STALINGRAD FRONT

Marlborough Express, Volume LXXVI, Issue 251, 24 October 1942, Page 5

STALINGRAD FRONT

GERMANS DIGGING IN WEATHER A PROBLEM FOR NAZIS

P.A. Gable.

LONDON, Oct. 23.

Latest reports from Moscow state that the Germans have made no progress for the past four days. Correspondents describe the fighting as on a greatly reduced scale, with the Axis virtually marking time. The Germans are feverishly consolidating their positions in the districts they captured in their new drive. Both sides are eonstructing strongpoints of such fire power that the cecasional attacks flung against them are too costly unless the positions have first been reduced by artillery fire. There is no hint of any early resumpticn of major-scale actions. In the Mosdok area of the Caucasus fighting has also dwindled to minor operations, the Russians having restored the position into which the Germans had driven a wedge. The weather continues to set a problem for the Germans along the southern Russian front. In addition to quagmired streets slowing up his attacks at Stalingrad, the enemy is hard put to it to find shelter for his troops, because no large inhabited localities are near the city for billets. Cold driving rain continues in Stalingrad, and some snow fell on the steppeland north-west of the city. The Times' Moscow correspondent says that the Germans are continuing their attacks in the northern suburbs without gaining ground. Stalingrad's situation is still critieal. It is now elear that the latest German offensive has Tost its original momentum and so lost the chance of developing its initial success while the Russians were off their balance. Russian guns have been more than a mateh for German tanks approaching the disputed factory frorn the north-west. SEVEN ATTACKS BEATEN BACK. The Stalingrad field radio reported that the Russians yesterday beat -back seven German attacks in the north-west sector of the city. The enemy was finally forced to with.draw. The German High Command, describing the Russian break-through north-west of Stalingrad, said that the Russians, by concentrating forces on a narrow front, succeeded in penetrating the German forward positions. The High Command

claimed that the lme was recaptured. Moscow messages say that the weather is playing a vital part in the Caucasus where the enemy is making an effort to bustle across the mountain passes southwards before the snow piles high enough to halt all movement. German ta-nk assaults have already diminished appreciably. Red Star considers that the Germans are husbanding their heavy tanks, hoping to throw them in at a decisive moment for a break- through. The paper adds that the enemy in the past ten days lost 4000 men in bitter fighting for a mountain road. The German High Command in a statement said that the Caucasus operations in the past few days had been eonfined to solving the transport problem which the Germans had done by columns of porters. An American radio commentator in a broadcast from Moscow declared: "The Caucasus front is bleeding the invader white."