THE WATERSHED OF THE WAR
By STRATEGICUS T is just over a month since the Allies invaded Sicily and only I a few days more since the Germans launched their heavy attack upon the Kursk salient ; but what a change in the military situa- tion. The resistance in Sicily, although thoroughly forewarned, has crumpled up ; and, though its last gasps seem long in ending, w1a5, either on the Allied side or the enemy's, would have thought so much could be done in so short a time against so formidable a tactical position? Everyone can. see the reasons for the protraction of the last resistance. The very fact that such arguments are brushed aside with impatience gives the measure of the rapidity with which the Allied war machine has developed.
There is little to be gained in speculation about the length of time that the enemy may yet hold out in the island ; and the next step does not require the completion of the occupation. ,,.Indeed, the campaign in the Mediterranean does not depend for its success upon the laborious step-by-step advance from one enemy island to another any more than it does in the Pacific. How happy would be the enemy if he could pin the Allies to that burdensome 'task. But it is wholly unnecessary in the west as in the east. Crete could be left to simmer in excited expectancy while the Allies entered Yugo- slavia from the Adriatic ; and there is nothing to prevent them entering Italy any moment that seems good to them. The whole of the toe of Italy can be covered by fightao ; and, if the Allies rightly recognise that risk is now the better prudence, they may go even further afield.
It is not, indeed, Sicily that grips the interest today, though it is an essential part of the war-picture that wears so attractive an appear- ance. General Dittmar describes it as a " second front " and the air as another. He is right in openly recognising the important bearing of these campaigns ; and of Sicily it is true to say and important to realise, that for every Allied division which is engaged there the enemy is constrained to hold in readiness not fat short of ten in some part of Europe, away from the eastern front Sicily, with its symbolism of successful invasion of a difficult terrain, is an essential feature of the situation which confronts Hitler today when something fresh has roughly intruded into a great front that seemed immune from major surprise. The minimum objective of the Kursk attack, which began on July 5th, was much that of Timoshenko's attack in the neighbourhood of Kharkov a year ago. But the recognition forcibly calls the attention to the completeness with Which the roles have been reversed.
The new threat to Kharkov and the movement towards Briansk take their origin from the German attempt to obliterate the Kursk salient and effectively check the Russian striking-power for the season. To have held the attack by some of the elite German armoured units without giving ground of any importance was a unique event in the history of this war ; but, of course, everyone asked what was the cost. The Germans might have failed to wipe out the salient and suffered heavy loss ; but if they had at the same time broken up the Russian concentration and destroyed its fighting ability the cost might have been justified. For, however badly the immensity of the distances separating one front from another cripples the German power to transfer units, that operation might still be possible in-time to prevent any major success by the Allies in the south or west.
But that hope was stillibom. The last week has seen how little the Russian power has been impaired. We are in fact at the water- shed of the war. Chapters of critical events, of hair-breadth escapes from decisive defeat, of destructive attacks on the ground and in the air lie on one side ; and it is far from impossible that the Allies will again encounter attacks that may damage them so severely that a mirage of disaster will cloud our judgement. But it seems beyond dispute that we have crossed a watershed ; and the next phases cannot reproduce those which have fallen into the limbo of the past unless we begin now, what we have hitherto avoided, a course of major errors. When the Russians accepted battle north and south of Kursk, absorbed the full shock of the heaviest blow the Germans could deliver without sacrificing a mile of essential ground,
and then proceeded to irrupt into a great area of the northern Ukraine, of which the vertebral column is the Kursk-Kiev railway, they crossed that watershed.
It may be noted that the Allies are as yet not within sight of the zenith of their power. It is obvious that they are not at present employing in the field anything more than a small proportion of their mobilised strength. It is under such conditions that they have entered a new phase ; for, of course, the victorious turn in Russia, though immediately due to the Russians, is justly attributable to all. It is not only in material that the western Allies have assisted Russia, though that is undoubtedly a powerful increment of her strength. It is not only in the air offensive that they have damaged the German machine that was turned against her ; not only in Sicily that they have pinned down troops and material. The Allies have fought together ; and Russia must realise how different would have been the result if the whole might of Germany had been turned against her, when the major part created for her so great a problem. There is much more that Britain and the United States can do, and it is imperative that nothing should be allowed to act as a brake upon the development of their plans.; but impatience should not blind us to the extent of our own contribution and to the great result our faith and resolution have achieved.
Hitler has some of the most experienced generals in the world still at his headquarters ; but it is difficult to believe that they are entirely without qualms. The offensive against Kharkov is moving across the territory between the- Orel-Briansk and Kharkov-Poltava railways as if it we{e a flood released by the destruction of a dam. The progress is slower in the direction of Briansk ; but that it should be making headway there at all is a fact of the utmost importance. In the direction cf the Kharkov-Sumi railway, however, it is moving westward on a broad front ; and the Germans are maintaining a powerful concentration farther south. They have spent a great deal of their strength in abortive attempts to wear down the Russian bridgeheads across the Donetz. They have been withstanding the Russians in the Kuban and on the Mius. It is, presumably, be- cause the German concentration has taken this shape that the offen- sive against Kharkov has developed from an attack towards the south into an outflanking movement from the west. There has, as yet, been no sign of the thrust from Chuguev towards the west, no indication that the bridgehead of Izium might open the door to Lozovaya and the southern communications of Kharkov.
But the German Staff must have some uncomfortable moments thinking of how they are going to buttress the great centre of Kharkov, upon which must ultimately depend the whole .of the southern Ukraine down to the Black Sea. If we could depend upon the absence of intuitional direction at German headquarters, we might expect a vast readjustment of the German positions as far south as that. But to carry out such a readjustment would entail the abandonment of the Crimea and what limited area of liberty the enemy has enjoyed in the Black Sea. It would be an intolerable blow to German pride. The alternative, however, may be even less palatable. Unless Kharkov can be saved promptly, by heavy and successful counter-attack, a great body of troops may be com- pelled to fight their way free under much more precarious condi- tions than were encountered in this area some months ago. Indeed, it is not merely Kharkov that is threatened, but also the German forces in the Donetz basin. The Russians have thrown out a column far to the west of Kharkov, and this force is looking to- wards Poltava. They have, however, the defects of their qualities. Whereas the Germans lose by bad strategy the gains they secure by their excellent tactics, it is very much the other way with the Russians. The Germans have made great mistakes in strategy and the Russians have but rarely erred. But, whereas the Germans continue to extricate themselves from the impossible positions into which they have unthinkingly plunged, the Russians have hitherto seemed to lack that quality of finish that harvests the entirety of the results of strategical insight. The great offensive which is still developing should give us the opportunity of discovering how deep the change which turned the great Kursk attack into a victorious advance upon Kharkov has gone. Strategically, the Russians have opened a chapter that gleams with golden chances. But everything will depend upon whether they have the force, and the finish, to reap the harvest they have sown One thing seems certain. The Germans, who have not yet apparently admitted to their own people the extent of the reverse they have suffered, and who are fighting in the Kharkov area as well as in Sicily the battle for Italy as an ally, will do everything they can to avoid losing Kharkov. Characteristically, they will attempt not only to save this essential centre of communications, but also to turn the tables upon Russia. But they face this test with the knowledge of something worse than a Stalingrad behind them. There is an influence upon morale that cannot be omitted from the balance-sheet of this episode. The mighty German army looks and feels very different in 1943 from 194.0. They, as well as we, know that a watershed has been crossed, and that, short of errors of which there is no indication, the Allies must now win.
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