World War: BATTLE OF RUSSIA: Motionless Movement

“In the most terrific offensive of all times,” said the Rome radio last week, “1,500,000 men, 8,000 tanks and 1,000 guns are moving toward Moscow.” As a matter of fact, the terrific offensive was not doing much moving that day. Russia’s Army and winter were both giving it the cold shoulder. The thermometer registered 31° below zero, Fahrenheit.

Two days later a military spokesman in Berlin announced that the German Army does not expect to capture Moscow this year. Either Germany was gathering strength for an offensive somewhere else, or the spectre of the wholesale amputation of frozen arms & legs was too much even for hard-bitten Marshal Fedor von Bock.