Barbarossa Derailed: The Battle for Smolensk 10 July-10 September 1941: The German Offensives on the Flanks and the Third Soviet Counteroffensive, 25 August–10 September 1941

By David Glantz

The second half of a two-part study on Operation Barbarossa, Hitler’s plan to invade Soviet Russia during World War II, and what went wrong.

At dawn on 10 July 1941, massed tanks and motorized infantry of German Army Group Center’s Second and Third Panzer Groups crossed the Dnepr and Western Dvina Rivers, beginning what Hitler and most German officers and soldiers believed would be a triumphal march on Moscow, the Soviet capital. Less than three weeks before, on 22 June Hitler had unleashed his Wehrmacht’s massive invasion of the Soviet Union, code-named Operation Barbarossa, which sought to defeat the Soviet Red Army, conquer the country, and unseat its Communist ruler, Josef Stalin. Between 22 June and 10 July, the Wehrmacht advanced up to 500 kilometers into Soviet territory, killed or captured up to one million Red Army soldiers, and reached the western banks of the Western Dvina and Dnepr Rivers, by doing so satisfying the premier assumption of Plan Barbarossa that the Third Reich would emerge victorious if it could defeat and destroy the bulk of the Red Army before it withdrew to safely behind those two rivers. With the Red Army now shattered, Hitler and most Germans expected total victory in a matter of weeks.

The ensuing battles in the Smolensk region frustrated German hopes for quick victory. Once across the Dvina and Dnepr Rivers, a surprised Wehrmacht encountered five fresh Soviet armies. Quick victory eluded the Germans. Instead, Soviet forces encircled in Mogilev and Smolensk stubbornly refused to surrender, and while they fought on, during July, August, and into early September, first five and then a total of seven newly mobilized Soviet armies struck back viciously at the advancing Germans, conducting multiple counterattacks and counterstrokes, capped by two major counteroffensives that sapped German strength and will. Despite immense losses in men and materiel, these desperate Soviet actions derailed Operation Barbarossa. Smarting from countless wounds inflicted on his vaunted Wehrmacht, even before the fighting ended in the Smolensk region, Hitler postponed his march on Moscow and instead turned his forces southward to engage “softer targets” in the Kiev region. The “derailment” of the Wehrmacht at Smolensk ultimately became the crucial turning point in Operation Barbarossa.

This groundbreaking study, now significantly expanded, exploits a wealth of Soviet and German archival materials, including the combat orders and operational of the German OKW, OKH, army groups, and armies and of the Soviet Stavka, the Red Army General Staff, the Western Main Direction Command, the Western, Central, Reserve, and Briansk Fronts, and their subordinate armies to present a detailed mosaic and definitive account of what took place, why, and how during the prolonged and complex battles in the Smolensk region from 10 July through 10 September 1941. The structure of the study is designed specifically to appeal to both general readers and specialists by a detailed two-volume chronological narrative of the course of operations, accompanied by a third volume and a fourth, containing archival maps and an extensive collection of specific orders and reports translated verbatim from Russian. The maps, archival and archival-based, detail every stage of the battle.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Apr 10, 2012
• ISBN: 9781908916785

Book preview

Preface

This study, the second narrative volume in a four-volume set, investigates the nature and consequences of the Battle for Smolensk, a series of military operations which took place in the Smolensk region of central Russia during the period from 10 July to 10 September 1941. The struggle as a whole began three weeks after Adolf Hitler’s Third German Reich commenced its invasion of Josef Stalin’s Soviet Union on 22 June 1941. Code-named Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion sought to defeat and destroy the Soviet Union’s Red Army, overthrow Stalin’s Communist regime, conquer large portions of the Soviet Union, and exploit these regions for the benefit of Nazi Germany. The ten weeks of fighting in the Smolensk region pitted the forces of German Army Group Center against the forces of the Red Army’s Western Main Direction Command, initially, the Red Army’s Western Front, but, subsequently, its Central, Reserve, and Briansk Fronts. As such, the battles involved over 900,000 German troops, supported by about 2,000 tanks, against roughly 1.2 million Soviet soldiers, supported by as many as 500 tanks.

During the over 60 years since war’s end, most memoirists and military historians viewed the battles in the Smolensk region during July, August, and early September 1941 as little more than bothersome bumps in the road of an otherwise seamless offensive operation code-named Barbarossa. Hitler’s Wehrmacht [Armed Forces] commenced Operation Barbarossa on 22 June 1941 along a massive front extending from the Barents Sea southward to the Black Sea. Employing time-honored Blitzkrieg strategy and the tactics of high-speed panzer thrusts, the invading German forces smashed the Red Army’s forces defending the western border regions of Stalin’s Soviet Union in a matter of weeks. Thereafter, they spread out northeastward and eastward into the Soviet Union’s vast strategic depths.

The battle for Smolensk proper began on 10 July 1941, when the forces of Field Marshal Fedor von Bock’s Army Group Center crossed the Western Dvina and Dnepr Rivers and, in accordance with Plan Barbarossa, began a rapid exploitation operation eastward toward the city of Smolensk. The battle ended on 10 September 1941, the date when Army Group Center’s Second Army and Second Panzer Group began their southward advance, which culminated in the encirclement and destruction of its Southwestern Front in the Kiev region, one of the Red Army’s most infamous wartime defeats. Therefore, the battle for Smolensk constituted the ten-week-long struggle for possession of and victory in the Smolensk region.

Unlike previous histories of the fighting in Russia during the summer of 1941, this is a strictly documentary study. This is so, first and foremost, because, for the first time since the end of the Soviet-German War, this study exploits ground truth, specifically, the daily strategic, operational, and tactical records of the forces that participated in the fighting. Therefore, this study is also unique because most histories of the Soviet-German War in general or its component operations in particular have lacked the sound basis of ground truth. It is especially important since the struggle in the Smolensk region during the high summer of 1941 has also generated considerable controversy. In particular, this controversy involves heated debate over the wisdom of the decision by Adolf Hitler, Germany’s dictator, to delay Army Group Center’s advance on Moscow from early September to early October 1941 for the sake of destroying large Red Army forces fighting in the Kiev region.

This study has to be documentary in nature because it challenges conventional wisdom, which maintains that the fighting in the Smolensk region was nothing more than a bump in the road to Moscow. In sharp contrast, on the basis of these fresh archival materials, this study argues that the battle for Smolensk was much larger-scale than previously believed, it damaged Army Group Center far more than previously thought, and, ultimately, it contributed significantly to the army group’s embarrassing defeat at the gates of Moscow in early December 1941. Finally, the study is also documentary because it restores a significant forgotten battle to the historical record, specifically, the Red Army’s massive September counteroffensive in the Smolensk region.

Since this study relies heavily on ground truth to describe the fighting and reach its conclusions, its structure and contents rest heavily on the sound shoulders of extensive and direct documentation. Therefore, the first two volumes contain a unvarnished narrative of the course and outcome of military operations in the Smolensk region based largely on paraphrased versions of period directives, orders, reports, and critiques prepared by the headquarters of the forces which participated in the operations. In particular, these include documents prepared by the respective High Commands (OKW and Stavka) and headquarters down to army and, sometimes, division level.

Because accuracy is absolutely essential to validate the study’s many conclusions, a separate volume will contain unexpurgated and accurate literal translations of virtually all of the documents paraphrased in the two narrative volumes. These are referenced in the text of the volume’s narrative by notes in the margin citing the appropriate appendix and specific document number within each appendix. This is critically important for two cogent reasons. First, the verbatim documents are necessary to confirm the accuracy of the study’s contents. Second, the structure and contents of these directives, orders, reports, and critiques, as well as the language used, provide uniquely personal portraits of the commanders who prepared them. Specifically, the crispness, conciseness, logic, and wording of these documents, or lack thereof, reflects the intelligence, skill, and effectiveness of the leaders (or absence thereof), as well as such less tangible but equally important personal traits such as their egos, their ruthlessness, and their morale.

