The Fact

What the Russians had most feared came to pass this week. According to Moscow, the Germans opened their third summer offensive in Russia, and they opened it before the Allies had established a second front in Europe. Said Moscow:

> The Wehrmacht attacked all the way from Orel to Belgorod, on a front of 200 miles, in areas where both armies had been concentrating troops for weeks.

> Large forces of German armor and aircraft, hitherto sure signs that the Wehrmacht means business, had gone into action. The Russians said they destroyed or damaged 586 German tanks and 203 German planes the first day.

What these events portend--a final, all-out attempt to knock out the Red Army, or a more limited effort to weaken it--the world may not know for weeks. In the meantime, the Russians will look to the Germans' other front, the front where Russia's Allies had yet to move this week.

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