Onslaught Resisted

For the first time since Russia launched its great counteroffensive on the central front on Dec. 6, Allied sympathizers last week were hauled up short by two strong hints that many more men must be lost and many more miles covered before victorious Red Armies parade along Unter den Linden and the Wilhelmstrasse. As a matter of cold fact, Adolf Hitler's retreating Armies were chins-up on at least two fronts:

Leak in the Center. Three weeks ago Russia claimed that 100,000 Germans were encircled at Mozhaisk, 57 miles west of Moscow, and had been ordered to surrender or die. The beleaguered invaders chose to fight, and for several days Russian communiques dwelt lovingly on 100,000 Nazis facing annihilation. After fierce street fighting, the Red Armies entered a blazing Mozhaisk last week. But the fabulous 100,000 birds had apparently flown. The Red Army organ Krasnaya Zvedzda mentioned prisoners only once ("more than 100" captured by cavalry-supported ski troops), referred glibly to an unspecified number of Germans "retreating westward."

Rebound in the South. On the Crimean peninsula, both sides agreed that the Germans had strongly counterattacked at points southeast of Simferopol. New York Timesman Daniel T. Brigham, covering the Russian war from censor-free Switzerland, declared: "The mere fact that the Germans in that sector are in a position to counterattack at all is taken to indicate that their situation in Simferopol cannot be considered as desperate as it was first thought to be. . . ." Capping the week was a German High Command claim of recapture of Feodosiya, on the Black Sea coast, one of the first Crimean points reclaimed by Russia in the counteroffensive.

So long as Adolf Hitler retains even a small foothold in Crimea, he has a perfect springboard for his promised second Russian offensive in the spring: a jump from the south smack into the rich oilfields of Baku.

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