Rokossovsky, Govorov, Boldin, Golikov, Belov and Vlasov, the future traitor!
By the middle of December the Red Army had advanced nearly everywhere between
twenty and forty miles, and had liberated Kalinin, Klin, Istra, Yelets, and had completely relieved Tula; in the second half of December the offensive continued, the Russians
recapturing Kaluga and Volokolamsk, where, in the main square, they found a gallows
with eight bodies hanging from it—seven men and one woman. These were allegedly
partisans whom the Germans had publicly hanged to terrorise the population.
If, on some sectors of the front the Germans were literally on the run, in others they continued to fight very stubbornly; thus, in Kaluga, one of the towns which Hitler had ordered to be held at all costs, the Germans were only driven out after several days of heavy street fighting.
True, the Germans were often handicapped by a shortage of adequate winter clothing; but the bitter cold and the deep snow did not make things easy for the Russians either. It should also be stressed that the Russians had no marked superiority, either in trained men or in equipment. According to the present-day Russian History the State Defence Committee and the Stavka had, on the eve of the Russian counter-offensive, failed, despite enormous efforts, to achieve the necessary superiority in the Moscow area, where the Germans had concentrated their most powerful army group. They still had a
superiority of 1.1:1 in men, of 1.8:1 in artillery and of 1.4:1 in tanks, while Soviet troops, both in the Kalinin and the Moscow sectors, had been weakened by the defensive battle for the capital. The available strategic reserves which were thrown in, especially in the areas of the main thrusts, helped to overcome the enemy's superiority in manpower, but were not sufficient to tip the scales, the more so as the Germans still had more tanks and guns at their disposal.
[ IVOVSS, vol. II, p. 260.]
The Red Army was very severely handicapped by a shortage in motorised transport.
There were only 8,000 trucks available on the Moscow sectors of the front, a totally inadequate number. Not even half of the required ammunition, food and other supplies could be delivered by motor transport, and many hundreds of horse-sleighs had to be
used to make up for the shortage in trucks. Although the carrying capacity of the horse-sleighs was small, they had the advantage of getting through snow-drifts more easily than heavy lorries.
The shortage of the Red Army's motor transport in 1941-2 is very striking when one
thinks of the hundreds of thousands of American trucks which were to increase so
enormously the Red Army's mobility from 1943 on—but not before.
Numerous measures were taken, despite all these difficulties, to move the Army's supply bases nearer the Front; but if the great Russian counter-offensive in the winter of 1941-2
proved in the end to be only a partial success, it was due, as we shall see, to several factors; shortage of transport, especially as the lines of communications grew longer and longer; a growing shortage of arms and ammunition; and, finally, the exhausting nature of the winter war. Before spring came, the Red Army was terribly tired. Also, the High Command had made a number of errors.
In very heavy fighting during the whole of December, and the first half of January, the Red Army had driven the Germans a considerable distance away from Moscow; but the
progress of the Russian offensive was very uneven; the northern flank had advanced
furthest west—by some 200 miles, and the southern flank by nearly as much, but due
west of Moscow itself, the Germans were clinging to their Rzhev-Gzhatsk-Viazma
springboard. The Stavka's directives of December 9 show that the Russian command was planning a vast encirclement of the German forces opposite Moscow, with one pincer
striking north of them and the other south. Hitler, on the other hand, who after the purge among his generals had assumed the supreme command himself, ordered Army Group
Mitte to defend fanatically the positions held west of Moscow, and to take no notice of the enemy breaking through on their flanks.
The Germans had suffered severe losses in the Battle of Moscow; they were fighting in unusual winter conditions, their morale was often low; nevertheless they continued to represent a formidable force.
By January 1, the Russians, drawing on their reserves, achieved equality in manpower and, on some sectors of the front, even a certain superiority in tanks and aircraft—tanks, 1.6:1, aircraft, 1.4:1 —but the Germans still had a 3:1 superiority in anti-tank weapons. In short, notwithstanding the Red Army's great successes in December and the first half of January, its superiority was, according to present-day Soviet historians, totally
insufficient for the major offensive the Soviet Supreme Command had in mind.
It was very cold in January 1942, and the heavy snowfall had made transport extremely difficult.
[Temperatures averaged minus 20° to 25 °C, (4° to 13° of frost Fahrenheit.)]
Except for a relatively small number of ski troops, the Russian troops could, in fact, move only along the roads, and not without much difficulty at that. As the Russians advanced, the difficulties of using aircraft also increased, since there were no airfields ready for use in the newly liberated areas. Yet a further set of instructions dated January 7, 1942, confirms that the Soviet High Command was still determined to break up, encircle and destroy all the German forces between Moscow and Smolensk. But as the Russians
advanced rapidly in the north, and only slowly in the centre, the line of the front had nearly doubled in length by the middle of January. On January 15, Hitler, though
resigned to abandoning some territory, gave a further order to his troops to take up strong defensive positions east of Rzhev, Viazma, Gzhatsk and Yukhnovo. Rigorous
disciplinary measures were introduced, and Haider, the Chief of Staff, issued a directive denouncing panic and bewilderment and prophesying that the Russian offensive would
soon peter out.
