The daily monitor leader. [volume] (Mount Clemens, Mich.) 1942-19??, 1943-03-02

WIG ANuSoAah ahN'
have found way to keep
moving despite the Russian
mud. Here Cassidy, who has
just come home on leave,
gives his reasons for that be-
lief and tells how the SOviets
hope to keep the Germans off
balance through the spring.
BY HENRY c. CASSIDY
NEW YORK, March 2-(P)-
The Red army appears to be
seeking and, perhaps, has found,
the answer to Russian mud -
the cloying mass that has halted
the eastern campaign every
spring and fall-in a series of
short, stabbing offensives on
Widely-separated fronts.
These tactics were indicated
by last nights announcement
from Moscow that Marshal Sem
! con Timoshenko's forces are on
the offensive on the northwest
ern front from the Valdai Hills,
between Leningrad and Mos
COW.
PUSH is SIGNIFICANT
This push, significantly coin
cided with the setting-in of the
mud on the southern end of the
Russian theater of war, where
the Red army has been driving
forward steadily for more than
three months since the start of
the winter offensive Nov. 10 at
! Stalingrad.
No one can beat the Russian
mud. 1t is my conviction, after
living in it for more than two
years, and that of most qualified
military observers in Moscow,
that it is impossible for a mill
tary machine to move through
t h t treacherous, seemingly
bottomless ooze.
But there is no reason why the
Red army cannot go around it.
When l left Moscow a month
ago, the military experts with
whom / had contact agreed that
the winter offensive of the Red
Army in the south must come to
a halt, once the traw stared The
muddy season here is during
March and April.
Now, their prediction appears
to have materialized. There is
some see-saW action in the
Donets Basin and the Ukraine,
but it is not conclusive. That, on
the basis of past performances,
can be expected to continue
throughout the spring.
But farther north, the crusted
snow which forms a fast track
for Red Army advances still pre-
walls. The thaw comes there
during April and May. For an
other month. the terrain is fit
for large-scale winter-style OPP
rations.
There is a precedent, in this
winters campaign, for continual
ton of Red Army thrusts at
separate points, which could
now be designed to suit weather,
as we'll as other military condi-
tons.
Since the start of this greatest
Soviet march in the east, the
Red Army's tactics have involv-
ed series of strokes by individ-
ual fronts" or army groups,
one swinging into action as soon
as another has exhausted the
possibilities of its successes.
Thus, the Stalingrad front"
sprang into action first, followed
in quick succession by the other
southern groups, until all, from
the Caucasus north to the Bril-
ansk, we're on the March.
CONVERGING ATTACK
The Leningrad and Volkhov
fronts simultaneously executed
their convergins attack which
cleared a path to Lcningrad's
back door, while the central and
Kalinin groups extended their
wedge west.
Now, the northwestern force
has joined the surge. The an
nouncement of its operation may
be taken to mean that the push
has been going on for some
time, its first detectives have
been taken and the new posi-
tons strongly consolidated.
On some trips to the front.
have found that the communi-
que, announcing the recon
quest of certain area, has
meant the operation has ended.
This was the case last summer
in the Rzhev sector. In other
cases, the Red Army has been
able, once it broke through the
German line, to carry its adj
vance deep into enemy terri
tory.
The northern sections of the
front are the hardest to pene-
trate.
MUST RETREAT
In the south, the barren
steppes provide few natural po-
sitions for defense. Once a line
is broken, the defending party
must move back until it can
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