Push With a Difference

On the Russian front the spring push had finally begun, and with it the world got its first glimpse of the German strategy of 1942. Now the Nazi was up against a foe that more than matched him in numbers, was well equipped, had had battle training, could not be surprised and was ready to counter-push the moment Hitler pushed. He had to alter his tactics accordingly. He did not open up this time with a massive blitz.

Instead the German picked his spot for a preliminary attack; limited in scope if not in fury--possibly to get a jumping-off place for a big attack to be launched when weather permits from Leningrad to the Black Sea. The spot the Nazi chose was the Crimea, where his troops had held on through the winter with Russians in front of him and behind him (at Sevas-topol).

In the Crimea, then. Field Marshal Dieter Wilhelm von Mannstein, Junker-born apostle of the swift and crushing thrust, slogged east toward Kerch. Before his power drive the Russians fell back toward the end of the Crimea, and at week's end were fighting in Kerch. With water at their backs they were in a tough spot, but so since last October had been the great naval base at Sevastopol. And Sevastopol was still in Russian hands.

What the German was after in the Crimea seemed reasonably plain. If he cleared out Kerch, he would find it easier to have another try at Sevastopol, chief base of the Russian Black Sea fleet. And east of Kerch, across only four miles of water, lay the Caucasus and its oil. If the German could get across, he would have something more than the fuel and lubricating oil he bitterly needs. He would also be in a position to lance down into Persia and cut the roads over which U.S. and British supplies are flowing into Russia.

Timoshenko's Riposte. Two could play at the game of limited venture; two could try for a decisive break-through on the only stabilized front in World War II.

North of the Crimea, some 300 miles, the Russian lashed furiously at his German foe, headed through German dead toward Kharkov, the Pittsburgh of the Ukraine.

Over a front that stretched wide to north and south of the Ukraine's industrial capital, Timoshenko's army rammed the enemy with the greatest concentration of tanks and artillery the German had yet felt on the Eastern Front. The German had to fall back before the assault, and at week's end Moscow reported that some of his units had been routed and were in flight. London newsvendors hung out placards : Tim Marches On!

But the German was established in depth. Routing of front-line troops was a long way from the victory that Timoshenko needed to take Kharkov and regain the key of the Ukraine's eastern communication system.

Spring had indeed come to the Russian front, and from its first week the United Nations could take heart. For Russia, which could lose the war, which could also make it possible for all to win by just holding what it had, had added another alternative. It, too, was on the offensive, was trying to win for all.

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