Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 29, 1943. ITALY AND THE BALKANS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 29 December 1943, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 29, 1943. ITALY AND THE BALKANS

TT is generally assumed in London, according to one of yesterday’s cablegrams, that there are to be operations in the Balkans,'in addition to the other campaigns that are in progress or .are planned against Nazi Germany. The assumption appears, on a number of grounds, to be entirely reasonable. Conspicuously as the prospective mass invasion 01. Burope by forces based on Britain figures in the Allied programme, it seems likely that by concerted action from west and east against the enemy forces in the Balkan Peninsula it may be possible to add speedily and heavily to add to the strain imposed on German. resources and to achieve results that will contribute in an important degree to the victory of the United Nations.

Since the campaign in Italy entered on its already lengthy phase of what General Eisenhower has called a period ol dirty slogging against a heavily resisting enemy,” in which Allied progress northward “will depend more than anything else, perhaps, on the quantity of reinforcements the German Command decides to hurl against us,” the British Prime Minister’s famous phrase “the soft underbelly of the Axis,” has lost lor the time being something of its point. Presumably, however, the Allies in their action against Southern Europe are not bound to restrict themselves to frontal attacks on powerfully organised enemy defences stretching across the Italian peninsula.

Although they overwhelmed organised opposition in the Balkans in a whirlwind campaign in the spring of 1941, the Germans today are to all appearance very far from being in effective military command of this most troubled of all European territories' In Yugoslavia and Greece guerilla warfare is expanding in spite of all German efforts to make an end of it and there is ample evidence that the Balkan States which rank as Axis satellites are looking eagerly for a way of escape from their bondage to the Nazis.

In the latest readjustment of Allied commands, particularly the appointment of General Sir Bernard Paget to be Com-mander-in-Chief in the Middle East under the supreme Allied commander in the Mediterranean, General Sir IT. Maitland Wilson, there is a further indication that an early invasion 01. the Balkans may be contemplated. Assuming that the necessary shipping, air and other resources are available, the enterprise should have obvious attractions as a means not only of easing the existing situation in Italy and compelling the enemy further to disperse his strength and efforts, hut of co-operating advantageously with the Russians in their offensive which is developing so well in the southern section, as well as on other parts of the Eastern front.

It was said some time ago that failure by the Germans to arrest the Bed Army onslaught on the Dnieper would entail the loss by the enemy of all South Russia. Now that the Germans are being hurled back in defeat in the area in which they were lately conducting a ruinously costly counter-offensive, the prospect is brightened greatly that the Red Army before long, without prejudice to its victorious operations further north, may be driving on Rumania.

•An. attack on the Balkans .from west.and east would open for the Germans prospects only, if at all, less gloomy than the impending mass invasion of the Continent from Britain. There is much to suggest that the enemy is much more vulnerable in the Balkans than, he is at the moment in Italy. Defeat in the Balkans would mean for the Germans not only the loss of Rumanian oil —in itself a tremendously important factor —but the opening of invasion routes into South and Central Europe.