After a fortnight's fighting Finland has: proved that she is well able to put up i tif! resistance to the Soviet invasion, and though by sheer weight of numbers the Red.
year to have made some sort of to Finland, they have not yet made sufficient headway to bring them into Keneral contact with the Finnish Manner~ helm Jine. In the Karelian peninsula the Russians have been held up successfully, and whatever. progress they may have made towards Viborg has proved to be small. In the lake area little or no advance has been achieved, while further north, about the middle of Finland's eastern boundary the Soviet high command hax made a_deter= mined push westwards in the hope of divid= two, but has met with a re= nee which holds the invading forces at Suiomusalmi about twenty miles inside the Finnish border, and about 110 miles from Uleabory near the top of the Gulf of Bothnia which appears to be the Russian objective, ud the reaching of which would mean the cutting off of southern Finland from Sweden, Fighting is also proceeding north of Suomusolini, at Kuolajarvi and of course around no, which even now the Soviet forces failed to reduce. It is true that the Russians have occupied the islands which AM. Stalin desires in the Gulf of Finland, but was no part of the Finnish command'
dissipate its forces in an endeavthem, for there is still much serious fighting to be done on the mainland, where. before hostilities are concluded, every man will be needed. The only explanation of the failure of the Soviet forees to make greater progress towards the conquest of land, which now seems by no means 60 certain ax it did a fortnight ago, is that Moscow has been using inferior troops, some brought all the way from Asia, and that in the near future crack regiments will be thrown into the affray. That explanation may or may not be the correct one, though the world has seen several examples cent years in which warring countries have sent a boy to do a man's job, and if it is proved that Moscow completely underestimted the Finnish potentiality for resistance it would not be the only government which has made the © regarding its With approximately 400,000 men defending, an 800 mile front it will be realized that the ins are faced with a task of ye done so well speaks volumes for their ind_determination to defend their homeland. In the meantime it is important to note that schemes for assisting the Finns bein rapidly formulated, and the news ance, us well paring to vender material aid in the nature of war is heartily welcomed, The strengthening of the hair force by the despatch of machines from Britain, France, and aly shawld prove a most helpful Germany now denies that sh nee. AS a neutral she would be perfectly entitled to do. s0, but the fact that Bertin has made such a denial indicates nothings more than the existence of a fear of dis= pleasing M. On the other hand it is all part of the veneral scheme of in exchange for which Herr Hitler infamous non-aggression pac forgotten that Finnish-Soviet host ties rank just as anueh as an ideological war sine etl a That for whic Herr Hitler then stood there proved y|torious, and, while, doubtless, in' like to see cars to assist the victim of the aggression hich German action alone made possible he sight of Berlin remaining inactive while Stalin seeks to consolidate: Russi acy in the Baltic Sea, tragic to the German naval command, is interesting demonstrating how completely Herr Hitler has surrendered the German position in east and northern Europe. Failure in the west will reduce Germ importance very
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.