JUST one day before the surrender in Dacca, the Review's correspondent in Islamabad, Werner Adam, filed this account of the Islamic republic 's final hours as a two- wing entity:

Islamabad: Outnumbered, cut off from West Pakistan and without any air cover, Pakistani troops in Bengal this week faced a bitter choice: surrender or die fighting. As artillery columns and airborne Indian troops prepared to open up on Dacca, Pakistan's top commander in the east categorically dismissed all talk of capitulation:

"Our army will either live honourably," snapped General A. A. K. Niazi, "or perish for our cause."

At the same time, Major-General Rao Farman Ali, No. 2 military man and adviser to the provincial governor who nervously resigned on Tuesday, denied New York press reports that he had offered surrender terms in a letter to UN Secretary-General U Thant.

An official spokesman in Islamabad, in his first reaction to the New York reports, had confirmed the existence of such a message from Farman Ali by saying its despatch was "unauthorised." After Farman Ali's denial, the same spokesman said the Pakistani government was not aware of any message. Pressed by newsmen, he finally stated: "If the government is not concerned, why should you be?"

Contradictions and speculation notwithstanding, the significant fact that emerged this week was that official circles in Islamabad - which appeared to have begun cautiously preparing the West Pakistani public for the probable loss of East Pakistan - suddenly changed course and asserted that the eastern wing would never be abandoned even if it had to be defended house by house.

Looking for an explanation to this policy switch, foreign observers here speculated that the Pakistani Army probably had gathered fresh hope after reports from New Delhi that Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had received a "categorical warning" from US President Nixon. This and subsequent reports that the US aircraft carrier "Enterprise" and other elements of the Seventh Fleet had been ordered to the Bay of Bengal raised the possibility of direct American intervention in the war.

Islamabad had been banking on a last-minute move in the UN although it was not really convinced of a diplomatic victory there after the Soviet Union's three vetoes on resolutions calling for a ceasefire and mutual troop withdrawals. Since the gap between Moscow on the one hand and Washington and Peking on the other seemed unbridgeable, not even Pakistan's flinty Foreign Minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was expected to break new ground.

The war in the west meanwhile took a hesitant hue this week with only minor tactical gains for both sides. This appeared rather surprising since the Pakistanis in the first instance had seemed determined to retaliate severely in the west against India's offensive in the east. Pakistan's air force successfully raided Indian military airfields and destroyed a number of aircraft. But when the Indians retaliated by bombing Karachi and Lahore, the Pakistan Air Force refrained from hitting targets such as Bombay and New Delhi.

Those who expected Pakistan would compensate for losses in the east by concentrating on Kashmir were told by UN observers along the old ceasefire line that the war had yet to reach their area. Sure enough, some headway was made by Pakistan on the western front in the first few days, and I personally saw the Indian town of Chhamb firmly in Pakistani hands. But generally the territorial gains made by Pakistan in Kashmir and Punjab were still rather limited.

Whether the war in the west will increase now that the fate of the eastern wing is decided - or whether an overall ceasefire will follow - remains to be seen. However, foreign observers in West Pakistan have no doubt that Pakistani forces have not yet been fully mobilised.