Amsterdam, Feb. 5.
NHE Red Army was making a new threat to reach the Bothnian Gulf last night after, repeated failures to cut Finland in half by this. manoeuvre. What at first appeared a chaotic new Soviet operation last night was beginning to look like-a Russian bid to capture the whole of the Finnish eastern railway and reach the gulf by driving north-westward, The strategic railroad starts af"Leningrad, skirts the western side of Ladoga Lake and then runs across Finland through Joenfuu, Nurmes and Tooulu to the gulf, The new Russian attack on the Karelian Isthmus has tended to follow the railway while attacks north of Lake Ladoga have nearly reached the railway at Farther north the Finns are engaging the Russians moving towards the railway. Now the Russian forces operating westward from Kuhmo could also threaten Kontional another station on the railway.
If, as the Scandinavian states fear, the Russians are planning to invade Norway and northern Sweden, they would be unable to organize such an Invasion" without possession of a major railway which would simplify the supply problem during further operations.
"The terrific attacks Finnish civilians by Russian bombers Throughout the past week is con: sidered here as Moscow's reply to the appearance of British and Italian planes in the Finnish air force.
Recent Helsinki communiques, it was pointed out, have frequently mentioned Finnish bombing attacks on Russian positions and distant Feconnaissance flights over Russia. One laconic sentence in a recent communique said Finnish planes had bombed Kronstadt, the Russian naval ase where the Russian fleet is now immobilized by ice and presents a stationary target.
'When the Russians saw more and more Finnish planes, it is believed, they responded with' wholesale raids the Finnish civilian population. The strategy behind this, it is be-Heved, is" that terrorization civilians, especially along routes evacuation to Sweden, will bring such distress that the Finnish people will demand that the Finnish Tigh Command take its new planes from the front to. screen the suffering Finnish towns and villages behind the lines—United Press.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.