Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 1943. EASTERN FRONT ELASTICITY.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 25 September 1943, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 1943. EASTERN FRONT ELASTICITY.

AS one clay follows another, the magnificent westward sweep of the Soviet forces in Southern Russia commands increasing admiration and must be awakening dire forebodings in the minds of the Nazi gangsters- It is barely three months since Hitler told the German armies opening their attack on the Kursk salient that the battle in which they were then engaged must decide the fate of the war. He was probably right, though hardly in the way he intended. Within a week or two the German onslaught had broken down in; complete and unrelieved failure, and this was only the prelude to far greater disasters.

While they were still dealing with the- ineffective German effort in the Kursk area, the Russians launched the tremendous offensive which they have developed with increasing power ever since—an offensive in which they have not only driven the enemy back half-way, or more than hall-way towards the liontiers from which he advanced in 1941, but have in great part smashed a system of fortified bases and defensive lines which the Germans had laboured for Iwo years to make impregnable. In their allegedly elastic defence, the Germans have been blasted out of strongholds they obviously intended to maintain indefinitely against any attacks that might develop.

Only a few weeks ago, it was conjectured that the intention of the Russians might be to drive on to the Dnieper. Already they are directly attacking or rapidly approaching the main bridgeheads on that great river and their shells, it was stated in one message yesterday, “are now whistling over the Dnieper to its high western bank as the Russian vanguards drive spearheads to the river below Kiev and against the centre of the great Dnieper bend.”

The position indicated is that the Germans at many points are averting the trapping and envelopment of large bodies of their troops only by rapid retreat, and it has yet to appear that they can defend strongly the Dnieper crossings, or other positions further north, such as the remaining Smolensk fortifications, without running the risk of disasters comparable with that which overtook them at Stalingrad. It appears to be established that the Germans are incapable of a sustained fighting stand against the tremendous striking power the Russians have developed and that the only hope the enemy high command has of gaining some temporary relief is contingent on an early break in the weather.

There have been some German suggestions that autumn rains may be expected soon to halt the Russian onset, but these hopes rest on a rather uncertain foundation. It has been pointed out, for instance, that it was in late September, 1941, that the Germans captured Kiev and Poltava and that the battle lor the Ukraine continued at its height throughout October of that year. “Autumn,” one commentator observed not long ago, is one of the good, fighting periods in Russia; and the Russians have greatly improved their system of rail communications as a result of recent gains.”

With their drive gathering momentum as it extends, the Russians may advance beyond the Dnieper to the Dniester, and reach or approach closely the Rumanian frontier before they are halted for a time by rains and mud. Whatever respite the Germans gain is likely in any event to be brief and uneasy. Their hopes of establishing a secure winter line obviously have vanished.