All Hell Let Loose_ The World at War 1939-1945 - Max Hastings [344]
The poet David Samoilov noted, ‘This was the last Russian war in which most of the soldiers were peasants.’ Partly in consequence, Stalin’s soldiers were even more superstitious than most warriors. Some, for instance, thought it unlucky to curse while loading a weapon; many wore good-luck charms and crosses. If relatively few admitted a formal allegiance to banished Christianity, many crossed themselves before going into action. Song played a big part in the army’s culture. Men sang as they marched, and in the evenings around their fires – mostly ballads heavy with sentiment, lacking the cynicism of British soldiers’ favoured numbers. With so many frontoviks quickly wounded or killed, it was estimated that Russian soldiers spent an average of only three months together. But men said that inside a week they learned more about each other than in a year of civilian life. The Red Army offered its men neither sex education nor condoms. Those who developed venereal diseases were sometimes punished by the denial of medical treatment. Children sometimes marched with the regiments, because they had lost everything, and only the army offered them some hope of subsistence.
A Soviet report on 25 August 1944 described the Germans still resisting effectively: ‘The enemy’s use of self-propelled guns and tanks to cover their retreats makes it difficult for us to engage their infantry. In these circumstances, our infantry often behave indecisively. The nature of our units has changed significantly during the last few months. Many consist overwhelmingly of green replacements. There are few men who have served since 1941. Many who have fought since 1943 complain about the inexperience of replacements.’ Soviet operations were punctuated with displays of stunning incompetence, often influenced by drunkenness. The cruelties inflicted on ordinary soldiers by their superiors explain the fact that even in 1944–45 some Russian soldiers continued to desert to the Germans. It can be said of Stalin’s men, as of the Japanese, that their barbarous conduct towards other races merely mirrored their own rulers’ treatment of themselves. But Russian higher commanders now displayed an impressive confidence in the handling of large forces and the coordination of all arms, aided by American-supplied communications equipment.
The Red Army advanced more swiftly than Eisenhower’s forces in 1944– 45, partly because its soldiers lived off the land and required much lower scales of supply: they were the least cosseted of the war. Among the long list of comforts and facilities routinely provided to Western Allied troops but denied their Russian counterparts were razors, delousing chambers, pencils, ink, paper, knives, torches, candles, games. Vodka was the only Red Army-issue stimulant to morale, and some sections pooled their rations, so that men could take turns to drink themselves into stupefaction. To the end, many men advanced to attack while suffering hunger, lice, piles, toothache, bleeding gums caused by scurvy, and sometimes tuberculosis.
The foremost Russian advantages in waging war were a willingness to accept almost unlimited casualties, together with men’s knowledge of the draconian penalties awaiting those who flinched or failed. Russian units confronted with German resistance were never permitted to adopt the familiar Anglo-American expedient of taking cover and calling for artillery and air support. They were expected to drive on, heedless of obstacles or minefields, and to pay the price: there were always more men. On 5 July, the first phase of Bagration ended with the German Ninth Army destroyed. First Panzer Army and Fourth Army had each lost around 130,000 of the 165,000 men with which they started the battle. Vast columns of bedraggled German prisoners shuffled to the Russian rear, flotsam of the formerly invincible Wehrmacht. The 1st Belorussian Front now swung west towards Warsaw, while two other army groups headed for East Prussia and into Lithuania.