A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
THE effect of the German debacle in Russia is literally unimagin- able. I, at any rate, have failed to imagine what the end of it can be. The Russians are not far wrong, if they are wrong at all in saying that the enemy has suffered a military catastrophe un- exampled in history. His lines are broken over an immense front, and hope of recovery seems non-existent. The vital point, psycho- logically if not strategically, is, of course, the East Prussian frontier. The effect of the news that the Russians have invaded German soil will be incalculable. And the speed of the approach of the .Russian armies to East Prussia is astonishing. I have given myself the satisfaction of working out the distances on the familiar roads of England. Last Friday the Russian spearheads were about as far from East Prussia as Plymouth is from London. By Sunday they were about as far as Exeter. By Monday they were on to about Taunton ; on Tuesday somewhere between Castle Caw and West- bury ; on Wednesday pushing on towards Marlborough. That is an incredible six-days' achievement. What will the Germans do when the remaining ninety miles are covered, and at the same time a new Russian offensive starts, as is almost inevitable, south of the Pripet? They cannot leave the Russian tanks to roll on into Germany. But where are reserves to come from to stop them? Kesselring can certainly provide none. Is France, which every German still insists is the decisive theatre, to be stripped? Von Keitel's problem is plainly insoluble. Interest consists simply in his attempts to solve it, and the result of that is impossible to predict. But if that is impossible, in the military sphere almost anything is possible.
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