RUSSIA INTO POLAND
By STRATEGICUS
TRE continued advance of Vatutin's forces, it need hardly be said, is creating great difficulties for the Germans ; but clearly this mighty offensive which may lead to a totally unprecedented battle is not taking place in vacuo. How much the German commanders who
have secured such remarkable successes by keeping to one campaign at a time wish they could isolate this! But Kluge, now cut off from direct communication with Manstein, is already facing a strain which is developing in scope and weight. The report that scores of paces are being taken daily somewhere in the Nevel area has ceased to impress anyone ; but what it signifies is of vital interest to the German command. On this part of the front the Russians have advanced until they, also, begin to measure their distance from the Polish fron- tier ; and the Germans now announce another thrust in that direction.
Vitebsk is almost cut off, and the line that connects it with Orsha is partly in Russian hands. It is the Orsha-Rogachev sector of the main lateral railway and the Dnieper that have afforded a strong pivot of manoeuvre for the German armies to the north and south. But now the Germans say the Russians have begun to attack about Roga- chev. This in itself might suggest an attempt to relieve the area about Zhlobin, which has been counter-attacked by the Germans for some time ; but it is more reasonable to see in it the beginning of the offensive which will sweep away the resistance in the important triangle which has Minsk for its apex. The north has not wholly waked up at present ; but it is beginning to quiver with life, and there is, perhaps, some evidence that the Germans are contemplating a retreat from Leningrad.
It is in the midst of such preoccupations that Vatutin pursues his offensive west and south-west from Kiev ; and already "salient " has ceased to convey a just picture of the situation. Olevsk is 140 and Novograd Volinsk 130 miles from Kiev ; ,and the Russians must be over zoo miles to the south-west. This is to take only the more modest of the proved advances. The troops have apparently crossed the Polish frontier, and they may be only about too miles from the Rumanian border. In fact, it is evident that they are rolling up the map of the German conquests and have now reached territory which carries us back to the first month of the attack upon Russia. It is a thrilling moment ; and yet nothing of this does more than touch the fringe of its real significance.
From the first the Russians have shown themselves to be complete realists ; and they have' recognised that the enemy armies are the true objective of every battle. Once these are defeated, the territory can be left to look after itself, and until they are beaten no territory is secure. So, in these last six months, the Russians have moved for- ward some 50o miles noc for the sake of exercise, but to bring the Germans to battle and defeat them decisively. The six months began with a German offensive, and recently there has been an interlude while Manstein carried out another. Each of them was conditioned by Russian threats, each also built upon a locally favourable tactical situation. But neither of them was' of the scope and weight of the earlier German offensives, which were as lavish of their strength as they were spendthrift. Now the Germans, after patching wherever possible, and avoiding a general clash, seem committed to greater efforts than ever before in the last twelve months, if they would avoid disaster.
This offensive has spread over the surrounding country as though a dam had burst and there was nothing to contain the mighty head of water. As in the original offensive from Kiev, the defences west of the Ukrainian capital have given way most easily ; though these fierce battles in the winter blizzards are as terrible as anything which the war has cast up., But the flood has not yet done more than sweep past the strong point of Berdichev. Belaya Tserkov, which was in much the same position until Tuesday, lies only some 5o miles south-west of Kiev ; and with the fall of Stavish, also, the extreme right of the German defence seems to have suffered a large-scale collapse. Beraich,..v is to a considerable extent isolated. Indeed, some 4o miles to the west of it the Russians have pressed to within
a few miles of the railway that connects it with the west. If Berdichev should share the same fate as Belays Tserkov in the next few days, the danger towards the south-west would tend to become imminent. The great line which feeds, and in the last resort must withdraw, the troops some hundreds of miles to the east, connects Odessa arid Lemberg, and lies not more than so miles away. If it were to be cut at the junction of Zhmerinka, towards which the advance points, the line of retreat would be confined to a route that leads through Rumania.
Now that Vatutin has secured Novograd Volinsk he is estab- lished on the railway to Shepetovka and Tarnopol ; and, as far as one can see, he is approaching the former on a wide arc. It may be, therefore, that Manstein will be compelled to strike quickly on peril of finding Vatutin thrusting down the lines up which he should advance. It has been said that the Germans have their strategic reserves ready in Poland, and there can be little doubt that they will intervene to limit the area of the irruption ; but, now the Russians have secured -so broad a front of advance that the force needed to check them will require to be of considerable size. Indeed, it seems that a great battle must take place here. It may be decisive in a sense that can be applied to no other battle since Alamein and the Mejeida Valley, and perhaps more destructiVe than the latter. For it is not Manstein's task only to limit, or check, the Russian advance. There are great German forces far away to the east which threaten to be cut off. They must be relieved if possible. If they were forced to withdraw through Rumania they could do so only under the worst difficulties, and with the loss of most pf
their material nd the Germans would have lost under critical conditions the vantage which committed them to holding sacri- ficial tactical positions for the sake of fending the enemy off the Reich and the satellite countries.
Almost invariably the result of an engagement which has been forced on the Germans in order to avoid some perilous trap has been less than one expected. They are still a most formidable foe, and they contrive to escape one trap after another. Sometimes General Mud has arrived to afford them vital relief. Always they have so far fought with astonishing tactical skill and discipline. But we have to remember that one time they will not escape. As Dittmar said on Tuesday night, " No army in the world can be exposed to an unlimited physical and psychological strain without snapping some day." A truism, one may say ; but even truisms are entitled to be true once.
It is wiser not to dwell unduly on such precedents. The present is very different from the last war ; and, although the Russian winter offensive has opened, and so early created a critical situation for the enemy, the general offensive has not yet been launched. The air offensive continues to inflict terrible destruction on German industry and communications in spite of a late-born, desperate, versatility in the tactics of air defence. But, as a United States general recently pointed out, the Luftwaffe has not yet been reduced sufficiently to enable us to regard without misgiving the conditions under which the invasion must be undertaken. Though the United States Air Force and the R.A.F. trail their coats persistently in front of the Luftwaffe, Goring obstinately keeps them on the leash. All that we certainly accomplish in this direction is the diversion of the bulk of the Luftwaffe from the Russian front. We inflict on it some direct damage, and no doubt lessen the production of aircraft.
The threat of a general offensive must also be taken into account by the Germans ; and their strategy turns upon the possibility of holding up the Russians until the spring thaw imposes a lull on all major operations, and permits the diversion of strategic reserves to the west to face the British and United States troops. But the problem is how far the reserve remains intact, and can be trans- ferred. This is one of the questions that must be settled by the development of Vatutin's offensive.
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