What Will Spring Bring?

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If a chief of state could find a man on whose mind was imprinted, as if on animated microfilm, all the books by and about Clausewitz, Napoleon, Lee, Caesar, Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, Sun Tzu of China and the rest of the great military theorists and practitioners, then the chief of state would be a fool to buy the books. Joseph Stalin has such a man in Boris Shaposhnikov.

To Russia's Chief of State, Marshal Boris Shaposhnikov is officially Chief of Staff. But unofficially he is Joseph Stalin's walking reference room and military mind. He is the author of a monumental book called Mozg Armii (The Brain of the Army), and he is it.

While credit for tactical successes, or blame for reverses, must fall to such regional commanders as Timoshenko, Zhukov, Budenny and Voroshilov, there is only one man who can make the huge strategic decisions on which the war will be won or lost. That is Joseph Stalin. Joseph Stalin never makes a military decision without asking Boris Shaposhnikov what he would do.

As the momentum of Russia's two strongest winter offensives dwindled last week and there began to be talk of spring, great new worries were reposed on the military mind of Joseph Stalin.

How far would the Russian drives carry? How soon did Hitler plan to mount his inevitable spring offensive? How big would it be when it came?

Where would the Germans strike? Where could the Russians hope to hold them? When could they hope to win? In seeking to answer these questions for his boss, Boris Shaposhnikov would have to riffle through the index of his incredible brain, snatch at the most applicable texts and apply them, in their proper seasons, to Russia's war.

Clausewitz for Autumn. His favorite author, ironically, is the great German military critic, Karl von Clausewitz. One passage which he quotes with especially affectionate comment might well have been his text last week, as he reviewed the lessons of Autumn 1941 before doing his home work for the final exams in Summer 1942.

The commander, says Clausewitz, must guess whether, after receiving the initial blows, the core of the opponent's Army is gradually becoming condensed, tempered and strengthened, or, to the contrary, beginning to crumble into dust like a decanter made of Bologna glass whose stir-face has been cracked. The commander must figure out with precision how much the enemy state will be weakened by the loss of certain sources of supply and by the disconnection of certain arteries. He must foretell without mistake whether the enemy will collapse in pain from the wounds inflicted on him, or hurl himself forward with frenzied might like a wounded and enraged bull.

It was plain that failure to obey these strictures to the letter had cost the Germans victory in the autumn. On the other hand, Russia had observed them in reverse--had tightened and strengthened its Army in the face of the early blows, had (by moving factories and acquiring allies) made provision to keep supply facilities from collapsing, had (with the help of a remarkable Intelligence service) watched to see when the enemy was preparing for each great charge.

The one weapon which had made it possible for Boris Shaposhnikov to keep his Clausewitz about him had been artillery. The Red Army has developed the artillery service to as high and fine a point as any army in the world. So proficient are some Red battery commanders that they often hit the target without the gradual approach of range firing, and some of them are said to be such mathematical wizards that they calculate trajectories in their heads, without the use of rigid firing tables. Germans have long talked of the Russians' "long-bearded-professor batteries."

The main lesson of the autumn, then, had been that with skillful gunnery and unending vigilance German blitz tactics could be slowed down.

Schoeneich for Winter. The Germans had, ultimately, been stopped and curled back a little. Boris Shaposhnikov would find the biggest reason for that in words from another German pen. Nine months before World War II began, a Captain Schoeneich wrote in Militdrwochenblatt:

In the East, soil and climate erect barriers before which we must stop. From late April to late September, we can wage a war of movement in the East. But then, in the fall, we shall have to call a halt. . . . If motor transport is used beyond September, supply lines are likely to break down in short order. . . .

Failure to heed this warning had lost the Germans their first great battles of the war. Marshal Shaposhnikov has studied winter warfare. He knows what an army can do, and what it cannot do, when snow piles above hub caps.

He knows that bitter winter warfare is old-fashioned warfare, in which man is more important than his machines. He understands winter camouflage. He realizes that in winter cavalry and infantry can accomplish more than planes and tanks. And yet at the proper times he uses planes mounted on skis and tanks painted white. He knows how important the warmth and cleanliness of his men are in the season when frostbite and typhus march with soldiers. He knows that in winter warfare Death takes the hindmost.

Western Europeans apparently do not understand these things. The notorious French Fascist, Jacques Doriot, back in Vichy last week after briefly leading French volunteers in Nazi ranks, described what it is like to fight at 30 and 40 below zero.

"At those temperatures everything changes. Men lose part of their faculties: their fingers become swollen and their joints become stiff. In the front lines the ground is as hard as rock and tools cannot dig into it. It refuses shelter to the soldier who has conquered it.

"Automatic arms can be used only with difficulty. The motor of a tank or supply vehicle no longer responds to the command of its driver.

"The dry wind raises waves of snow which hide the roads and paths. In such weather a great modern army loses the essential elements of its technical superiority."

There will be about a month more of severe winter weather during which the Russian can forget about his mechanical inferiority. Reasonable Russian objectives for that month--objectives which are a minimum if the Russians are to be properly braced for Hitler's spring offensive--are the following:

>They must free Leningrad. This they have not been able to do so far, despite spasm after spasm. The Germans still hold Schluesselburg, due east of the city. The only Russian access to Leningrad is across the ice of Lake Ladoga.

