NEWS OF THE WEEK
THE rapidity of movement in this astonishing phase of the war is such that military operations must always be far ahead of the record of them. Little, therefore, is gained by dwelling on details of the position existing at the moment these words are being written. But certain salient facts stand out. In France the Germans appear, in the expressive words of a British Staff Officer, to be " definitely sunk." With the whole of the east bank of the Seine, from Paris to Rouen and beyond, in Allied hands and the British and Canadian forces driving forward from their original bridgeheads past Beauvais to the Somme, while General Patton's forces wheeling north from Chalons and Reims threaten the whole German line of retreat, nothing but annihilation or surrender seems possible for the German Fifteenth Army. Whatever flying-bomb bases the Germans possess on the soil of France will soon be out of action, though no doubt Holland can be used for a week or two longer. In the south Bhaskovitz's troops have little better alternative before them than their comrades m the north. In the east the capture of Ploesti by the Russians, who are probably by this time in Bucharest, is on a long view an immense blow at German economy, though it may be questioned whether any long view for Germany is worth considering today. But the loss of Ploesti oil may necessitate still further cuts in the reduced rations on which the Luftwaffe and the Panzer divisions have already been subjected. To that in the purely military field must be added the fact that a Rumanian armistice commission is in Moscow and a Finnish delegation said to be expected there ; that Lae Bulgarians have reached Cairo to sign their armistice ; and that open revolt has broken out in Slovakia. Driven back to her own rantiers, or to lines little outside them, Germany may still maintain a stubborn fight. But at least the liberation of virtually all Europe is at hand.
