End of the Lull?

More than three months had passed since the great Red Army offensive rolled to a stop before Warsaw; eight weeks had passed since Marshal Stalin pledged the Red Army's "last, final mission . . . in the near future."

But last week the "near future" appeared to be perceptibly nearer. In Washington War Secretary Henry L. Stimson--as if in answer to mounting Allied calls for action*--referred unequivocally to "a Russian winter offensive." Washington newsmen attributed to "Soviet spokesmen" a promise of a large-scale offensive aimed at the Polish plain, reported that its starting date had been confided to the U.S. and Britain (the Soviet Embassy denied any such promises).

There were more concrete promises implied in dispatches from the east. During the week Moscow reported stiff patrol clashes in southern Poland, sharp local skirmishes along the Narew river south of East Prussia's border. At week's end the Germans reported a Russian attack of great strength (Berlin said 27 divisions) at the northern end of the quiet front--against the 100-mile-wide, 60-mile-deep pocket in Latvia. Clearing of this flank might be a preliminary to action in East Prussia and north Poland.

Moscow gave no word of action in the Baltic sector, no reply to Allied criticism of inaction. The Red Army could have cited major difficulties, chiefly that of supplying an offensive front 1,200 to 1,600 miles from main production centers. The Germans had run into that problem, at about the same distances, in their disastrous effort to take Stalingrad. Before a prolonged offensive could be built up, it had been necessary for the Russians to build up rail transport in battle-ravaged eastern Poland. Winter had come late.

The Russians' four-month campaign to knock the Balkan satellites out of the war appeared to be near another climax: capture of Budapest and a break into the Slovak approaches to Vienna.

*Example, from the New York Times: "Such large sections of the fronts surrounding Germany have remained quiescent for so long that they have inevitably raised the question . . . whether military operations are still proceeding in keeping with the agreement at Teheran."

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