VICTORY IN 1942 ?
By ROBERT FORTMAN Any answer to this question must, if it be honest, be tentative only. In attempting to suggest one, we must bear in mind one fact, namely that the Russians are constantly one step nearer than ourselves to being able to estimate the true inwardness of the German situation. Moreover, the Kremlin must be nearly as anxious as the Wilhelmstrasse itself to end the war victoriously before the full rigours of winter set in. The Russian winter un- doubtedly exacted almost superhuman endurance of the German Army. But with M. Stalin's call of " Everything for the Front " it cannot have been all beer and skittles for the Russian people any more than for the German, or Russian, armies. Restoration of the Russian transport system to the carriage of food and fuel, must be, to put it at the lowest, a highly desirable object for those who are responsible for the health and strength—to say nothing of the welfare and happiness—of the present generation of Russians.
Such considerations doubtless provide a motive for wishful think- ing ; but then there must always be some motive or other, whether in the event a man thinks wishfully or not. They also serve to explain the coincidence of tong-term confidence with a note of great urgency concerning the present tactical situation at the front. The well-known writer Max Werner has exposed, in a recent article in the Daily Express, the immense strategic strength of the Russian positions in the Caucasus. The main range of the Caucasus mountains presents a formidable obstacle some boo miles from Rostov, and there is little reason to suppose that, if the Germans succeeded in driving a wedge athwart the Don and the Volga, either the southern or the northern groups of armies would not be able to fight bitter, and ultimately successful, defensive battles. But such a wedge might well impose a fatal handicap on offensive operations later in the year, by restricting the mobility of strategic reserves of men and materials. And if the war is to be won in 1942—or more probably in 1943—the Russian armies must be able to attack.
Hence the note of urgency. Whence the belief that a Russian offensive might turn the scales and win an early victory? The immense power of the German war machine is all too painfully evident. Is it quite what it seems, in men or in materials? It is known that German casualties have for a long time been very large: What has been their effect? To what extent have they been replaced? What is the quality of the replacements? What effect have casualties had on the morale of the survivors? What do German soldiers think about Allied air- raids, actual or prospective, on their home towns? All these questions are very difficult to answer in London ; but the Russians must have very much better evidence on which to base their deductions. From their contact with the enemy they have three sources of information in such measure as to justify conclusions which we, with our limited contacts with the Afrika Corps, the Luftwaffe and with the crews of U-boats, are clearly not in a position to draw. These sources are the formations to which they are opposed in the field, the prisoners whom they capture and the dead men— who in this connexion may tell all manner of tales—whose bodies they search.
Are the divisions massed by Von Bock the equivalents of the highly trained formations which went forward to the attack in June of law: year, or are they weakened in numbers or diluted in quality by the drafting of inexperienced and half-trained troops? Do prisoners, once they have found that they are not going to be tortured or shot, in the main show dejection at their lot or display satisfaction at having ended " their war "? What is the tenor of letters from home on the bodies of the dead? Still more significant, what do unposted letters from members of the German forces to their families and friends say? We do not know the answers to these questions, but the Russian intelligence service does ; and with this knowledge the Soviet Government authorises propaganda expressing the hope of victory this year. Could it have any motive of sufficient weight to induce it to raise hopes incapable of fulfilment? The only motive could be fear that, with the casualties in the field and admitted food shortage on the home front, the army and the people could not face the prospect of another winter of war ; and however much the Russians may want victory this year, there seems no evidence at all that such a fear would be well-founded, and a good deal of evidence to the contrary. Apart from this fear, deliberately to raise false hopes would be the height of folly.
The Russians have more information than we about the German Army. What of the home front? We know, of course, that the man-power situation is very strained ; but this strain may not necessarily be a sign of weakness. We know that our mass raids spread terror r.nd confusion, when and where they appear, and that they will increase in weight and frequency ; but does fear or resent- ment predominate? This question, again, the Russians can probably answer better than ourselves. But we know, as well as they, of the shortages of certain essential war materials, of the increasing strict- ness of rationing of the German's food and clothing ; and there is every indication that tlyt Germans are living on their reserves—of war materials and of physical and mental strength.
We—including in that pronoun M. Stalin, President Roosevelt and Mr. Churchill—have little need to be reminded by writers in the Sunday Press that the German war machine is still immensely strong. A perfectly reasonable case can be made, even without recourse to the Book of Revelation, for the British Israelites' forecast that the war will not end till 7947. But before we dismiss Russian talk of victory in 1942 as mere wishful thinking we should do well to remember that the German war-machine was still very formidable, both in the factory and in the field, when the German armistice delegation stood before Foch in a November dawn in 1918. Statisticians can estimate, within a little, how much metal, fuel and grain are needed to keep the machine running. No statistician can say at what moment or in what combination of circumstances the drivers will despair of their capacity to drive it in the desired direction. No more than six months divided Von Hutier's whirl- wind drive for Amiens on the misty morning of March 21St from Ludendorff's famous, and fatal, brainstorm at the German Army's headquarters at Spa. Historical analogies are dangerous, and the Russians are not infallible ; but neither are they feather-pated, and they have better means than have we of gauging the state of the enemy's mind. They may well be miscalculating—perhaps very badly. But that they almost certainly have serious reasons for their calculations is, at the least, a factor of considerable significance.
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