In addition, the extremely detailed contents of the two-volume-narrative, which must be studied as well as read, makes maps absolutely vital to any understanding of the strategic and operational flow of the Battle for Smolensk. Therefore, I have included just enough general operational and regional maps in the narrative volumes to permit readers to follow the general course of operations. However, since these maps do not provide enough tactical detail to reflect and explain the contents of the archival documents (either paraphrased in the narrative or un-expurgated in the supplements), I have also included an extensive array of detailed daily maps from German and Soviet archival records to support the supplemental volumes. A fourth volume in this series is also planned, featuring specially-commissioned colour maps tracing the progress of the operations described.

Considering the vast amounts of new archival materials upon which this study is based, I must give special thanks to the government of the Russian Federation, which has released the documents essential for its creation. More important still, in light of the considerable work necessary to prepare these volumes, as in the past, my wife Mary Ann, deserves immense credit. First, it was she who correctly predicted that my anticipated 30-day effort to revise and expand a brief 100-page study of the Battle for Smolensk into a slightly more lengthy study of 200 pages would inevitably degenerate into this far more massive effort. Nonetheless, she deserves special thanks for her unconditional moral support during what turned out to be six months of virtual siege. Second, in addition to enduring the idiosyncrasies of her hermit husband, who sequestered himself midst his beloved books in his office for ceaseless hours, she also suffered through interminable hours proofing these volumes on behalf of someone (read me) whose impatience to move on to fresh topics and tasks routinely prevents him from engaging in such Herculean, mundane, and tedious tasks as proofing.

In the last analysis, however, I alone am responsible for any errors found in these volumes, either in fact or translation.

David M. Glantz

Carlisle, Pennsylvania

Chapter 1

Introduction

Context

To all appearances, in the summer of 1941, Germany, led by its Führer, Adolf Hitler, was simply replicating its brilliant military feats of the recent past, only this time against the mighty Soviet Union. Two years before, in September 1939, the fledgling German Wehrmacht had vanquished Poland’s army in just short of one month and cynically divided the country between itself and the Soviet Union. Just over one year before, in April 1940, the Wehrmacht invaded and occupied Demark and Norway in a matter of days and followed up that success by invading the Low Countries and France in May. Once again proving the superiority of Blitzkrieg [Lightening] war, the Wehrmacht, spearheaded by its vaunted panzer and motorized forces and its dreaded Stuka dive bombers, defeated the French and British Armies, shattering the former and forcing the latter to evacuate its forces from the European continent at Dunkirk. An astonished world then watched as German forces captured Paris and forced the French government to sue for peace after a mere seven weeks of war. Finally, in April 1940, a small portion of Germany’s Armed Forces conquered Yugoslavia in only four days and Greece in a matter of weeks.

Given the defeats Germany inflicted on Europe’s most accomplished armies, when Hitler’s forces invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, few, if any, expected the Soviet Union’s Red Army to be able to survive a conflict with the Wehrmacht, which, by now, was recognized as Europe’s most accomplished armed force. In fact, when he planned Operation Barbarossa, Hitler’s premier assumption was that the Soviet Union, led by its ruthless Communist dictator, Josef Stalin, would inevitably crumble if the Wehrmacht could defeat and destroy most of its peacetime Red Army in the Soviet Union’s western border regions, that is, in the 250-450-kilometer-wide belt of territory between the Soviet Union’s western border and the Western Dvina and Dnepr Rivers.

Hitler believed this assumption was correct for three principal reasons. First, the Red Army had performed dismally in its so-called Winter War with Finland from November 1939 to March 1940. After experiencing embarrassing defeat in the first stage of this war, the Soviet Union achieved limited victory in the second stage only by the application of sheer brute force. Second, after Stalin consolidated his power in the Soviet Union during the first half of the 1930s by brutally purging all of his potential political opponents, in 1937 and 1938, he purged the Soviet Armed Forces’ officer corps, killing or imprisoning thousands if not tens of thousands of officers. This left the remainder of the Red Army’s officer cadre commanding at levels far above their actual capabilities and devoid of initiative out of fear lest they suffer fates similar to their purged colleagues. Third, and most important, Hitler reasoned that, if his Wehrmacht could advance 300 kilometers in just under 30 days to defeat the Polish Army, 320 kilometers in about seven weeks to defeat the Armed Forces of France and the Low Countries, and 200-300 kilometers in about two weeks to defeat Yugoslavia and Greece, it could certainly smash the Red Army and penetrate 250-450 kilometers to reach the Western Dvina and Dnepr Rivers in four to five weeks. Since Moscow, Stalin’s capital city, was only 450 kilometers beyond, it was reasonable for Hitler to believe that, if his assumption proved correct, the Wehrmacht could indeed reach the Soviet capital within three months after the beginning of the German invasion. That would have brought the advancing Wehrmacht to the gates of Moscow sometime in October, well before the onset of the Russian winter.

Map 1. Army Group Center’s Situation Late on 7 July 1941

The man most responsible for seeing to it that the Wehrmacht validated Hitler’s assumptions was Field Marshal Fedor von Bock, the experienced commander of German Army Group Center, the strongest of three German army groups conducting the Barbarossa invasion. Bock’s army group, which included two of the German Army’s [Heeres] four powerful panzer groups, was to invade the Soviet Union from eastern Poland and advance rapidly eastward along the Western (Moscow) axis to destroy the Red Army’s forces in the border regions, seize the cities of Minsk and Smolensk, and then drive straight eastward to capture the Soviet capital at Moscow.

Army Group Center’s Achievements, 22 June-6 August 1941

Attacking by surprise on 22 June 1941, Bock’s army group fulfilled all of Hitler’s expectations well ahead of schedule. During the first ten days of Operation Barbarossa, Army Group Center’s forces, spearheaded by its Third and Second Panzer Groups, penetrated, encircled, and destroyed three Soviet armies (the 3rd, 4th and 10th) outright, in the process killing or capturing over half a million Red Army troops and seizing the city of Minsk. Thereafter, in a period of just over one week, the panzers of the army groups’ multiple motorized corps reached the Western Dvina and Dnepr Rivers in the broad sector from Polotsk southward to Rogachev by 7 July, fulfilling Hitler’s premier assumption in a matter of just over two weeks. Undaunted by its surprise encounter with fresh Soviet armies along the Dvina and Dnepr River lines, Army Group Center nonetheless pushed on toward the east, crossing the two rivers, defeating the five defending Soviet Armies (16th, 19th, 20th, 21st, and 22nd), capturing the city of Smolensk, and encircling another three Soviet armies (16th, 19th, and 20th) in a large pocket north of the city. By capturing Smolensk on 16 July, Bock’s forces had advanced roughly 500 kilometers in 25 days of fighting, by doing so eclipsing the incredibly high rates of advance the Wehrmacht had recorded during its previous campaigns in the West. More important still, Moscow was only 300 kilometers beyond. Based on previous German rates of advance, which amounted to roughly 20 kilometers per day and 140 kilometers per week, allowing for pauses to rest, refit, and resupply, Moscow was only two-three weeks distant.

