Victory Must Wait

Warm winds from the southwest blew across the southern Ukraine last week. From Kharkov to the Sea of Azov the snow began to melt and the rich black earth steamed. Red Army men took off their cloth helmets and marched bareheaded. Tankers lifted their turrets and breathed lungfuls of the fresh, clean air.

A little ahead of time, the weather of spring had come, and it was lovely. Perhaps it had come too soon for the Russians. In three months the Red Army had performed near miracles by driving the Wehrmacht back into the Ukraine and smashing the Kursk-Kharkov line--achievements which in themselves may prevent the Germans from again striking deep into Russia's southern heart. Nevertheless the Russians had still not reached the objectives--stated only last week--of their present offensive: 1) to complete the Dnieper drive; 2) to prevent the Wehrmacht from consolidating new lines; 3) to clear the last Germans from the Caucasus.

Pause in the South. For the first time since the siege of Stalingrad was lifted, the Russians last week could report no sizable gains on their southern fronts. And this week they admitted a serious German effort to split their front between the Donets and the Dnieper Rivers--a front which had to be kept intact if the Red Army hoped to bear down heavily on the German salient in the Eastern Ukraine.

If the Russians fail to reach their winter objectives, they may have another chance when the ground dries in about two months. But the longer the Russians are delayed the more meaningless any eventual victory in the Donets-Dnieper salient would become. As in Tunisia, the Germans in south Russia--whether they eventually lose the campaign or not--have everything to gain by upsetting the Red Army's timetable. They would be better able to consolidate new positions, train much-needed reserves, replace some of their lost materiel. The next few weeks may well determine the outcome of the Russian war.

Peril in the North. The Soviet High Command this week announced a full-scale offensive in the north, below Leningrad. Led by Marshal Semion Timoshenko, the Russians--taking full advantage of the remaining weeks of winter--were attacking the entire German 16th Army near Lake Ilmen. Moscow said that over 300 towns and settlements had been retaken, that 11,000 Germans were killed or captured. Success would mean that the Germans would be outflanked on the approaches of Leningrad. Then, especially if the Finns managed to make peace the whole Nazi position in the north would be in peril.

But the most urgent reason for a northerly offensive--and a fact which had been all but forgotten in the glad heat of victory in the south--was that the Germans on the central front were still less than 125 miles from Moscow. At Gzhatsk, on the Moscow-Smolensk railway, the Germans reported one attack. The Russians had been intermittently assaulting the Germans' powerfully defended Smolensk-Rzhev-Vyazma triangle since last summer, they had stepped up the assaults at the start of the winter drives--yet the Germans still held a position which could be the starting point of another stab at Russia's heart. The Russians were at once trying to forestall this possibility and perhaps pinning down forces which might have been shifted South.

Both Moscow and Berlin reported violent action near Orel, the hinge on which the German central and southern lines swung. Several Red columns, partly equipped with U.S.-and British-made tanks, converged on the city from three sides. The battles were fought in one of the heaviest snowstorms in years. At night, if they were not fighting. Red Army men huddled into little roadside houses. They slept on their feet, each edging to the brick stove to thaw out his boots. They had won great victories, but this week they had yet to win The Victory.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.