The First Blows

A deepening sense of imminent, decisive action overhung the Russian front. Hitler had promised one final effort to knock the Russians out of the war. Stalin, in a cordial message to the victors of Tunisia, said that a coordinated blow by the Red Army in the east and the Allies in the west was very near.

Last week, in the Caucasus, the Russians drove home the first major blow of the spring. Under an umbrella of air power, Red divisions stormed Hitler's vital Kuban bridgehead, crashed through Krimsk, 15 miles northeast of Novorossuesk, and split the German forces in two. Three hundred barges full of Red marines landed on the north shore of the Taman Peninsula, attacked the Germans from the rear. These successes endangered Hitler's last position on the eastern shore of the Black Sea.

The Red Air Force concentrated on the sectors where the Russians evidently spotted the heaviest German concentrations--on the central front, bombing such communication centers as Bryansk, Minsk, Dniepropetrovsk, Kremenchug, Belgorod, Orel. Moscow claimed that 930 German planes had been destroyed or damaged.

Where to Attack? The Russians had every reason to attack, first to hamper preparations for German offensives, second to complete the defeat of the Axis in Russia. They had wounded the Germans badly during the winter; they were probably stronger in 1943 than they had been in 1942, the Germans were probably weaker. From one end of the front to the other, Russian offensives could pay:

< The Kuban drive, with another from the west against Nazi-held Taganrog, could deprive the Germans of springboards for counter-drives in the south.

< The German positions around Orel, those farther southward in the Donets basin near Izyum, were likely starting points for an Axis blow at the Russian belly between Moscow and Stalingrad.

< In the north, where great forces massed on both sides of the front last week, a successful drive to clean the Germans out of the Leningrad area would open the way to the Baltic States. If it succeeded, this operation would enable the Russian Air Force to plaster eastern Germany as heavily as the Rhineland was being punished by the R.A.F.

Above all, these were the points from which the Germans would have to attempt the only campaign which could possibly prevent their final defeat--a series of actions designed to destroy the hitherto indestructible Red Army. Their chances of succeeding in such an effort were less than they had ever been--yet it was hard to see what else the Germans could hope to do. They had already proved that great breakthroughs, great gains of territory, the capture of cities were not enough. Russia now could probably survive even the loss of Moscow and its transport and manufacturing area.

The alternative was a prolonged war of attrition and defense of the lines now established in Russia. But, as a continental front in the west loomed nearer & nearer, the German chances of sustaining the enormous armies necessary for such a defense became dimmer & dimmer.

For the Germans, the one move in Russia which made complete sense was a move for peace. Granted no indication whatsoever that he could have peace without defeat, Hitler apparently was about to order his armies into battle and death. There seemed nothing else for him and for them todo.

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