COMPLETE COLLAPSE FOLLOWS ORDERLY RETREAT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 September 1939, Page 5

COMPLETE COLLAPSE FOLLOWS ORDERLY RETREAT

Courage of Soldiers Unavailing AGAINST ENEMY MECHANISED FORCES DESPERATE EFFORT TO RALLY REMAINDER OF ARMY (By Telegraph.—Press Association.—Copyright.) LONDON, September .18. The correspondent of “The Times” at Zalesczyki says the Polish military situation which a week ago was an orderly retreat, has become the exact opposite. The front has collapsed completely and little more remains but for the Germans to mop up what is left of the gallant army of 1,500,000 men. They have not appeared at Zalesczyki, Sniatyn or Kuty, but the cutting of this frontier is only a matter of time and the same applies to the Latvian and Lithuanian frontiers. The present demoralisation and rout are not attributable to lack of courage by the Polish soldiers, but to the fact that their unmechanised forces were mown down by tanks when they were not shot down by machine-guns from aeroplanes. The Polish wireless communications early completely collapsed, the engineers relying, like the entire nation, on courage rather than efficiency. The separate units had not the vaguest idea where the Polish headquarters were situated and knew only vaguely where the fronts were, unless they heard German wireless communiques.