tireless a sheer gamble, since both this force and the larger units at Buna and Kokoda face isolation ■ and extinction if America completely consolidates her grip on the Solomons, which would seem now as assured as anything can bo in war.