Thing or Ante-Thing

There was an eruption on Russia's southern front this week. Spring and its assault finally seemed to be breaking out.

From Berne, New York Times Correspondent Daniel T. Brigham reported that a German Army of 2,000,000 had gone into action on a 250-mile front between Dnepropetrovsk and the Crimea. The Russians said that heavy fighting was in progress on the Crimea's Kerch Peninsula; the Red Army was fighting stubbornly there against a new offensive.

This was either the long-awaited German attack or its preliminaries, the final clash or its prelude.

It was not probable that the Germans would throw their whole strength into the Crimea, although it is only 22 miles across the Kerch Straits from the oil-soaked Caucasus. To risk everything in a game of leapfrog from Crimea to the Caucasus would mean leaving their left flank open to the wiliest of the Russian generals, Marshal Semion Timoshenko.

But there could be no more logical first move in an attack on the Caucasus than to clean out the Crimea. With the Russians still holding valiantly to Sevastopol and firmly entrenched in the town of Kerch, the German's Black Sea flank would remain insecure. With the Russians out, the Black Sea might be made a channel of communications.

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