>They must regain Smolensk. Moscow can perhaps withstand several more great onslaughts, but to survive in the south, the Russians must make operations on the central front as expensive as possible.

>They must regain Dniepropetrovsk, the site of the great ruined dam. This would cut German communications with Crimea and would give the Russians, at least initially, the natural barrier of the Dnieper River on the southern front, where the Germans are almost certain to make their earliest and greatest efforts.

Kalinin for Spring. The text of Boris Shaposhnikov's optimum hope for spring was set last week by an anomalous figure, the Soviet President. Said grey-bearded Mikhail Kalinin:

The Germans never will recapture the initiative now gained by the Red Army.

It is Boris Shaposhnikov's hope that, by pressing his present advantage, he can prevent the Germans from ever standing by to organize their great spring blitz.

And yet signs of spring, unmistakable as premature crocuses, were already to be seen last week. The Germans were moving fresh troops up from Germany. Stockholm estimated that at least 20 divisions had moved east. The Russians themselves were reported to be expecting the enemy to throw between 6,000 and 7,000 new tanks into action.

Hitler, who for six weeks had been Supreme Commander in Russia, was reported to have made a deal with his allegedly recalcitrant generals, to have reinstated the stars, Marshals Fedor von Bock, Gerd von Rundstedt and Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb, and to have appointed 19 new generals to replace those who had fallen "ill."

Resistance was already stiffening. The Germans were reacting strongly to Soviet pressure in the all-important Crimea; and last week the Russians admitted their second loss of Feodosiya. In the Ukraine, where Marshal Timoshenko had achieved a great breakthrough, the Germans filled in and stopped the drive.

For the first time the Russians complained that the terrible winter weather, which had been so good to them, was now an impediment.

The Germans were certainly preparing for a spring drive. Exactly when it would come no one but Adolf Hitler could say with certainty. The great thaws of spring may cause him to delay his drive until late April, the time recommended by Captain Schoeneich. But he might order action next month, next week, tomorrow.

Shaposhnilcov for Summer. If the Russians, aided by the thaws, do succeed in thwarting Hitler's plans, whatever they are, and can keep the initiative into next summer, their war would probably be won. The chances of their doing so are very small. But if they do the next-to-impossible, it will be thanks partly to the skills of Russia's three best generals,*but mostly to the stratagems of Boris Shaposhnikov, the brain of the Army.

Marshal Shaposhnikov has been called the only man in Russia whom Stalin would not dare to assassinate. His extraordinary power is a compound of his great ability, his silence and his unqualified loyalty.

His record testifies to his ability. Born in the Urals 60 years ago, he rose to be a Tsarist colonel before the Revolution; then he went over to the Reds. Always his jobs have been mental jobs--General Staff Operations Chief; Chief of Frunze Red Banner Military Academy, Russia's Staff School; Chief of Staff. He planned the invasion of eastern Poland in 1939; he beat Finland; he timed the great counterblow from Moscow in December. He has found time to write many heavy tomes, the greatest of which are The Cavalry, On the Vistula and the three-volume Brain of the Army.

He is as silent as a chess player. (His one relaxation, in fact, is chess; his fellow Army men well know the Shaposhnikov end game.) He is personally cold and reticent, and he stays out of the political light. He is modest to the brink of affectation; his books are almost coquettish: "Our present immature work. ... If the magnanimous reader will do us the great honor of further following our reasoning. . . ." This silence and super-modesty have saved his political head time & again.

His loyalty to Joseph Stalin is unquestioned by Joseph Stalin, who ought to know. Stalin finds him useful in the way Hitler finds Artillery General Alfred Jodl useful--to be always at the elbow to answer questions, to advise, to refuse, to confirm. Boris Shaposhnikov's memory for detail is astonishing; he seems to know Clausewitz's Of War by heart.

Boris Shaposhnikov is probably not over-sanguine about the spring. He would put a little salt on President Kalinin's beard when the good President talks of never giving the initiative back to the Germans. Marshal Shaposhnikov may have the initiative taken away from him in spite of his efforts to press his advantage. But even if he does lose it, he thinks he can get it back again and eventually win the war, by some such formula as this:

In the spring and summer, Leningrad would probably be tightly sealed again. Moscow would be attacked, but could hold. The Germans would make their greatest push in the south, would drive the Russians back to the Don River. There the Russians would try to stand, then in the autumn begin a counteroffensive. By that time, if Britain has succeeded in holding Suez and the Middle East, the Germans would be short of oil, men and morale. Finally, in the winter of 1942-43, with the help of the Allies in the west, the great offensive against the Reich would begin.

This is a high hope. It may be too high. But it shows a clear understanding of a fact which has been very easy to forget during the successful winter: Russia will suffer further serious setbacks--and therefore Russia's Allies will suffer terrible anxieties--before the year is over.

Boris Shaposhnikov would not have to be a breathing encyclopedia to know that the great decisive land battles of World War II have not yet even been joined. One of them will come this spring.

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