THE APPROACHING TYPHOON
By STRATEGICUS
HE battle of Rome has not followed the expected rhythm ; and we can neither deduce the plan from what has actually occurred nor too confidently conclude that something has gone astray. General Maitland Wilson suggested that the army which was first ready would attack first ; but that, clear as it seemed at the time, now can be recognised as ambiguous. Two courses were clearly open to the command. Either the force landed could be sent inland against the enemy communications at once, on the assumptidn so often verified in the present war that speed is armour, or the beach-head could be first made secure and some pre-arranged standard of safety achieved before any advance itt force was attempted. The latter alternative seems to have been adopted ; but so little official information has been allowed to leak out that no one can say at present what the standard was and why zero hour was fixed at ten days after a completely unopposed landing.
Hardly any of the first reports of the correspondents proved to be true. The enemy reinforcements seem to have been lured to the south befo4e the landing was made ; and they appear to have been allowed to return to the neighbourhood of the bridgehead before the attempt to advance in force was undertaken. It was no doubt of great importance to have them out of the way for the landing ; but was it intended to have them back? It has been stated that the number of Allied divisions in the bridgehead is about six, and the tbree German units should not be able to hold them off the RomeNaples railway. Indeed, there is some suggestion that other divisions are being brought down from the north; but, if there are twelve divisions on the main Fifthand Eighth Army fronts, reinforcement from the north becomes something of a problem, assuming the total enemy force in Italy to be only about twenty-five divisions.
As the Fifth and Eighth Armies are now apparently attacking, Kesselring will find his problem growing in difficulty. But it is far from certain that we know the whole of the Allied plan ; or that events are falling into the pattern foreseen by the Allies. What at least we can see is the steady growth of a tendency to make the pressure on the enemy cumulative and convergent. Dittmar said the other day that the comparative calm of the moment was merely the prelude to a " typhoon" ; and the metaphor appears to be apt. But no enemy commentator at present seems able to consider the air offensive steadily and measure its influence in the Allied pressure. Otherwise any pretence of anything that could possibly be called a "calm" would be absurd. It is difficult even for us to form any reliable picture of the effects of this offensive. We learn of day and night raids, of an astoundipg tonnage of bombs being dropped upon Berlin's factories and other objectives ; and if they tend to suggest something like Dante's Inferno that brings us no nearer a realisation of the true military effect of the offensive.
What we can appreciate is the gradual acceleration in the scope and number of the various raids that make up this offensive. But no sooner has the mind become habituated to a new rhythm than it is superseded by a fresh level of attack. We know at a given point something of the measure of the offensive ; but we cannot guess what it will become. There has never been anything like this before ; but the air-offensive is a constituent of warfare on a wholly unprecedented level. The material effect of the offensive must be very great indeed, and it cannot fail to influence the decision in a war which from one angle seems to be wholly one of material. When we remind ourselves that it is, and must be, the human _factor that will decide, we have to recognise that this ceaseless pounding of factories, communications, transport and airfields (and incidentally of the human habitations that inevitably have grown up around such military objectives) must have a terrible repercussion on morale. It is intolerable that one should gloat, or even seem tb gloat, over this aspect of the most terrible war in history ; but we cannot fail to mark it.
The wastage of material comes at a time when in the field also
the wastage seems to be reaching a peak. When we have recognised the stubborn skill that holds the Germans to the defence of positions that would seem to be untenable, we cannot ignore the fact that each engagement, and even more every retreat, must add to the wastage of material. In Italy, we have learned that even if the enemy betrays no shortage of material, prisoners are represented as complaining of the weight of metal which is flung against them. The Allied industrial potential is greatly superior to that of the enemy, and it is. comparatively immune from two forms of wastage. The enemy have not the resources to mount any bomb:ng raidsthat would weaken the Allied production, if they would keep intact for invasion a sufficient force ; and the Allies arc not any longer compelled to undertake large-scale retreats. The day-to-day sorties that are made against selected nodal points in the enemy communications take their toll ; and this is a drain that passes almost unnoticed.
It may be assumed that the " typhoon " is approaching ; but what, onc may ask, is to be its character when the present storm ranks only as its prelude? The campaign in Italy, whatever be its ultimate purpose, is certainly playing a part in pinning down, and subjecting to heavy attrition, a considerable number of enemy divisions ; and, if some of them do not seem to be of the same superlative quality as those who goose-stepped across France and the Low Countries, they are still a fairly representative sample of the best now available. If Hitler is withholding for the typhoon itself other divisions, he is paying for the insurance very heavily. Indeed, in Dittmar's recent insistence that the "reserves must be used," one can discern some appreciation of a disagreeable dilemma. The Leningrad sector disappeared because there were no reserves available ; but what is the result? There is a way by which the troops of the Leningrad sector could be withdrawn. The gap about Narva, between Lake Peipus and the Gulf of Finland, is about thirty miles broad. General Govorov is moving westward on a front that must block that gap and compel the enemy to escape south of the lake. They cannot move across it ; and the two Russian generals in the north are moving on converging lines to block the southern line of escape.
The Leningrad-Moscow line is now clear ; but in proportion as the enemy falls back from the outer edge of the sickle, the point and the handle are pushed forward. It is repeatedly said that the enemy is in a trap ; and as often as it is stated he escapes from it. But he does not escape without paying for the release ; and here, on the Leningrad sector, there is more sign of a trap than ever before. The winter is unusually mild in Russia this year, and this may account for the failure of the Russians to close their "trap "; but, on the other hand, the ground also impedes the withdrawal. In the direction which the retreat must take there are neither railways nor practicable roads. Only in this sense is there a trap ; but it is not in this case an inapt metaphor, since exit from the predicament in which the enemy troops find themselves must be difficult. Material has inevitably been abandoned in vast quantities ; and still the troops are far from safety. Dittmar describes the position here as particularly "critical."
What is to be the end of the present offensive on the northern sector of the front one cannot yet see. It still seems to have much of its _original impetus ; and while that remains the case the advance will continue. When the enemy finds prepared positions that promise to enable him to stand against the armies which have outrun easy warts of supply the pressure will be transferred to another sector. The obvious point for the next attack would seem to be somewhere on the Lovat River front; but it is rarely that the Russians strike where they are expected, and the total front is so long that there are still many places that must yield if they are subjected to the full pressure of attack. The fate of Novo Sokolniki the other day shows what can be done against even the strongest positions.
It may be admitted that the enemy has been remarkably successful in!checking the advance in the south. It can be recognised that he is still able to hold the positions he feels it vital to retain. He will not open up the way to the Balkans until he is under overwhelming compulsion. But what in the mean time is to happen upon the Estonian front? These Baltic provinces in the German, as in the Russian, scheme figure as the glacis of East Prussia ; and the Germans will permit the Russians to enter.that territory only when they must. They give way where they feel the cumulative strain intolerable. But it is clearly beginning to assume that character on several sectors. The total length of the front in Russia alone is several hundred miles greater than before Vatutin first struck in-the south. It is appreciably longer now in Italy. And the " typhoon " has still to break. Before Govorov struck and Meretskov folloWed who could have foreseen that in so short a time the front which had so long held Leningrad in a vice would be pushed beyond the sound of the guns? Even in a war that makes the advances Of other wars resemble stationary warfare, the advance has been remarkable. But the end is not yet. It is the cumulative pressure That will bring the German conquest to ruin ; and we cannot tell—it may seem even a pedantry at the moment to enquire—which of the operations actual or planned will give the finishing touch.
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