See Map 1. Army Group Center’s Situation Late on 7 July 1941

See Map 2. Army Group Center’s Situation Late on 16 July 1941

Although Bock had to halt his army group’s forward progress toward Moscow for about two weeks to defeat and digest the three Soviet armies encircled in the Smolensk region, nevertheless, Bock’s forces capitalized on the pause by attacking and defeating sizeable groups of Red Army forces threatening the army group’s extended northern and southern flanks. In light of the planning guidance Hitler gave to his commanders before the launch of Operation Barbarossa, these successful actions on Army Group Center’s flanks were absolutely necessary prerequisites for any subsequent advance on Moscow. In accordance with the Führer’s instructions, roughly half of the infantry of Field Marshal Günther von Kluge’s Fourth Panzer Army and Colonel General Adolf Strauss’ Ninth Army, reinforced for a time by four panzer and motorized divisions, reduced the Smolensk pocket from 16 July through 6 August. While they did so, the bulk of Colonel General Hermann Hoth’s Third Panzer Group and Colonel General Heinz Guderian’s Second Panzer Group manned an outer encirclement line northeast and southeast of Smolensk to keep potential Soviet relief forces at bay while their sister formations reduced the pocket. Ultimately, the battles along this outer encirclement line pitted nine of Hoth’s and Guderian’s panzer and motorized divisions against five small, newly-formed and hastily-assembled Soviet armies (29th, 30th, 19th, 24th, and 28th), which the Soviet Stavka and Western Front deployed along Army Group Center’s so-called eastern front, northeast and east of Smolensk and in the El’nia region southeast of the city.

Map 2. Army Group Center’s Situation Late on 16 July 1941

While heavy fighting raged on along the outer encirclement line, the struggle expanded to encompass Army Group Center’s northern and southern flanks. In the north, roughly half of Strauss’s Ninth Army, supported by one panzer division and one motorized division from Hoth’s panzer group, protected the army group’s northern flank by seizing the Nevel’ region. To the south, Field Marshal Maximilian von Weichs’ Second Army, supported by two panzer divisions and one motorized division from Guderian’s Second Panzer Group, pushed Soviet forces arrayed along the army group’s southern flank back toward the Rogachev and Zhlobin region and eastward to the Sozh River line. Finally, during the first week of August, one motorized corps of Guderian’s panzer group struck at Soviet forces attacking northward from the Roslavl’ region toward Smolensk. In a brief fight lasting only six days, Guderian’s forces encircled and destroyed the bulk of seven Red Army divisions subordinate to Soviet Group Kachalov. Nor were the lessons of Strauss’ and Guderian’s easy victories on the army group’s northern and southern flanks lost on Hitler. In fact, as the Führer adjusted his strategy for victory in the East, he increasingly favored quick and profitable victories on the flanks over what he thought would prove to be bloody and costly frontal assaults against the Red Army where it was strongest, that is, along the Moscow axis.

See Map 3. Army Group Center’s Situation Late on 6 August 1941

Thus, by the end of the first week in August, Hitler, his Armed Forces (OKW) and Army High Command (OKH), and Field Marshal Bock had every reason to be proud of the victories Army Group Center achieved during the first six weeks of Operation Barbarossa. During this astonishingly brief period in the wake of its brilliant victories in the border regions, Bock’s army group demolished the Red Army’s second strategic echelon defenses along the Dvina and Dnepr Rivers, captured Smolensk, the historical eastern gateway to Moscow, and killed, wounded, or captured over 600,000 Red Army troops, most of them at the expense of the Red Army’s Western Front, now commanded by Marshal of the Soviet Union Semen Konstantinovich Timoshenko. Enthusiastic over this seemingly Herculean feat, Hitler, most of his senior commanders, and German soldiers expected nothing short of a rapid German victory, secured by a Blitzkrieg-style triumphant advance on Moscow.

Army Group Center’s Problems by 6 August 1941

Despite the many victories the Wehrmacht won in Army Group Center’s sector during the first six weeks of war, there were several ominous indicators that future victories might not prove to be as easy as most Germans anticipated. The first and most important indicator was the utter collapse of Hitler’s premier assumption regarding the war, specifically, the belief that the Soviet Union would collapse if the Wehrmacht could destroy the bulk of its Red Army west of the Western Dvina and Dnepr Rivers. By 10 July this assumption proved patently incorrect. Although Bock’s army group destroyed three of the Soviet Western Front’s four field armies (3rd, 4th, and 10th) by the end of June when his forces reached the two rivers on 7 July they discovered five more Soviet armies (16th, 19th, 20th, 21st, and 22nd), which, although weak, were still willing and able to fight. Four weeks later, after encircling and decimating three of these five armies (16th, 19th, and 20th) in the Smolensk region by 6 August, Bock was chagrined to find his army group facing yet another row of five new Soviet armies (24th, 28th, 29th, 30th, and Group Iartsevo), which rose phoenix-like from Soviet rear area to supplement 13th, 21st, and 22nd Armies still intact in the field. Furthermore, unknown to German intelligence, still another row of Soviet armies was forming further to the rear (31st, 33rd, and 43rd). Most ominous of all, although the Germans fervently believed this process would end after the fighting in the Smolensk region, in fact, it would continue unabated to year’s end.¹

Map 3. Army Group Center’s Situation Late on 6 August 1941

The second indicator already disturbing senior German military leaders in early August was the reality that war in the East differed fundamentally from previous wars in the West in several important respects. First and foremost, combat during the first six weeks of war demonstrated that eastern kilometers differed fundamentally from western kilometers. Specifically, the under-developed road system and the different gauge track employed in the Soviet railroad system made movement exceedingly difficult. While the largely dirt-surfaced roads turned into impenetrable quagmires during periods of heavy rain, the varying gauge of the railroads made it necessary for the Wehrmacht to reconstruct the railroads as they advanced eastward. The ensuing strain on German logistics, coupled with the necessity of rebuilding blown up bridges, made logistical resupply of advancing forces a problem of major importance. Making matters worse, the panzer and motorized divisions of Bock’s two panzer groups, which inevitably operated far forward of Army Group Center’s main forces, suffered most from these problems. In short, fuel shortages severally restricted the capabilities of these forces to operate in the enemy’s depths. Finally, although it would not have a major impact of the Wehrmacht’s operational capabilities until October 1941, the Russian climate, with its sharply differing seasonal weather conditions, would only compound the German Army’s other logistical problems.

Operationally, and to a lesser extent tactically, because of these logistical impediments, the Wehrmacht proved unable to conduct sustained Blitzkrieg-style operations in such a vast and underdeveloped theater of military operations. Thus, another key German assumption regarding Operation Barbarossa’s prospects for success, specifically, that Blitzkrieg-style war which produced easy victory in the West would result in equally spectacular victory in the East, proved unfounded. As a result, after this assumption proved to be false by mid-July, thereafter, the Wehrmacht was compelled to conduct virtually all of its offensive operations in ad hoc fashion, by advancing in distinct offensive spurts, followed inevitably by extended periods of time necessary to rest, refit, and resupply its forces.

A third indicator of still greater difficulties in the future regarded German assumptions about the Red Army itself, in particular, the attitudes, morale, and combat capabilities of its officer corps and common soldiers. In this regard, based on the Red Army’s previous performance in Poland in September 1939 and in Finland from November 1940 to March 1941, the Germans assumed neither Soviet officers nor Red Army soldiers would stand and fight when confronted by German tanks, Stuka aircraft, and well-trained and battle-hardened German Landsers. Although based in part on objective analysis, much of this assumption was firmly rooted in Nazi ideology and racial theories, which maintained that, inherently, racially-inferior Slavic officers and soldiers could not or would not fight on a level commensurate with their superior German counterparts. A corollary to this assumption was that Red Army officers and soldiers, if not whole segments of the Soviet Union’s population (Belorussians, Ukrainians, and the many peoples of the Caucasus region), detested both Stalin and the Communist system. Therefore, reasoned the Germans, when given the opportunity to do so, these officers and soldiers would lay down their arms in surrender or simply desert and disappear into the Russian countryside.

By early August, however, these assumptions too proved to be false. Although Red Army soldiers did indeed surrender or defect by the hundreds (but far fewer officers), tens if not hundreds of thousands more fought, often in suicidal fashion, and died in the face of German invasion so that hundreds of thousands more would prevail. Thus, despite their enthusiasm over the army’s many victories, many German officers and soldiers had just cause to question just how easy future victory would be.

