Word: flank
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Southern Front. After two weeks of holding off repeated thrusts at their Mannerheim defenses in the Karelian Isthmus, the Finns last week began to retake ground previously lost to the Russians. By week's end detailed accounts of fighting became available. Trying to flank the Mannerheim Line, the Russians organized a big attack along the west bank of Lake Laatokka, where the Taipale River flows into the lake. First they had to cross the river, and a Finnish soldier told the United Press's Webb Miller what happened to 500 Russians there...
...depth, on the same principle as the Siegfried Position-a network of strong points capable of being extended backward indefinitely should they be cracked in front. In psychological terms, the mention of "maneuvering" and "beyond the defensive phase" seemed to mean: "Germans, not only can you neither crack nor flank us, but we are now so strong we can move out to meet you in Belgium or The Netherlands or Switzerland, or anywhere else that you may strike-even in the Balkans-and indeed we might move there against you without waiting for you to strike...
...Dumpty Germany continued sitting on their walls last week. Neither had a great fall and neither required more horses or men. The French did some digging in and dragged up some heavy artillery back of Perl at their supposedly "weak" corner by the Luxembourg frontier, where the right flank of a German assault would be protected by neutral territory. They sent about 1,000 men charging up a hill southwest of Pirmasens beside the Hornbach salient, but the Germans counterattacked and the French, after using planes to strafe their assailants for the first time in this war, marched down again...
...move somewhere, soon and suddenly, in the West. Logic for his striking through The Netherlands was compelling. With the Belgian border fortified against him almost as strongly as the French, the Dutch dike was his weakest target. His objective would not necessarily be the turning of the Allied flank but acquisition of bases for planes and submarines much closer to Great Britain than his present bases, for intensified warfare upon British shipping and the supply line of the British Expeditionary Force in France. With some 200 miles cut from their round trips to English Channel naval bases and industrial centres...
...higher ground at Hertogenbosch, Tilburg and Eindhoven, is where the first German assault could be expected. Gaining this foothold, the Germans could then press on to take Flushing and other coastal points south of the river deltas, enjoying the Dutch flood zone as protection for their right flank from any counterattack. The likelihood of this attack, and its obvious menace to Belgium, was believed last week to have led King Leopold to tell Queen Wilhelmina that if the Germans invaded her land, his troops would have to occupy her southeastern corner to meet them. Also, it was understood, he would...