ONLY BEGINNING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 August 1942, Page 3

ONLY BEGINNING

THE MOUNTAIN CAMPAIGN

NO WEAKENING OF RUSSIAN FAITH.

IN POSSIBILITY OF DEFEATING

ENEMY.

LONDON, August 13.

The Moscow correspondent of the British United. Press emphasises that the next phase of the Caucasian battles —the mountain campaign—is yet in the early stages, and there is still ample time for the Russians to halt their long retreat. He and other correspondents look hopefully toward the indications of stiffening Russian resistance in the Cherkesk area, where the. Russian High Command is believed to be throwing in some hardy Caucasian reserves.

The “Red Star,” commenting on the fighting in the Caucasus, says: “The temporary Russian misfortune has not weakened our faith in our strength nor in the possibility of defeating the enemy.”

The Stockholm correspondent of “The Times” forecasts a German effort to cross the Caucasus via Mamison Pass rjnning south-west to Kutais, because it leads past the world’s greatest single source of manganese in the Chiatura district. Manganese is needed in Germany more than oil, and the latest information shows that the German steel industry is almost desperate owing to lack of this. The Paris radio declared that Russian reserves are being brought up from the Far East and are massing between the Don and Volga Rivers before Stalingrad.

An Ankara report claims that the Russians have 60 divisions .totalling 900,000 men, stationed in the Kuibyshev area. This is called a strategic army, and it is in readiness to be used when the most urgent crisis develops. Bitter engagements are in progress behind the German lines on the Bryansk front, where the enemy is intensifying'his efforts and using many tanks to liquidate a large partisan army which is lying uncomfortably close io a vital supply route. The partisans are reported to have killed 2000 men and destroyed 19 trains in the past few days.