Short History of World War II - James L. Stokesbury [125]
The Russians beat the Germans to the punch and in May launched an attack on Kharkov from the salient they had gained during the winter. The Germans responded ferociously, breaking the attack and cleaning out the salient as well, and when the smoke cleared, the Russians had lost a quarter of a million men and more than 1,200 tanks. The Germans continued with their preparations for the Caucasus.
Stage one of the operation was a necessary clearing of both flanks. In the south the Germans at last completed the conquest of the Crimea. They drove the Russians into the sea at the Kerch Peninsula, inflicting 150,000 casualties on them, and they vigorously pushed their siege of Sevastopol. The Russians had dug extensive fortifications around this, their major Black Sea base. As long as they could they supplied it by sea. When the German artillery got too close for surface vessels, they brought in material by submarine. Inexorably, the German noose tightened, and late in June they broke through and reached the harbor on the northern side. The main part of the city and the Russian works were to the south, however, so on June 28 the Germans made an assault crossing of the harbor, catching the defenders to the south by surprise; the city was theirs by July 1 and another 100,000 Russians gone with it.
Clearing the northern flank of the Don bend meant taking the key Russian city of Voronezh. This was done by means of the now-standard enveloping attack. Early in July the Germans punched two holes in the Russian line, and a week later the city fell. The Russians were surprised, in spite of taking prisoner a German staff officer with the complete operation order in his briefcase.
The next stage was a deeper envelopment to the south, while the Hungarians held a blocking position north of Voronezh. The German 6th Army drove eastward and met the Voronezh force coming down the river. Resistance was weak, but the Russians managed to pull back without getting trapped. Sixth Army in its turn wheeled right and began to slide down the Don toward its easternmost point, the great bend forty miles from Stalingrad.
While 6th Army pushed on, Hitler opened the third phase of the drive. The southern part of Army Group South, now reorganized as Army Group A, drove past Rostov at the mouth of the Don. The Russians broke easily here, many troops deserting while others fled back in complete disarray. It looked for a moment as if all the southern Red armies would be caught in a gigantic trap between 6th Army and Army Group A, just as the original German plan for this stage had intended. Then Hitler did it again and diverted Army Group A toward its final objective. Instead of letting it continue eastward to link up with 6th Army at Stalingrad, he wheeled it right, and the leading elements took off for the Caucasus with almost nothing ahead of them. Instead of being trapped in the Don bend, hundreds of thousands of Russians escaped into the Kalmyk Steppe; by their own willfulness the Germans had created a funnel instead of a trap, and the Soviet forces lived to fight again.
On August 1, 6th Army, supported by 4th Panzer Army, was forty miles from Stalingrad, driving hard for the city. The long-range intelligence forecast was gloomy. The Germans believed they had destroyed well over a hundred Russian divisions, but they had identified elements of more than three hundred more. They figured that the Russians outnumbered them in soldiers by at least 50 percent. The Russian manpower pool was estimated as being three times greater than Germany’s, and in spite of the amazing advances they had made on the map, the Germans thought the Russians had preserved the capability to launch another winter offensive.
By late August the Germans were in the western Caucasus