The Russian History now admits that the strengthening of German resistance by propaganda, disciplinary measures, and reinforcements from the west, was underrated by the Soviet High Command. Already on January 25, the Russians suffered their first major setback in failing to take Gzhatsk by storm; in the south—west of Tula—the German
resistance was stiffening as well, and on this sector of the front the Red Army came virtually to a standstill by the end of January.
But the Supreme Command still persisted with its plan for a big encirclement, and
decided to drop a large number of paratroops in the enemy rear, to cut enemy
communications and to serve as a link between the pincers which were expected to close round the Germans near Smolensk. Yet German resistance was increasing everywhere
and all Russian attempts to break through to Viazma, the nodal point in the German
defences, were doomed to failure.
In a number of places the Germans started counter-attacking. Renewed massive tank
attacks, especially in the Viazma area, produced more heroic deeds on the part of the Russians, similar to that of the Panfilov men at Volokolamsk in December. Inside a
cartridge case embedded in a tree trunk a note was found after the war written by a dying soldier, Alexander Vinogradov, who, with twelve others, had been sent to stop German tanks from advancing along the Minsk highway—
... And now there are only three of us left... We shall stand firm as long as there's any life left in us... Now I am alone, wounded in my arm and my head. The number
of tanks has increased. There are twenty-three. I shall probably die. Somebody may find my note and remember ne; I am a Russian, from Frunze. I have no parents.
Goodbye, dear friends. Your Alexander Vinogradov. 22.2.42.
It is quite clear that the Russian High Command overrated both the Russian armies'
driving force and the breakdown in the morale and organisation of the
Wehrmacht after the setbacks they had suffered in December and the first part of January.
The plans to encircle and smash all the German forces between Moscow and Smolensk,
as well as to recapture Orel and Briansk proved much too ambitious. With the Germans mostly dug in, and the Russians advancing, the conditions created by a particularly harsh winter ultimately affected the Russians more than it did the Germans. Not only were
reserves in both men and equipment insufficient (industrial production of war material was, as explained before, at its lowest ebb), but what reserves were used were thrown in piecemeal. Thus, the Stavka's order that Briansk be recaptured, and reinforcements be sent to that area, diverted the Red Army from its main aim, which was to smash the
Germans in the Viazma area. The orders issued by the Stavka as late as March 20 that the Red Army should occupy a line close to Smolensk (Belyi-Dorogobuzh-Yelnya-Krasnoye,
twenty-eight miles south-west of Smolensk), that it should join up with the Russians'
units in the enemy rear, and that it should capture Gzhatsk by April 1 and Viazma about the same time, as well as Briansk, and capture Rzhev not later than April 5, turned out to be totally unrealistic.
The thaw that set in at the end of March reduced still further the Red Army's mobility; nor did the Red Army, by this time, have much air support, and its supply lines had
practically broken down. By the end of March the Russian offensive came to a complete standstill. For many months after the offensive had stopped parachutists and other troops in the enemy rear under Cavalry General Belov, and the local partisans, continued to harass German communications, but the net result of the January-March 1942 operations was bitterly disappointing after the enthusiasm caused by the Battle of Moscow proper.
[According to the Russians the bulk of the men in the Suchevka pocket did not break out until the following June.]
Russian losses were much higher than those of the Germans; the troops were worn out, and the shortage of equipment and ammunition began to be keenly felt by the middle of February. True, large areas had been liberated—the whole of the Moscow province, most of the Kalinin province, the whole of the Tula, and most of the Kaluga province. But the large Rzhev-Gzhatsk-Viazma springboard, which was to continue to threaten Moscow,
had remained in German hands. Some deadly fighting was to go on for this in the
summer of 1942, and it was not till the beginning of 1943 that the Germans were driven out of it. Many soldiers who had fought at various parts of the front later told me that perhaps the most heart-breaking months in their experience were February-March 1942.
After the high hopes that had been raised by the Battle of Moscow, everything seemed to be going wrong again. The Germans had lost the Battle of Moscow, but they were clearly very far from finished.
Commenting on the results of the Russian winter offensive, the present-day Russian
History makes the following important points:
The moral effect even of the incomplete victory of the Red Army during the winter campaign of 1941-2 was enormous, and decisively strengthened the Soviet people's
faith in ultimate victory;
The effect on highly dubious neutrals like Turkey and Japan was little short of
overwhelming;
Thanks to the Russian winter offensive, it was now possible to stop the evacuation of central-Russian industry to the east, which meant that the output of armaments and munitions in the Moscow area in particular could be resumed and intensified; in
some cases, plants were brought back from the east.
