CAUTIOUS HOPES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 25 September 1942, Page 3

CAUTIOUS HOPES

ENTERTAINED IN LONDON GERMANS UNDER HEAVY STRAIN WILL NOT HAVE BACKS FREE IN 1943 (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) LONDON. September 23. For the first time since the Germans launched this year’s attack against Russia, there are notes of very cautious optimism being sounded. It would be rash to place any hopeful reliance on them at this stage, but at the same time they should be observed. Stalingrad, as the key point of the Nazi offensive, still holds two months after the offensive was started toward it, and the slaughter of Germans has been so great and the Nazi programme has been so delayed that there is a growing feeling that even if the Germans take Stalingrad, which is still doubtful, they cannot mount another offensive this year. For that reason, one deduction which can legitimately be drawn is that they will not have (heir backs free in 1943. Meanwhile, the Germans' defensive position in Russia has deteriorated. The capture of Stalingrad would make a pivot for the flank, protecting the enemy armies in the Caucasus, and unless such a flank can be constructed there remains the threat of attack on the Germans from the rear. NAZIS NOW RETICENT. Reports from Stockholm indicate that a change of the utmost significance is perceptible in Berlin’s accounts of the Stalingrad position, and that where the spokesmen were once confident that the city would fall they are now reticent The “Frankfurter Zeitung” has made the extraordinary suggestion that “for the time being Stalingrad is not of urgent importance.” In London one view is that the Germans have three weeks left to take Stalingrad. That view is based on German military writers, who stated before the attack that October 14 was the latest von Bock could attack, and after that he would have to seek winter quarters. The reports from Stalingrad already indicate a deterioration in the weather. Three weeks! Can the Russians hold out? GRIM WINTER IN PROSPECT Meanwhile, reports from Moscow indicate that Russia faces a grim winter, while there is bitterness against her allies for not starting a second front. Paul Winterton, the “News Chronicle’s” Moscow correspondent, states: “Three things dominate Russian minds in view of the approaching winter —casualties, food and fuel. There is hardly a family throughout the length and breadth of this wide land which is not either mourning the death or mutilation of its man or living day after day on a razor-edge of apprehension.” While there will be no shortage of the necessary nourishment on the military and industrial fronts, millions of Russians face a winter of very great privation. The shortage of fuel is due to the loss of mines and the lack of labour and transport, and while there will be enough for the essential services there will not be enough for the people’s homes.

“There will be no collapse, but is there any wonder that they -resent that the relief is being so long withheld?” Mr Winterton writes. “They are bitter. They do not think much of their allies.”

Ronald Matthews, the “Daily Herald's” Moscow correspondent, also says: “The Russians do not think of us as allies in the full sense of the word. They will not till a second front is opened.”