Soviet Problems, 22 June-6 August 1941

All of the Germans’ problems notwithstanding, the political and military leadership of the Soviet Union and the Red Army’s officers and soldiers also faced unprecedented trials and daunting challenges during July and the first week of August 1941. By every standard of measure, the July and early August fighting produced catastrophe after catastrophe and a seemingly endless series of major crises for the Red Army. The starkest and most unsettled reality was that the Red Army lost up to a third of its peacetime compliment of officers and soldiers during the first six weeks of war, perhaps as many as 1.5 million officers and soldiers, a figure that rose inexorably to almost 3 million men by the end of August 1941. Because the vicious fighting during this period deprived the Red Army of its best trained soldiers, increasingly throughout the summer, it would have to make do with partially-trained reservists and largely untrained conscripts raised from across the vast extent of the Soviet Union. This left the Red Army’s senior command cadre with no choice but to educate and train its junior officers and soldiers while combat went on with Europe’s best trained, equipped, and led armed force. The depressingly long roster of destroyed or severely damaged Soviet armies, although mitigated to a degree by the specter of new replacement armies rising phoenix-like over time, vividly underscored the unprecedented scale of these disasters.

Compounding and exacerbating this dreadful situation, the Red Army’s officer corps was replete with political generals and generals who had survived the purges of the late 1930s and now found themselves commanding forces at levels well above their competence in the challenging circumstances of Blitzkrieg War. As a result, after experiencing political purges several years before the war, the Red Army’s command cadre now suffered through purge by combat during the first six weeks of war. This Darwinian process, which involved officer education and training on the battlefield, saw the incompetent perish with their soldiers, quite literally, by their own hand. Conversely, if not surprisingly, the fighting in July and early August also revealed that, among this vast officer corps of mixed quality, there were many senior officers who indeed proved their competence in combat and, as a result, knew how to fight and survive. Therefore, in addition to the famed General Zhukov, other generals, such as Timoshenko, Konev, Rokossovsky, Kurochkin, and Pliev, would survive the July battles to lead fronts, armies, and corps in future battles. Konev and Rokossovsky, the most capable of the survivors, would live to lead the Red Army’s most prestigious fronts, the 1st and 2nd Belorussian, during the victorious conquest of Berlin in April and May 1945.

In short, despite its many defeats, crises, and problems, the Red Army endured the trials and challenges it faced in July and early August 1941. By early August, Stalin was able to discover and employ a solid nucleus of fighting generals through whose Herculean, if not desperate, efforts, together with the stoic endurance of tens of thousands of Red Army soldiers, the Stavka and its Red Army was able to escape from the fetters of defeat and retreat by organizing more resolute defenses and stronger, more vigorous counteroffensives.

Army Group Center’s Achievements, 6-24 August 1941

On the surface, and according to the accounts in most histories of this period, Army Group Center’s struggle in the Smolensk region during the first three weeks of August 1941 proved noteworthy in several important respects. First, during the first week of August, Bock’s army group recorded two cardinal successes. First, the infantry of Ninth and Second Armies finally liquidated the Smolensk encirclement, ostensibly swallowing up the forces of three Soviet armies and restoring a solid front east of the city. Second, and virtually simultaneously, Armeegruppe Guderian’s XXIV Motorized Corps abruptly interrupted the bothersome counteroffensive by Timoshenko’s Operational Groups by crushing Group Kachalov’s forces in the Roslavl’ region. Within ten days, Guderian’s forces then wheeled southward across the Sozh River, beginning what would become a seemingly endless series of bold dashes by Guderian’s panzers and the infantry of Weichs’ Second Army, which ultimately culminated in the capture of Gomel’ and a crisis within the Soviet High Command as a genuine threat materialized against Kiev from the north.

At the other end of this three-week time spectrum, in the third week of August, Hitler, over Bock’s strenuous objections, required Army Group Center to unleash yet another successful blow against Timoshenko’s Western Front. This time a sizeable portion of Third Panzer Group’s armor, in the form of Group Stumme, which Army Group Center secretly regrouped to its left wing, struck a devastating blow in the Velikie Luki region against Ershakov’s unsuspecting 22nd Army. Attacking by surprise, in just under a week’s time, Group Stumme’s forces shattered and decimated the attacking 22nd Army, captured Velikie Luki, and liquidated half of Ershakov’s army in a pocket southeast of the city. Then, with scarcely a pause to catch their breath, Stumme’s forces began driving eastward to threaten Toropets and Toropa, forcing Maslennikov’s 29th Army to weaken its offensive by dispatching forces to stave off disaster on the Western Front’s right wing.

Thus, during the first three weeks of August, Army Group Center eradicated the bulk of three armies (16th, 19th, and 20th) from the Red Army’s order of battle in the Smolensk region, destroyed a fourth (28th) in the Roslavl’ region, decimated a fifth (22nd) in the forests around Velikie Luki, forced a sixth (21st) to abandon Gomel’, and compelled a seventh (29th) to weaken its role in the Western Front’s planned counteroffensive in late August and early September. Underscoring the impressive scale of these victories, Bock’s army group killed or captured more than 40,000 Red Army soldiers northeast and east of Smolensk, roughly 90,000 in the Gomel’ region, and another 60,000 Soviet soldiers in the Roslavl’ and Velikie Luki regions. By any measure, the figure of over 190,000 soldiers and officers eliminated from the Red Army was indeed an impressive count.

See Map 4. Army Group Center’s Situation Late on 24 August 1941

Map 4. Army Group Center’s Situation Late on 24 August 1941

German Problems, 6-24 August 1941

As dramatic as these German victories were, several other grim realities proved these victories were deceptive, at least in part. First, although the Western and Central Fronts’ loss of more than 190,000 troops in about three weeks was indeed lamentable, these losses paled in comparison with the well over 400,000 men the Red Army’s Western Front had suffered during the roughly six weeks since war began. In fact, despite these losses, the Soviet mobilization system tapped into its mobilization pool of more than 10 million men, generating 800,000 men by the end of June and another 600,000 men in July, and perhaps almost as many in August, dispatching over half of these men to the Western, Reserve, and Central Fronts operating along the Western (Moscow) axis. During this period, the Soviet People’s Commissariat of Defense (NKO) mobilized and fielded rifle divisions numbered from 250 to roughly 316 in July and from 317 to 384 in August, as well as the 100-series of tank divisions in early August, and roughly half of these divisions went to fronts operating along the Western axis. As poorly trained and equipped as most of these divisions were, their combat employment demonstrated the old adage that quantity has a quality of its own.

Furthermore, and more important, as the records cited in the study clearly indicate, despite the Red Army’s plethora of problems, the generals and colonels who survived the first six weeks of war to command armies and divisions in August 1941, men such as Konev, Liziukov, Iushkevich, and tens of others, were indeed learning how to fight the German Heeres, Europe’s most accomplished army.

Second, although Timoshenko’s Western Direction Command and the Western, Reserve, and Central Fronts indeed suffered dramatic defeats during the first and third weeks of August, sandwiched in between was a major counteroffensive orchestrated by Timoshenko which inflicted serious harm on Bock’s Army Group Center, first, in terms of combat losses, but, even more significantly, in terms of German confidence and morale. Even if most of the armies carrying out Timoshenko’s counteroffensive in mid-August failed to achieve operational, much less strategic, success, they did score unprecedented tactical victories that genuinely hurt Bock’s army group. This applied in particular to the attack by Konev’s 19th Army along the Vop River, which decimated the German 161st Infantry Division and severely damaged 28th and 5th Infantry Divisions, and, for the first time in the war, defeated a major counterattack by German 7th Panzer Division. To a lesser degree, it also applied to the attacks by Khomenko’s 30th Army, which, while disjointed, inflicted costly casualties on 106th Infantry Division, to the slow but damaging assaults by Maslennikov’s 29th Army along the Western Dvina River, which sorely damaged the German 26th and 6th Infantry Divisions, and to the ferocious though futile assaults on El’nia by Rakutin’s 24th Army, which, while unsuccessful, inflicted grievous losses on SS Das Reich Motorized Division, XX Army Corps’ 15th, 268th, and 292nd Infantry Divisions, and IX Army Corps’ 263rd and 137th Infantry Divisions.

