Word: odessa
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...Germans were on the threshold of Moscow; they might assault it, or they might by-pass it. They had just launched a great new drive in the south, aimed at Marshal Budenny's remaining forces around Rostov-on-Don. They had taken Odessa (see p. 26). They still throttled Leningrad. Everywhere they were exerting hasty but terrible pressure-"the last great decisive battle of the year," Hitler had called it. Tens of thousands of Ger mans had fallen, but still the locusts came...
General Ion Antonescu stood on a green hill overlooking Odessa, German binoculars fixed on a covey of his Rumanian Army planes that were blanketing the city with leaflets. Back in Bucharest, Nephew Mihai, now Acting Premier in the General's absence, waited anxiously . for news of Uncle Ion's first major assignment from his Nazi bosses...
...Odessa, the war-reduced population (normal: 600,000) scanned the leaflets which read not unlike the manifestoes of the late great barbarian Genghis Khan: "The main forces of my Army are at the gates of the city and other large units are following them. Do not offer resistance. Surrender the city. I promise mercy to the population. Otherwise, when I do take Odessa in two days' time, I shall show no mercy to anyone...
...Odessa, Pearl of the Black Sea, historic Russian seaport and No. 3 industrial center in the Ukraine, was unimpressed. It was bombarded by the French after the Bolshevist Revolution of 1917. The city was built almost entirely of stone; during the famine of 1921-23 the inhabitants razed wooden buildings for fuel. Odessa's citizens tore up the ultimatum, settled down for a siege...
...easily done with? What would the German soldiers say who had yet to shed blood to accomplish this supposedly accomplished fact? What of Leningrad? What of Odessa? What of Marshal Budenny's remnants, who would certainly not ask to be captured? What of the thousands of untamed miles and millions of untamed men beyond Moscow? What of the wall of the Urals? What of the Russian Armies beyond the wall...