SECOND FRONT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 March 1943, Page 4

SECOND FRONT

SPECULATIONS IN BRITAIN GIVEN SHARP EDGE OF URGENCY. EUROPE AND NORTH AFRICA. , (Special P.A. Correspondent.) (Received This Day, 9.45 a.rn.) LONDON. March 44. An Allied nations’ invasion of the Continent has been the subject of guarded speculation for weeks. It had become inevitable after Casablanca. More recently, with the early thaw m South Russia, German counter-attacks towards Kharkov ,and events m North Africa ,these speculations have been given a sharp edge of urgency, both for political and military reasons The demand for a second front, with all its implications, is still latent, for the longer the Allies' direct intervention in Europe is delayed, the better are the Germans ’plans suited. The position , at Kharkov, although serious, is not yet regarded as a cause foi dismay. The “Sunday Times" Moscow correspondent, commenting on the Russian front, says: “There has been no serious deterioration in the Russian position, but whereas until the middle of February everything was on the credit side, there is now a debit side. What really matters is not what the Russians have lost, but what they have not" succeeded in gaining. They have not reached the Dnieper, which would have been an ideal conclusion to the winter campaign, but the distances proved perhaps over-great. The time was just a little over-short, and the thaw came early in South Russia. The Russians advanced so rapidly that it was not always possible to restore the railway lines to the Russian gauge with sufficient speed. The great question now is whether the Russians, consider they can exhaust the Germans sufficiently outside Kharkov to make it worth while to hold it as a springboard for renewing the drive towards the Dnieper, or whether, with the great enemy force involved, they consider the holding of such a salient over-costly. Much depends on whether the Russians are planning offensive or defensive operations in the coming month on that front. For an offensive, Kharkov is an asset; for a defensive, a liability.” Regarding North Africa ,Mr J. L. Garvin, in the “Sunday Express,” points out that Allied results have been excellent in every way but one. They still tend to throw back the timetable of military co-operation with Russia in Europe. He writes: “At any cost we have to smash the Nazi tactics of obstruction in North Africa within a couple of months from now, or else push our arms into Hitlerite Europe by alternative means.” Mr Garvin expresses the opinion that it is still likely that the Germans may

remain in Tunisia longer than we like or can afford, in view of the compelling demands for an invasion “by early summer or before the situation in the heart of the Soviet may once more be at the pitch of a crisis. Quite possibly while it lasts it will be a most sinister ordeal; yet it may be acutely fateful to the whole war.”