The situation along German Ninth Army’s front east of Smolensk was indicative of the problem and the increasing frustration in higher German command circles. After reporting on 3 August that Ninth Army Corps’ VIII and V Corps suffered considerable casualties, especially in officers, during the encirclement battle at Smolensk, on 12 August, the army group’s commander, Bock, confided to his diary, If the Russians don’t soon collapse somewhere, the objective of defeating them so badly that they will be eliminated will be difficult before the winter.² The situation on the front east of Smolensk had become so desperate by the end of the third week in August that Bock wrote:

It [my eastern front] can’t hold much longer the way things look now. I am being forced [by Hitler] to spread the reserves which I have so laboriously scraped together for the hoped for attack behind my front just to have some degree of security that it will not be breeched.

If, after all the successes, the campaign in the east now trickles away in dismal defensive fighting for my army group, it is not my fault.³

Of course, this reflected Bock’s discomfiture over Hitler’s insistence of clearing Army Group Center’s flanks before marching on Moscow.

Making matters worse for Bock, as well as the other commanders of German army groups, they lacked the reserves necessary to replace their losses. For example, on 2 August Halder informed his diary that Army Group Center had lost 74,500 men and received only 23,000 replacements since the first day of the Barbarossa invasion. As a result, by this time, it was experiencing a manpower deficit of 15,000 men in Ninth Army, 30,000 men in Second Army and 4,000 men in Third Panzer Group. Later still, on 28 August he recorded that the panzer divisions in Army Group Center’s Second and Third Panzer Groups were operating with an average daily tank strength of 45 percent, with 7th Panzer Division the lowest at only 24 percent strength.⁴ In the case of many of these divisions, they had suffered most of these losses (as well as staggering losses in panzer-grenadiers) in late July and early August while operating along the outer encirclement ring at Smolensk, in isolation from supporting infantry divisions.

If Army Group Center’s panzer divisions and, in particular, their motorized infantry forces, suffered a high proportion of the army group’s casualties during the second half of July, in August it was the turn of the army group’s infantry divisions. Thus, with most of Hoth’s panzers absent, operating toward the north, and most of Second Panzer Group’s panzers driving toward the south, Ninth and Fourth Armies’ infantry divisions ended up defending against Timoshenko’s fierce and persistent assaults east and northeast of Smolensk and against Zhukov’s attacks in the El’nia region. It was here that as many as ten infantry divisions saw their strength dwindle and their combat rating fall from strong and medium strong to weak or even exhausted.

It was this bloodletting east of Smolensk and at El’nia which gradually persuaded Hitler to undertake his cat and mouse game with Timoshenko, that is, to cease his costly eastward advance and instead deal with the threats to Army Group Center’s northern and southern flanks. Hitler’s decision to do so was clearly rooted in his frustration at Army Group Center’s failure to liquidate the Smolensk encirclement in what he considered timely fashion. It was only reinforced by the agonies experienced by and damage inflicted on Hoth’s and Guderian’s panzer divisions as they struggled to hold the outer encirclement lines east of Smolensk against increasingly powerful and frenzied Soviet counterattacks, as well as Guderian’s seemingly easy victory at Roslavl’. It was further reinforced in mid-August by the continued bloodying of German infantry divisions east of Smolensk and at El’nia, coupled with another easy victory by Guderian’s panzers along the Sozh River and at Krichev.

Competing Strategies in Late August 1941

Throughout the first three weeks of August 1941, Josef Stalin, the Stavka (Headquarters of the Supreme High Command), and the Red Army’s Western and Reserve Fronts played a deadly game of cat and mouse with their German counterparts, Hitler, the OKW and OKH, and the Wehrmacht’s Army Group Center. After liquidating the three Soviet armies encircled in the Smolensk region by 6 August, Hitler decided to restore momentum to the German advance by ordering Bock’s Army Group to conduct a series of offensive operations designed to clear the Red Army’s forces from the threatening positions they occupied along Army Group Center’s southern and northern flanks. These offensives, which proved to be spectacularly successful, accorded closely with the initial guidance Hitler gave his senior commanders regarding just how they were to conduct the Barbarossa campaign. Specifically, Hitler’s Directives Nos. 33 and 34, together with the supplements to those directives, which the Führer issued from mid-July to mid-August 1941, required the Wehrmacht to clear Soviet forces from Army Group Center’s flanks before proceeding on Moscow. This reflected the guidance Hitler gave to his generals on 5 December 1941, when he told them, The decision whether or not to advance on Moscow or to an area east of Moscow could not be made until after the destruction of the Russian masses trapped in the anticipated northern and southern pockets. The cardinal point was the Russians must not be permitted to establish a rear defense position.⁵

All of this provided both context and impetus for the cat and mouse game Hitler played with Timoshenko’s Western Front after mid-August. Reluctant to tempt fate by driving straight on Moscow through what appeared to be the strongest Soviet defenses, instead Hitler decided to follow the path of least resistance and cost by striking the flanks of Soviet defenses along the Western axis. By the end of the third week of August, despite significant opposition from Bock, Guderian, and other senior officers, Hitler’s decision was paying significant dividends, first and foremost because the Führer had won the game. By this time, Guderian had not only collapsed the Central Front but was also threatening to separate the Reserve Front from the Southwestern Front defending the approaches to Kiev. At the same time, and at minimal cost, Third Panzer Group’s Group Stumme had demolished the right wing of Timoshenko’s Western Front by savaging the Soviet 22nd Army and ultimately forcing 29th Army to end its participation in the Western Front’s ambitious counteroffensive.

In turn, the apparent favorable outcome of Hitler’s cat and mouse game in the third week of August provided context and impetus for what was about to occur in the last week of August and early September. From Timoshenko’s perspective, despite the German victories on his front’s left and right wings, the main direction commander, as well as his masters in Moscow, in late August still firmly believed the ultimate outcome of the summer campaign would be decided in the Smolensk region. If Hitler’s calculated risk to strip the Moscow axis of his armor by dispatching the army’s group’s two panzer groups to its flanks facilitated the tactical successes the Western Front achieved east of Smolensk by 24 August, perhaps, the Stavka reasoned, persisting in a strategy of striking Army Group Center’s almost tank-less eastern front in late August and early September could produce future operational and even strategic success.

Based on these judgments, and with Stalin’s and the Stavka’s complete approval, when the last week of August began, Timoshenko began orchestrating a new and expanded counteroffensive, this time with the forces of three fronts instead of two, and with reinforcement provided by the Stavka. In turn, this new counteroffensive would determine, once and for all, the strategy Hitler would employ to achieve the objectives set forth in Plan Barbarossa.

Endnotes

1    In brief, these rows of armies included five in late June and early July (16th, 19th, 20th, 21st, and 22nd), twelve in mid- and late July (24th, 28th, 29th, 30th, 31st, 32nd, 33rd, 34th, 35th (renumbered 49th), 43rd, 53rd, and 57th), three in early October (5th, 49th, and 50th), and ten in November and early December (10th, 26th, 39th, 56th, 57th, 58th, 59th, 60th, 61st, and 1st Shock). See David M. Glantz, Colossus Reborn: The Red Army at War, 1941-1943 (Lawrence, KS: The University Press of Kansas, 2005).

