Near the Back Door

Germany's southern frontier would soon be a front, instead of an area threatened by swift-moving Russian spearheads.

Marshal Rodion Y. Malinovsky's Second Ukrainian Army, driving north from Rumania, had already driven out onto the Hungarian plain. Last week, crumpling paper-thin Hungarian opposition, it reached the only water barrier before Budapest and the Danube -- the Tisza River. With hardly a pause, the Russians crossed it 50 miles from Budapest, had a clear road ahead to the capital, where Nazis were already beginning to clear out.

Belgrade and Nish. Other Soviet divisions were busy in Yugoslavia. A quick march westward from Rumania took them to the outskirts of Belgrade. Joining up with Marshal Tito's Partisans, they began their attack on the capital. The Belgrade attack appeared to be part of the Hungary operation, and the swing northward to Germany's side door. Another drive toward Nish, an important position on the Athens-Belgrade railroad, seemed designed to cut off the last Germans in Yugoslavia and Greece. Malinovsky was liquidating the Germans' Balkan venture, with yeoman help from Tito's Partisans and the British in Greece. But while he was carrying out this politico-military mission he was not forgetting the main job. Germany would feel the heavy hand of his army.

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