Gambit at Sevsk

For seven weeks, the Red and Nazi master players feinted, traded pawns, moved flesh-and-steel chessmen across Russia's vast chessboard. For seven weeks, in a desperate effort to fathom each other's strategy, they pored over maps, battle reports, messages from spies and scouts. Last week both knew: the Russians had outguessed and outplayed their foe.

The deadly game began early this summer. Anticipating Hitler's great offensive, the Red Army massed its men and guns in the Kursk-Belgorod sector. The Wehrmacht massed its strength south of Sevsk, near the center of the 300-mile-long chessboard.

On July 5 the Russians knew they had guessed right. The Germans struck at Kursk, were repulsed with staggering losses. But the Red Army did not attack Sevsk. Instead, it struck in the north, capturing Orel. That done, it shifted its weight to the south, against Kharkov. The German command moved its idle reserves from Sevsk, threw them into the futile defense of Kharkov.

Last week, when the Nazi reserves had been well thinned out, the Red Army finally attacked and captured Sevsk.

This week a number of tempting opportunities face the Red Command all along the front. It can strike:

> From Sevsk northward, to the rear of Bryansk, whose powerful defenses have held up Red frontal attacks for many days; or from Sevsk to Konotop, and thence to Kiev and the Dnieper;

> From the steadily widening Ukrainian wedge, to Kiev; or (more likely) towards the lower Dnieper (the latter drive would trap 300,000 Germans in the pocket between the Donets and the Sea of Azov);

> From Izyum ("raisin") southward, in a more limited trapping maneuver;

> From the base at Voroshilovgrad, Russia's Pittsburgh, against the eastern bottom of the German pocket. Here, this week, the Germans abandoned Taganrog, which survived the great Red offensive of last winter. In this pocket, too, Soviet flyers saw the Nazis blow up dumps and defense--a telltale of retreat.

In all these plays, the Red Army's twin goals were the Dnieper and the ancient city of Kiev, the Wehrmacht's most important base in the Ukraine. But in seeking them, the Red Command never lost sight of its old and tested strategy of myasoroobka--the meat-grinder, which by steady pounding and by enveloping maneuvers has been crushing the Wehrmacht's bone.

Thus far the Red Command has played its game shrewdly, used its reserves wisely, lacked neither men nor supplies. But before the Red soldier takes his first drink of Dnieper water, he must overcome:

> Fierce German resistance, which has now slowed down the Red tide to a few miles daily, even on a tabletop terrain;

> Strained or inadequate lines of supply;

> Huge losses.

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