2    The Bock Diary, 271 and 281.

3    Ibid, 292-293.

4    The Halder Diary, 493 and 519.

5    Gotthard Heinrici, The Campaign in Russia, Volume 1 (Washington, DC: United States Army G-2, 1954), an unpublished translation by Joseph Welch of a German-language manuscript in the US National Archives, 85 and OKW War Diary, WFSt War Diary, 27-28. See this important document in, Vortrag beim Führer am 5. Dezember 1940 [A Talk with the Führer on 5 December 1940], Kriegstagebuch des Oberkommandos der Wehrmacht (Wehrmachtführungsstab), Band I: 1. August 1940-31. Dezember 1941 [OKW War Diary, WFSt War Diary] complied by Hans-Adolf Jacobsen (Frankfurt am Main: Bernard & Graefe Verlag, 1965), item 41, 981-982. This talk is vital to understanding Hitler’s insistence on clearing large Russian forces from Army Group Center’s flanks before advancing to capture Moscow.

Chapter 2

The Northern Flank: Group Stumme’s Advance to Toropets, 22-28 August 1941

Context

Adolf Hitler, the German Chancellor, abruptly ended his game of cat and mouse with Marshal Timoshenko’s Western Front on 22 August when General Strauss, the commander of Army Group Center’s Ninth Army, unleashed Group Stumme against the right flank of Timoshenko’s front. Attacking by surprise, with 19th and 20th Panzer Divisions in its vanguard, Group Stumme struck a devastating blow on General Ershakov’s unsuspecting 22nd Army. In fact, when the Germans began their assault on the morning of 22 August, they caught Ershakov’s army midst an offensive of its own it had commenced only a day before. As a result, Knobelsdorff’s and Stumpf’s panzers struck Ershakov’s advancing rifle divisions when they were most vulnerable and totally incapable of defending themselves. Lunging northward through the confused and astonished Soviet riflemen of Colonel Biriukov’s 186th Rifle Division, the two panzer divisions raced northward 25 kilometers on 22 August to cut the main road and rail lines 25 kilometers east of Velikie Luki. Without pausing to catch their breath, the following day the two panzer divisions pivoted to the left and drove westward toward Velikie Luki, reaching the city’s eastern outskirts by evening. Following in the panzer divisions’ wake, two of Group Stumme’s supporting infantry divisions (102nd and 256th) wheeled eastward along the road and railroad line, reaching a 15-kilometer sector stretching northward from the northern shore of Lake Zhizhitskoe, 45 kilometers east of Velikie Luki and only 35 kilometers southwest of the city of Toropets, previously in 22nd Army’ deep rear.

See Map 5. 22nd Army’s Area of Operations

See Map 6. Group Stumme’s Assault, 22 August 1941

Twenty-four hours later, by nightfall on 24 August, the encirclement of Ershakov’s 22nd Army was a reality. With its two infantry divisions covering the distant approaches to Velikie Luki from the east, Group Stumme’s main forces formed an iron-clad ring around the bulk of Ershakov’s army in a shrinking pocket at and southeast of Velikie Luki. Out of contact with the ill-fated 22nd Army, the Western Front and neighboring 29th Army struggled to determine the actual situation and then take measures to contain the damage done to the front‘s right wing. When it finally became clear to the Western Front by the end of 24 August that 22nd Army no longer existed as a fighting force, it moved frantically to restore some stability to its right wing. Aside from the bad news about 22nd Army, the most disturbing aspect of the army’s probable defeat was its potential negative impact on Timoshenko’s planned general counteroffensive.

See Map 7. Group Stumme’s Assault, 24 August 1941

Thus, by nightfall on 22 August, a new race was underway; furthermore, a race which had dire strategic implications. Stated succinctly, the race was between the counteroffensive planned by Timoshenko’s Western Front for 1 September and the counterstroke already being conducted by Army Group Center’s Group. The outcome of the race depended on which side could do enough damage to the other to force the opposing side to abandon its actions.

Map 5. 22nd Army’s Area of Operations

Map 6. Group Stumme’s Assault, 22 August 1941

Map 7. Group Stumme’s Assault, 24 August 1941

22nd Army’s Encirclement and Soviet Command Confusion, 22-24 August

As Ershakov’s forces perished in encirclement or ran the gauntlet northeastward out of the Velikie Luki region, Timoshenko’s Western Front, 22nd Army’s Operational Group, formed from the army’s rear services, and Maslennikov’s 22nd Army struggled to regain control of the situation by halting the Germans’ eastward advance. This was especially important because, by nightfall on 25 August, Group Stumme’s 102nd Infantry Division reached and captured Nazimovo Station, the site of 22nd Army’s former headquarters on the railroad line only 32 kilometers west of Toropets. Advancing eastward simultaneously along the roads and railroad line to the south, 256th Infantry Division reached Zuevo, on the road 22 kilometer southwest of Toropets, Logovo and the northern shore of Lake Zhizhitskoe, 8 kilometers west of Zhizhitsa Station and only 25 kilometers west of Staraia Toropa. This advance also placed Group Stumme’s lead elements only 25 kilometers due north of 29th Army’s right flank.

Between 1015 and 1040 hours on 25 August, Sokolovsky, the Western Front’s chief of staff, spoke once again with Colonel Nyrianin, now the chief of staff of 22nd Army’s Operational Group, in yet another attempt to clarify the confused situation:

See Volume 3 (Documents), Appendix Q, 13

Sokolovsky – What information do you have about Ershakov today? When did you last have contact with him by radio, where is he located now, and what is he doing?

Nyprianin – There was no radio contact with Ershakov from 1930 hours on 24 August to 0920 hours on 25 August. We just received a radiogram from him, which we are de-coding. I will report soon by enciphered radiogram. The last radio conversation was at around 1600 hours on 24 August, when he ordered us to provide information from aerial reconnaissance primarily in the Ushitsy region. I do not know his operational intentions on 25 August.

We received a dispatch this evening from the detachment sent to assist Ershakov. The detachment was in the forests southeast of Velikopol’e Station on the night of 23-24 August and found no enemy in that region. As I informed Ershakov, the enemy did not discover our artillery warehouse, and it was intact. The detachment located a group of 500-600 soldiers, some armed and some unarmed in the forest, who were led by one of the assistant department chiefs of the army’s headquarters. According to a report by one of these officers, the enemy weakly controls the road north of the Velikie Luki-Toropets railroad, with only separate groups in this region.

Sokolovsky – Do you have radio contact with Ershakov now?

Nyprianin – We just received a radiogram from Samokhin [29th Rifle Corps’ commander] in the region where Ershakov should be located; judging by its contents, it may be his location. Since the radiogram has yet to be deciphered; I cannot report exactly whether it is from Ershakov or Samokhin.

Sokolovsky – Immediately ask Ershakov by enciphered radiogram where he is, what he is doing, and, briefly, what the situation is. Decipher the radiogram quickly and send it to me immediately. What units of the army have you succeeded in assembling in the Toropets and Staraia Toropa region?

Nyprianin – Of those units which took part in the fighting and are still located in combat sectors, we have assembled around 600 men; these are in addition to the 400 armed soldiers we sent to the sectors yesterday and the roughly 300 men we halted along intermediate lines and sent to combat sectors. We have still not received the exact number of men and weapons. We are assembling unarmed men primarily in the Skvortsovo Station region [20 kilometers west-southwest of Toropets].

Sokolovsky – Have you organized reconnaissance toward Nazimovo and from Zhizhitsa Station toward the west?

Nyprianin – We have organized primarily commandant’s patrols on vehicles.

Sokolovsky – Report specifically, what detachments did you send out to reconnoiter, when, along which axes, and what have they reported about the enemy? What is aviation doing today, who is supporting Ershakov, do you have communications with them, and what missions have you assigned to them at Ershakov’s request or independently based on the intelligence you have about the enemy?

Nyprianin – I repeat, we have no communications with Ershakov, he has not given or cannot give any orders, and I do not know the situation. We have organized reconnaissance along 12 axes. I will provide you with a detailed report about all of the measures we have undertaken by enciphered radiogram.

Sokolovsky – Send me the most recent telegram from Ershakov quickly.

Nyprianin – But understand, it is still doubtful whether or not it is from Ershakov.