Nevertheless, the winter offensive did not achieve all the desired results:
The offensive took place in exceptionally difficult conditions. The Red Army still lacked the experience of organising and conducting a large-scale offensive
operation. The extreme cold, the deep snow, the very limited number of usable
roads, severely limited manoeuvrability. The delivery of supplies and the
organisation of airfields met with enormous difficulties. Nor could the country supply
the Army with all it needed by way of equipment, armaments and munitions. All this
had a bad effect on the tempo of the offensive, and on the performance of the troops,
and often prevented the Red Army from making the best use of favourable conditions
for the annihilation of large enemy groupings. This first attempt to mount a strategic counter-offensive and then a general offensive along the whole front was marked by some serious mistakes on the part of the Supreme Command, and of the command
of separate army groups.
[IVOVSS, vol. II, p. 359. (Emphasis added.)]
What were these mistakes and shortcomings?
1) The Supreme Command did not always make the best use of the reserves at its
disposal. Often troops were thrown into battle without sufficient preliminary training.
The recognition of this error was reflected in the new regulations issued by the State Defence Committee on March 16, 1942.
2) On the whole, the Red Army also lacked large mechanised and armoured units, which greatly reduced the troops' striking force and the speed of their advance; the Germans, on the contrary, used concentrated tank formations in their counter-attacks, even in the winter conditions of 1941-2.
What is more, having over-estimated the results of the December-January counter-
offensive, the Supreme Command did not use its reserves rationally. In the course of the subsequent winter campaign, the Stavka scattered its reserves unnecessarily: nine new armies were thrown in: two were sent to the Volkhov Front, one to the North-West Front, one to the Kalinin Front, three to the Western (Moscow) Front, one each to the Briansk and South-West Front—
When, at the final stage of the Battle of Moscow, conditions were thought
favourable for encircling and routing of Army Group Mitte, the Stavka no longer had the necessary reserves, and the strategic operation, which had been successfully developing, remained uncompleted. If massed forces had been concentrated against
Army Group Mitte—i.e. on the decisive "Western" Front—this Army Group would undoubtedly have been smashed.
3) The concentrated use of the air force at the initial stage of the Battle of Moscow could, for a number of reasons, not be kept up.
4) Partisan activity in the enemy rear was of great value to the Red Army, and had, according to Guderian's admission, a very depressing moral effect on the German troops.
But many mistakes were also made in the conduct of partisan warfare;
As it turned out, the constitution of large and vulnerable partisan formations
proved a major error... The enemy did not have to deal with numerous and elusive
small partisan bands over wide areas. Instead, he resorted to large military
operations in the areas of partisan activity. This compelled the partisan units to adopt defensive tactics, which are not in the nature of partisan warfare, and their losses, therefore, were very heavy.
*
Stalin's Order of the Day on Red-Array Day on February 23, 1942 and on May-Day 1942
sounded, paradoxically, less optimistic than his two speeches in November 1941 with the Germans right outside Moscow. He no longer suggested that the war would be won "in six months, perhaps in a year".
The hatred of the Germans had, if anything, grown since the Battle of Moscow. In
recapturing numerous towns and many hundreds of villages, the Russian soldiers got
their first first-hand experience of the "New Order". Everywhere the Germans had destroyed whatever they could; all but three houses had been burned down at Istra, for instance, where they had also blown up the ancient New Jerusalem Monastery. In several towns and villages, which the Red Army entered, there were gallows with "partisans"
hanging from them. Later, in 1942,1 explored some of the towns and villages that had been occupied then destroyed by the Germans—it
was always the same grim story.
The Germans in towns and villages round Moscow; the Germans in ancient Russian cities like Novgorod, Pskov and Smolensk; the Germans in the suburbs of Leningrad; the
Germans at Tolstoy's Yasnaya Polyana; the Germans at Orel, at Lgov, at Shchigry, the old Turgeniev country, the most Russian of all the Russian areas. They were robbing, and looting and killing; when they were retreating they would burn down every house, and in the depth of winter civilians were left without house and home. Nothing like this had happened to Russia before—except under the Tartar invasions. The anger and resentment against the Germans, mixed with a feeling of infinite pity for the Russian people, for the Russian land, defiled by the invader, produced an emotional reaction of national pride and national injury which was extraordinarily well reflected in the literature and music of 1941 and the early part of 1942.
Some of the best poems, though unknown at the time—they were not published until
1945—reflecting the bitter anxiety during the first months of the invasion, were written by Boris Pasternak—
Do you remember that dryness in your throat
When rattling their naked power of evil
They were barging ahead and bellowing
And autumn was advancing in steps of calamity?
"Barging and bellowing" and "rattling their naked power of evil", as Pasternak put it, was not exactly the same thought—something like a "Martian Invasion"—conveyed by that horrible, inhuman little theme of Shostakovich's Leningrad Symphony? Today it may seem noisy, melodramatic, repetitive (the theme, is, indeed, repeated louder and louder and louder no fewer than eleven times); yet, as a documentary of 1941, as a reflection of the feeling that here was "naked evil" in all its stupendous, arrogant, inhumanly terrifying power over-running Russia there is almost nothing to equal it:
The lament for the Russian Land took on other forms, too. Konstantin Simonov's poems became immensely popular during that winter of 1941-2. For instance the agonising
picture of the Russian retreat from the Smolensk province, with lines like these:
... And it seemed that outside every Russian village
Russia at war Page 32
