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Last week the Allies were still exploiting the great victory that they won below the Seine a month ago. According to pattern, the next blow would fall upon another front. The Germans reported last week that it was already falling, north and south of Warsaw. According to pattern, the next blow in the west should begin after the Russian drive is well under way. But the beat is growing faster.
In August the frightened Germans drew reserves from the west and the south to bolster their shaken eastern front. Last week they drew from north and south to build a new western front. Whence will come the next reserves when the weight of the Russian blow is felt? And whence will they come when there are new blows, west and south?
The Allies have not yet finished their symphony. They can still flub it badly. But at the point already reached, it ranks among the great military symphonies in history. If it is triumphantly completed, Hitler & Co. will be carried out to a syncopated death march.
*Examples from World War I: the German campaigns of Verdun (1916), the Somme, Marne and Chemin-des-Dames (1918); the Russian campaigns of the Masurian Lakes (1914) and the Carpathians (1914); the Italian campaign of the Isonzo (1917); the British and French campaigns of Gallipoli (1915), the Somme (1916), Vimy, Passchendaele (1917). Examples from World War II: the German conquests of Poland (1939), the Lowlands and France (1940), the Balkans and western Russia (1941), of Libya (twice, 1942 and 1943); the Russian annihilation of the German Army at Stalingrad and recapture of the Donetz Basin (1943); the British conquest of Libya (thrice, 1941, 1942, 1943); the Allied conquest of Tunisia, Sicily and Naples (1943).