Sokolovsky – Take measures to establish radio communications with Ershakov.¹

This exchange not only illustrated the tenuous situation west of Toropets and the uncertainty within Soviet command channels over the fate of Ershakov and his army, but it also underscored the increasing frustration of Sokolovsky and, no doubt, of his masters in Moscow as well.

As Nyrianin kept Sokolovsky at bay, Colonel Fedorov, the commander of 22nd Army’s Operational Group, worked frantically to scrape up forces to defend both Toropets and Staraia Toropa and round up, assemble, and organize the westward-fleeing human debris of 22nd Army into coherent units so that they could participate in the defense. This involved the formation and employment of battalion-sized detachments formed from the army’s artillery forces left in the rear area and a host of temporary composite detachments, some formed literally on the hoof. In addition, because of the Germans’ slow but steady eastward advance, more often than not, Fedorov’s orders became irrelevant merely hours after he issued them, thus requiring him to alter the composition of the detachments and assign them new missions. For example, during the 12-hour period from about 1200 hours on 25 August to 0200 hours on 26 August, Fedorov issued three separate orders to his Operational Group, all specifying slightly different force configurations and missions:

See Volume 3 (Documents), Appendix Q, 14-16

Midday on 24 August – Combat Order No. 18, 22nd Army’s Operational Group

• Enemy Situation – large enemy tank and motorized units penetrated the left wing of 22nd Army’s defensive front, exploited toward the north and northwest, captured Velikopol’e Station [16 kilometers east of Velikie Luki] and Ushitsy State Farm [18 kilometers east-southeast of Velikie Luki], and occupied the Piatnitskoe (10 kilometers northeast of Kodosno Station) [55 kilometers east of Velikie Luki] and Nazimova [35 kilometers east-northeast of Velikie Luki] regions with forward units.

• 29th Army’s Situation (with the Operational Group [OG] formed from 22nd Army’s forces outside the encirclement) – continue the offensive on the left wing to destroy the enemy’s Il’ino grouping and go over to the defense with its remaining forces to liquidate the enemy forces penetrating along the Rzhev axis.

• Mission of the OG - defend the Podolina (24 kilometers northwest of Toropets), Toropets, and Lake Sel’skoe (12 kilometers south of Toropets) front, with forward positions along the Chernost’ River, Dubrovka, Pochinok, Barsuki, Piatnitskoe, and Tarasovka line [40 kilometers west to 23 kilometers southwest of Toropets].

• Missions of Subordinates:

✦ 709th HAR [Howitzer Artillery Regiment] – defend the Podolina, Khadausova, Hill 179.1, and Ganevo sector [24 kilometers northwest of Toropets] and prevent small enemy groups from infiltrating [eastward] toward Sheino, Moroshkino, and Ganevo.

✦ 196th AWBn [Automatic Weapons Battalion] – defend the Karpasy, Hill 191.9, Marker 208.3, and Kamestaia sector [21 kilometers north-northwest of Toropets].

✦ 137th AABn [Antiaircraft Battalion] (with 13th SATBn [Separate Antitank Battalion]) – defend the Hill 199.5, Hill 239.5, and Zhelny region [10 kilometers north of Toropets] to prevent an enemy penetration toward Toropets from the northwest.

✦ 38th MRBn (Motorized Rifle Battalion) – defend the Gorka, Iashkino, Hill 199.2, and Martiukhova sector [45 kilometers west-southwest of Toropets].

✦ 390th HAR (with 179th SATBn) – defend the Hill 192.2, Lake Zelikovskoe, Kharino, and Zarech’e sector to prevent an enemy penetration to Toropets.

✦ 360th HAR (with 615th HAR) – defend the Shatry, Artiukhovo, and Losochi region and create cut-off positions in the Novoe Bridino and Mikhali sector.

✦ 56th CAR (Corps Artillery Regiment) – defend the Losochi, Hill 191.9, Riaslo, and Gal’ianovo sector.

✦ Major Kadyshin’s Composite Detachment – defend the road junctions near Ekimino and Hill 100.9 and in the vicinity of Hill 153.7, Peski, and Kabanikha and keep a reserve group in Ozerets [35 kilometers west of Toropets].

✦ Captain Latkin’s Mixed Detachment – defend the Pochinok and Barsuki region [25 kilometers west-southwest of Toropets] and keep a reserve group in the vicinity of Skvortsovo Station [17 kilometers west-southwest of Toropets].

✦ 697th ATR (Antitank Regiment) – defend the Hill 230.6, Raina, and Tarasovka [25 kilometers southwest of Toropets] region and keep a reserve group in the Rusanovo and Hill 225.3 region [15 kilometers southwest of Toropets].

• Special Instructions — be prepared to fire by 1800 hours on 25 August and complete defensive work on the main defensive belt by no later than 28 August 1941.

• CP of the OG – the woods 2 kilometers east of Podsoson’e [14 kilometers south-southeast of Toropets].²

0130 hours on 26 August – Combat Order No. 2/op, 22nd Army’s Operational Group

• OG’s Mission – In fulfillment of the Western Front’s order to 22nd Army’s Operational Group, I order:

✦ Colonel Antosenko’s Composite Detachment (with 697th AR in the Kostino region)

✧ Destroy the enemy in the Piatnitskoe region [20 kilometers southwest of Toropets], reach the Hill 228.6, Markovo, Sharapova, and Levkovo Farm line [30 kilometers southwest of Toropets], and subsequently attack toward the west to destroy the enemy and capture Hills 240.8, 222.6, 226.0, and 230.5, Staritsy, and Efremkovo.

✧ Destroy the enemy in the Zhizhitsa Station region [30 kilometers southwest of Toropets] with at least 2 battalions by attacking from Grishino, Tsarevo, and Buraia, together with Major Iurlov’s detachment (subordinated to you), and prevent an enemy penetration to the east, while defending the Zasenovo, Pashivkino, and Naumovo State Farm sector in the land between the lakes.

✦ Colonel Nerianin

✧ Assemble a detachment composed at least 2,000 bayonets from withdrawing units and send it, on foot, to defend the Lake Sel’skoe, Staraia Toropa, and Semenovskoe sector [12-35 kilometers south of Toropets], paying special attention to defending the Zhizhitsa Station and Staraia Toropa railroad; (it would be better to select the men from entire units rather than many units).

✧ Disperse the remaining units from the Ozerets, Skvortsovo Station, and Malye Usviaty concentration areas [25-35 kilometers west of Toropets] along the Chernost’ River, Baranenki, Ivantsevo, Barsuki, Kolenidovo, and Hill 228.6 line [20-25 kilometers southwest of Toropets] to defend this line and, subsequently, reach the Akulino, Chmutovo, Pleshkovo, Maloe Koshkino, and Hill 230.5 line [35 kilometers southwest of Toropets].

✧ Determine the sequence for occupying this line in accordance with your on-the-spot inspection and in cooperation with the 29th Army’s commander, who has already assigned defensive sectors on the line’s right flank to 48th TD and 126th RD.

✧ Send covering forces formed from units that have been holding the forward line to the following locations: Covering Force No. 1 – to Gorki and Trostkino Station (5 kilometers west of Nazimovo Station); and Covering Force No. 2 – to Nazimovo Station and Nazimovo.

✧ You are categorically forbidden from moving the withdrawing units toward Toropets, even if they are unarmed; instead, assign them to their own or neighboring units and pursue the single aim of strengthening the forward defensive lines in accordance with the order of the commander-in-chief of the Western Front.

✧ You are personally responsible for assigning missions on the spot to units situated along the forward line based on the commander-in-chief of the Western Front’s order to hold on to the indicated line, restore order in the units, strengthen the forward defensive line with all means at your disposal, and prepare to advance to the Akulino, Maseevo Farm, and Sevast’ianovo line.

