Evening star., 1942-08-27
Last Stand at StuIinorod

S.o'o w St0tiI5 iuV
There is no use blinking the peril
to the city of Stain. Moscow
admits that the jaws of the great
German pincers are crunching
closer and that the city is virtually
under siege. The northern arm of
the pincer has crossed the nearby
Don River on broad front, while
the southern arm is moving
steadily up the railway line from
the Caucasus. BY the light of a
full moon, the tremendous battle
goes on uninterruptedly by night as
we'll as by day. The contending
armies choke in binding clouds of
smoke from brush fires, the coun-
tryside being tinder-dry from the
baking summer sun. SWarns Of
Stuka dive bombers and transport
planes fill the skies, blasting at
ground objectives and dropping
nests of paratroops. Regardless of
losses, the German high command
throws in reserves of tanks and in
fantry. The Russians are admit
tedly outnumbered in every way.
Their inferiority in mechanical
equipment is grimly stressed by a
late communique which says: "Fas-
cist tanks are fighting Russian in
fantrymen."
Broadly speaking, that epitomizes
the handicaps under which Marshal
Timoshenko has been laboring
throughout this campaign. To an
increasing extent, his has been a
struggle Of men against machines.
In desperate effort to save Stalin-
grad, pivot of the Russian defense,
industrial center of the south and
key to the Volga, Timoshenko has
been expending his abundant man.
power, trading Russian blood for
Nazi steel. The magnificent morale
of the Russian soldiers, proof
against frightful losses, has for
weeks held back the Nazi machine.
But the marshal may now be throw
ing in his last reserves in supreme
effort to delay. if not to avert, the
reduction of the city.
Hopes are still expressed that Stall
ingrad may prove to be another
Moscow" and that the Axis drive
somehow will be stalled at the last
moment. Yet a glance at the map
yields little support to such aspira-
tions. Although Moscow, like Stall
ingrad, is situated in open country
with no natural defensive barriers,
the Soviet capital is the hub of a
rail and road network, with excel
lent rearward communications which
the Germans never cut in their
campaign last autumn. Stalingrad,
on the contrary, stands with its back
to the Volga, and across that river,
broad as the Mississippi at Mem
phis, Tennessee, are empty and
almost roadless steppes. The rail-
roads entering Stalingrad from
north and south have been cut.
Only the river is still open for re-
endorsements and supplies, and even
this river line is badly harried by
the German Stukas.
Although, by fighting successful
delaying actions, Timoshenko may
get the bulk of his army across the
Volga, it is hard to see how it can
continue to function there as an
effective force. The nearest railroad
is the line running from Astrakhan
at the mouth of the Volga north
westward through almost uninhab-'
tied marshes and steppes until it
strikes the Volga at Saratov, fully
200 miles north Of Stalingrad. This
railway is at least 100 miles east of
Stalingrad itself. That will be Timo-
shenko's only supply line, once Stall
ingrad is lost and the Volga River
traffic cut.
The outlook is thus grave in the
extreme. Should Stalingrad fall and
Timoshenkos main army be forced
into the badlands east of the Volga,
the German high command presum-
ably would be able to detach large
forces from that sector to hasten the
conquest of the Northern Caucasus,
which is already far advanced. A
drive on Astrakhan would also be
probable. That would complete the
isolation of the Caucasian armies
and stop all Anglo-American aid
from Iran via the Caspian Sea.
These dire eventualities have not
yet occurred. But they are logical
results Of Stalingrad's fall.