BATTLE OF RUSSIA: How Many Rivers to Cross?

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New "victories are imminent after the fall of Rostov and Voroshilovgrad. The Red Army is already far west of the line between these two cities. In its irresistible sustained drive it has encircled large parts of Hitler's Army.—Moscow Radio.

It was hard to conceive what new victories would seem epic at the end of last week. For last week was the greatest, the happiest week of the war for Russia's armies. The triumphs of the week were dizzying. New possibilities were unfolded which a month ago would have seemed fantastic. The focus of war had suddenly moved westward. Men's eyes turned toward the Dnieper, toward the old borders of Russia—toward Berlin.

Success In Snow. What a young Russian general (Filip Ivanovich Golikov) accomplished on a limited Russian sector (Kursk) as the week opened seemed at first to be another wonderful but local success. Actually the way Kursk was captured and the consequences of its fall shed much light on Russian potentialities.

A snowstorm had been raging for several days. On the day when Colonel General Golikov's campaign opened there was such a whirling blizzard that a Russian correspondent's car took three hours to negotiate a quarter-mile. The Germans, sure that human beings would not fight on such a day, crawled into their dugouts and turned their backs on war.

The Russians advanced. They staggered forward, blinded by snow and bending over their green-lit compasses. In the forests they felt for tree trunks for guidance and support. Their frozen greatcoats crackled like splitting boards. When the Russians reached the napping defenders far east of Kursk, they charged and quickly captured batteries that fired not a shell.

Having won the first round by surprise, the Russians pressed their advantages. Sticking to the roads, they pushed through to the northwest of Kursk, and moved into positions to the northeast and southeast. Planes dropped pamphlets showing pictures of the captured Field Marshal von Paulus at Stalingrad and describing the slow strangulation there. The three groups attacked concentrically. Kursk fell so fast that even the Russians must have been surprised.

Success in Bulk. That was the signal for a general crumbling of what had been for over a year a rigid, unbreakable line. On both Colonel General Golikov's front and that to the south under Nikolai Vatutin, who was last week promoted from Colonel General to Army General, the Reds exploited their advantage. Belgorod fell. So did Lozovaya, Voroshilovsk, Voroshilovgrad, Likhaya. The attackers rolled around Kharkov, which like Kursk had been one of the main fortresses on Germany's great wall of last winter. Russians crept early this week to within seven miles of Kharkov, and the city's fall seemed imminent. It was all surprisingly easy. The hedgehogs seemed to be walking away in the snow, shedding only a few barbed quills.