NEWS OF THE WEEK
THE past week has been disastrous for the Germans both on the eastern front and at home. The last two R.A.F. raids on the capital appear to have been more catastrophic in their effects than any predecessor, and the picture that shapes itself, in spite of the efforts of' the censorship to suppress all news, is one of a shattered transport and communication system, arrest of the production of four-fifths of the capital's factories, suspended air-service and immense destruction of buildings of all kinds. The Nazis seem bent n maintaining Berlin as at least the nominal capital ; its complete evacuation by the Government would undoubtedly affect both the Government's and the party's prestige. But it is clear that the R.A.F. has already rendered Berlin largely uninhabitable and will very soon complete the process. Where then can the administrative machine find a shelter out of range of bombers based on Britain or Italy or Russia or Russian-occupied territory? The answer is, Nowhere, while a dispersal of services means inevitably loss of efficiency and increase in strain on transport ; the blows at Berlin have an unquestionable military value. Meanwhile on the Russian front great developments are in prospect. The Germans claim to have got a considerable proporton of their forces away from the Leningrad "trap," but the claim is probably over-stated, and its very enunciation involves the admission that a considerable proportion have failed to get away. We shall know more about this when General Govorov's troops have driven on past Narva to the Estonian seaboard, as they look like doing immediately. Anywhere from the Gulf of Finland to the Crimea new disasters may befall the retreating Germans at any moment. By contrast, progress in Italy is disappointingly slow. .The Allied commanders must be supposed to have been as fully alive as any critic in London to the possibilities of a swift advance from the Nettuno bridgehead before the Germans had time to consolidate, but, for whatever reason, the enemy, as so often in the past, has shown himself more capable of speed and improvisation than our own forces. But if he can be driven from the Alban Hills the essential will have been achieved.