✧ Colonels Antosenko and Nerianin will confirm receipt and report fulfillment.³

0200 hours on 26 August – Individual Order No. 17, 22nd Army’s Operational Group

• General Situation – The OG, fulfilling the commander-in-chief of the Western Front’s order, is defending the Ekimino, Sementsevo, Pochinok, Barsuki, Kostino, and Raina line, with its main defensive positions along the Podolino, Toropets, and Staraia Toropa line.

• Enemy Situation – attempting to fan out northeastward in the general direction of Toropets and Ostashkov with small reconnaissance groups, but not especially active opposite the OG’s front.

✦ Reconnaissance groups bursting forward, trying to reach the Toropets and Staraia Toropa road.

✦ An infantry company advanced eastward from the Terekhov Lug and Piatnitskoe line [20 kilometers southwest of Toropets] at 0300 hours on 25 August.

✦ An infantry company with four tanks captured Kostino [18 kilometers southwest of Toropets] from 697th AR.

• Missions of Subordinates:

✦ Colonel Antosenko’s Composite Detachment (8th and 9th Motorcycle Regiments, a tank battalion, an engineer battalion, and a sapper battalion) – defend the Novaia Derevnia, eastern bank of the Toropa River, Staraia Toropa, and Semenovskoe line [16-30 kilometers south of Toropets] with the main part of its forces on the morning of 26 August, while attacking [westward] toward Chikhachi, Nikulino, Grudtsy, and Pokrovskoe with one rifle and one tank battalion together with Detachment Polukhin (697th AR) to encircle and destroy the enemy in the Kostino region [18 kilometers southwest of Toropets] by attacking him on the flank and rear, develop success toward the west, and reach the Grudino, Lykovo, Hill 218.5, Sharapov, and Levkovo Farm line [24-28 kilometers southwest of Toropets].

✦ Polukhin’s Detachment (subordinated to Colonel Antosenko’s detachment to facilitate operations) – tie the enemy down in the Kostino region, subsequently occupy the Grudino, Lykovo, Hill 218.5, Sharapov, and Levkovo Farm line; assist the Composite Detachment’s shock group in destroying the enemy in the Kostino region, and assemble in the woods near Platichino to prepare to attack westward with the composite detachment’s shock group to capture Hills 226.0, 240.9, and 218.4.

• Reports – submit reports, first, upon occupation and preparation of the defensive sector; second, upon the shock group’s concentration to destroy the enemy in Kostino; third, after fulfilling the immediate missions; and, fourth, – when Polukhin’s detachment reaches the indicated line.⁴

As these orders indicate, the defenses 22nd Army’s Operational Group managed to erect represented little more than a series of fragmentary strongpoints arrayed in a rough arc extending from roughly 25 kilometers north of Toropets southward to 16 kilometers southwest and 30 kilometers south of the city. Clearly, as both the Western Front and 29th Army realized, these battalion-size detachments were utterly incapable of halting any concerted German advance on the city. Therefore, it would fall to Timoshenko and Maslennikov to stem the German tide before it totally collapsed the Western Front’s right wing.

Midst this chaos of multiple conflicting and ever-changing orders, Sokolovsky sent his deputy, General Malandin, to the headquarters of 22nd Army’s Operational Group in the town of Podsoson’e, 15 kilometers southeast of Toropets, to clarify the situation. Once there,

Reviews for Barbarossa Derailed

[kunikov_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Volume 2 of 'Barbarossa Derailed' picks up pretty much where the first volume left off. Throughout both volumes Glantz's goals have been the following: to show that the Wehrmacht was suffering before the beginning of Operation Typhoon and the defeat it experienced at the gates of Moscow could be seen written on the wall throughout the Smolensk engagement Army Group Center found itself suffering through; the Red Army, while taking grievous losses throughout its multiple counteroffensives against Army Group Center, performed better than previously thought and consistently bloodied numerous German infantry, motorized, and panzer divisions; finally, the German (more so Hitler's) decision to continue battling Soviet forces on the flanks of Army Group Center - eventually leading to the encirclement at Kiev - was consistent with Hitler's initial orders for Operation Barbarossa and eliminated close to 1 million Red Army men from Army Group Center's front and flanks that might have done a great deal more damage if left in place with an early German offensive toward Moscow.The book itself contains dozens of maps and battle orders and reports, same as the first volume. And just as in the first volume, while many of the documentation is dry and repetitive there are always some interesting facts that come out. For instance, every now and then there are reported losses from various units, yet more interesting is what these reports don't say - a lot of the time the 'missing' are themselves missing. The majority of reports only mention dead and wounded. The numbers themselves are interestingly but offer only a glimpse into Soviet losses, which Glantz details himself quite well throughout the book and in the concluding chapter. In truth Glantz's commentary is often the most interesting as many will have a hard time following the action on the maps included or through the orders and reports as the numerous locations mentioned (from groves, to hills, rivers, villages, towns, cities, etc.) will make little sense even if you are familiar with Soviet geography.Overall, Glantz's mission with these two volumes is readily accomplished. Repeatedly it is evident that the Red Army was put in an unenviable position as Stalin and STAVKA sent out orders that most of the units in the field could not fully accomplish. The cream of the pre-war Red Army facing Army Group Center was lost during the first two weeks of the war in the Minsk encirclement and follow-up operation(s) and the armies that took the field in their wake were made up mainly of reservists and/or conscripts with little training compared to the soldiers they faced in Army Group Center. Thus, the stop-gap measures consistently employed by Stalin and his commanders became part of an attrition strategy that bloodied dozens of German divisions and forestalled another complete encirclement at Smolensk. With Panzer troops leaving behind their infantry counterparts, the encirclement at Smolensk was weakened by Red Army troops attempting to break out and in simultaneously. Some 50,000 escaped to fight another day and Army Group Center's panzer forces needed time for rest and refit, yet were continually denied it as Soviet counteroffensives against Army Group Center grew in intensity. Here is where volume 2 continues the story with offensives launched by three fronts under the command of Timoshenko, Zhukov, and Eremenko. The majority of readers familiar with the Eastern Front will have heard of Yelnia (El'nia) and the success Zhukov's troops enjoyed. But as Glantz shows, this was less of a victory than Timoshenko's troops experienced. The latter inflicted greater casualties on the Germans and captured more territory than Zhukov's Yelnia operation, yet it has been overshadowed by the moral victory that was the Yelnia offensive (most likely because of Zhukov's presence and the propaganda that the victory generated). Today even Russian historians can see that Yelnia, while a moral victory, did little to hinder future German action in Operation Typhoon. It seems the worst performance was that of Eremenko's front. In part it was the fault of the commanding officer, but it seems more so that STAVKA and Stalin continually pushed Eremenko who in turn pushed his army commanders to needlessly waste lives in operations that were doomed from the start because of numerous reasons (including lack of logistics, tanks, artillery, aircraft, surprise, etc.).The concluding chapter is in many ways the most interesting as Glantz ties up various loose ends. It's true that there are still many 'white spots' in the history of the Eastern Front, and unlike the latter years of the war, 1941 was riddled with chaos, defeat, retreat, and propagandized heroism. That propagandized heroism all too often has eclipsed the actual history of 1941 and more so the tangible victories that Red Army forces achieved, although too often by paying a high price in blood. Thus Glantz has shown how the encirclement of Smolensk, which is usually seem as a 'bump in the road' to the encirclements at Kiev and Operation Typhoon, was in fact a prelude to Germany's defeat at the gates of Moscow. The casualties sustained by the Wehrmacht were not made good by the time Operation Typhoon was launched and while the Red Army suffered more than their German counterparts, and in some ways allowed for a weakening of the forces that would face Army Group Center in October, the end result was the buying of time for more forces and material to make it to the west to face the Germans. The victory that awaited the Soviets outside Moscow, that much, at least, the Red Army was able to achieve in part thanks to the sacrifices of hundreds of thousands around Smolensk in July, August, and September.