GERMANS AT ARMAVIR

Southland Times, Issue 24818, 10 August 1942, Page 5

GERMANS AT ARMAVIR

BREAK THROUGH IN CAUCASUS (Rec. 7.30 p.m.) MOSCOW, Aug. 8. The Germans have broken through in strength to Armavir and are advancing in two directions, threatening the Waikop oilfields. The situation is critical. Fierce fighting is raging. On the Don and Kuban Cossacks southward of Kuschovskaya were forced to retreat. The Russians captured an inhabited locality on the Leningrad front and the Germans were pressed back. The Germans are not making great progress along the Don bend, despite their furious efforts, but they are steadily pushing south from the lower Don to the Caucasian mountains. They are also gaining some ground in their attempt to burst through the Kotelnikovo area to the Lower Volga, where the open country will facilitate a wide encircling sweep against Stalingrad or a thrust towards Astrakhan. Very bitter fighting rages along an irregular, but deeply idented front, which is 350 miles in a straight line —equivalent to the distance from the Dutch border to Switzerland. The Russians are expected to be able to contest the railway between Armavir and Maikop, which crosses half a dozen

rapid mountain streams swollen by melted snow and difficult to negotiate if strongly defended. A fierce battle has been raging since Wednesday. in the Kotelnikovo area, where toe Russians are holding prepared positions. FIGHTING IN DON BEND

The Moscow correspondent of The Times says toe main German tank concentration is being held, at Kotelnikovo, where Soviet air activity is intense. German tanks and shock troops which broke through yesterday are being steadily reduced by incessant counter-attacks. The Russians are fighting dauntlessly in toe Don bend, whose rich fields are littered with burning lorries, shattered guns, toe charred remains of supply depots and toe bodies of dead. Marshal Timoshenko’s men appear to have had the better of toe enemy in toe past 48 hours and toe battle shows no signs of diminishing. The Russians are attacking westwards of the Serafimovich area, from where toe Germans hold toe entire right bank of toe Don as far as toe Vororiej area. Serafimovich, on toe right bank of toe Don, is approximately 110 miles north-west of Stalingrad. Russian armoured units and artillery are battering toe Germans’ local defences in file Rjev area. The Germans admit that toe Russians are attacking toe Volkhov bridgehead, also on toe west bank of toe Volkhov river.

Moscow radio reports that guerrillas behind the German lines are being organized into regiments, brigades and divisions and are being systematically strengthened by para-troops. They have lulled 100,000 Germans in toe past 10 months, also 300 German-appointed burgomasters in White Russia and 200 burgomasters in Smolensk province. In local fighting on toe Volkhov front toe Russians captured a factory which the Germans had converted into a strongpoint. The Russians on toe Leningrad front captured two inhabited localities, killed 900 men and took considerable booty. With German panzer columns hourly pressing closer, toe Russians are reported to be destroying toe Maikop oilfields. The Stockholm correspondent of The Sunday Express says toe destruction began on Thursday and wrecking is still going on. If toe Russians delay invasion for four or five days longer destruction will be complete. All toe wells east of Maikop have already been set on fire and filled with tons of cement. Storages and electrical installations have been demolished.

the Caucasus range and southward of the Volga between Stalingrad and Astrakan. Such a development would involve the loss of toe Black Sea ports of Anapa, Novorossisk and Tuapse. The Caucasus, however, is a formidable barrier and its defence from Sukhum on the Black Sea to Derbent on toe Caspian would protect the more important parts of toe Caucasus, including Batum and Baku. VAST RUSSIAN RESERVES In spite of frequent Berlin pronouncements that the German strategy consists not primarily in the occupation of territory, but in toe destruction of toe Russian armies, toe influential newspaper Schwarze Korps recently declared: “Experience has taught us to reckon with the toughness of the Russians. It is impossible for us to undertake offensive operations at one fell swoop. The enemy has a vast hinterland and vast reserves of men. The war against him can be won only by relentlessly wearing him down.” The Germans claim that by this policy they will be able in 1943 to release a large part of their tank divisions and air strength now in toe east to meet an Anglo-American attack in the West. How they reach this conclusion is difficult to see. They are still 400 miles from Kuibyshev and 800 miles from their main Ural bases. German hopes of being able to maintain only defensive forces in the east are apparently based on hopes of a Russian oil shortage if toe Baku route is completely cut. However, it is known that the essential design of the three Soviet Five-Year Plans was to give Russia a war base beyond the Volga. Indeed, toe Russian oil wells outside toe Caucasus have a greater annual output than the total natural oil output of German-occupied Europe. Therefore, it is apparent that in order to be able to withdraw large forces from Russia in 1943 the Germans in the next two months must not merely conquer toe Caucasus, but undertake a gigantic offensive northeastward between Moscow and Stalingrad and drive the Russian armies at least across toe Volagon its entire course. In toe present circumstances it appears that German troop requirements in 1943 will be even greater than in 1942. TURKS ARE SCEPTICAL

Confirming this appreciation of the Russian situation, it is noted that the Turks and Finns, who are nearest the fighting, have no high opinion of the prospects of the German summer campaign. The general situation, it is reported, is viewed calmly in Ankara. Turkish experts are sceptical about any defeat of the central Russian armies. The Finns, for their part, express anxiety about the absence, with autumn already approaching, of any offensive on the 1500 miles front between Murmansk and Orel. The salient fact of the Eastern situation this year is that whereas in 1941 the Germans had forces to undertake simultaneous great offensives along the whole 2000 miles front, this year they have remained on the defensive along the major part of it and have failed to regain lost ground. This indicates the extent to which the Russians have already bled the German armies. German losses continue to be' great this year. For instance, the Russians state that the Germans lost 60,000 dead and 160,000 total casualties in the week’s fighting on the Don front between July 20 and August 4.

It is regarded in London as quite natural that, as reported on reliable authority, great uneasiness is coming over the Germans at the continued absence of decisive events in Russia.