Not Yet

Russia desperately needs a second front; Germany mortally dreads it. These plain truths became plainer still as the Battle for Kharkov petered out.

By week's end the thunder of battle had subsided to the sob of exhausted men and battle-spent machines. Both sides conceded that it had ended; both sides claimed victory. But the Russian claim was defensive: by the assault on Kharkov, Russia had prevented a Nazi drive on Rostov, 250 miles to the southeast.

Russia had tried, gallantly. Under its best general, dashing, cavalry-trained Semion Timoshenko, it had turned a tremendous striking force against Kharkov, throwing its encircling arms around both sides of the city while it battered frontally against the German fortifications. The Germans estimated the Russian strength at 20 infantry divisions, three cavalry divisions, 15 tank brigades. And the Germans were taken by surprise.

But after 17 days the dogged push began to slow up. The Germans had retreated slowly to the line of their stoutest defenses, then held. And while the Germans stood the battering, they flung reserves into action. Under 57-year-old Lieut. General Viktor von Schwedler, they knifed savagely into the Russians below Kharkov in the Barvenkovo-Izyum area. The Russians, admitting that it was a surprise attack, braced to meet it. The Germans were stopped. Once again the Russian defense proved itself.

But the Russian attack had not. The German Army still held Kharkov, Pittsburgh of the Ukraine and key to a fine transportation net whose loss would have hurt the Nazis immeasurably. When the battle subsided after a Russian thrust into German supply lines north of Kharkov, the Germans claimed "a proud victory of annihilation": 240,000 prisoners taken, 1,249 tanks captured or destroyed, 538 aircraft shot down.

All this the Russians called "fantastic." They counted more than 90,000 Germans killed or captured, 540 tanks and 200 planes knocked out of action. A few more such German "victories," said the Russians, would put Germany out of the war. It was a brave explanation, but it did not explain the weeks-- the Russians must have spent preparing for the Kharkov push. To the question the whole world asked--could a Russian offensive be maintained?

--the answer was: not yet.

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