History of the Second World War (44 page)

The Russians provided a wider distraction by bringing cavalry divisions down the Caspian coast to harass his exposed eastern flank. Operating over the steppes against a widely stretched defensive screen, the Russian cavalry found unusually good scope for their particular qualities. In that vast plain they were able to penetrate his outposts wherever they chose, and cut off supplies. The Russians’ growing concentration on this flank was helped by the railway they had built from Astrakhan southward. This was laid across the flat expanse of the steppes without any foundation, and neither cuttings nor embankments were required, The Germans soon found that they gained little by cutting it, since as soon as any section of it was destroyed a fresh set of rails was quickly laid. At the same time the enemy was equally intangible, and his flanking menace continuously increased. Although German mobile detachments penetrated as far as the Caspian shore, the sight of that sea was a ‘mirage in the desert’.

Throughout September and October, Kleist went on trying to push south from Mozdok, by surprise attacks at different points. At each attempt he was blocked. Then he decided to switch his weight from his left centre to his right centre, for a pincer-stroke against Ordzhonikidze, the gateway to the Daryal Pass, which carries the mountain highway to Tiflis. This stroke was launched in the last week of October, and for it he was given such air support as could be spared. His right pincer captured Nalchik in a westerly flanking move, and then Alagir — the beginning of the alternative military road over the Mamison Pass. From Alagir it thrust on to Ordzhonikidze in conjunction with a converging thrust up the Terek valley. Rain and snow delayed the final stage, but Kleist’s forces were almost within reach of their immediate goal when the Russians launched a well-timed and well-aimed counterattack. This produced the sudden collapse of a Rumanian mountain division, which had done well in the advance but was feeling the strain of the effort. As a result Kleist had to fall back and abandon his plan. The front was then stabilised, with the Germans still facing the mountain barrier which they had vainly tried to pierce.

This final repulse in the central Caucasus coincided with the opening of the great Russian counteroffensive at Stalingrad.

A final effort in the western Caucasus had also been planned, but this never matured. For it Hitler had, very belatedly, decided to play the airborne trump which he had so carefully preserved. The Parachute Division — still called the 7th Air Division as a camouflage — had been assembled in and near the Crimea for a swoop onto the coastal road from Tuapse to Batumi, in conjunction with a renewed push by the 17th Army. But then the Russian counteroffensive at Stalingrad took place, and was followed by a new Russian attack near Rzhev — where Zhukov’s armies had nearly broken through in their August attempt to give indirect relief to Stalingrad. Hitler was so alarmed at the dual threat that he cancelled his last bid for Batumi, and ordered the parachute forces to be rushed north by rail to Smolensk, as a reinforcement to the central front.

All these failures and dangers were the fruit of frustration at Stalingrad, where a subsidiary purpose had developed by degrees into a principal effort that drew away the land and air reserves needed to fulfil the primary aim, and ultimately drained Germany’s strength to no purpose.

It was ironical that in the first phase the Germans should have paid forfeit for fulfilling the canons of orthodox strategy, and subsequently paid forfeit for disregarding them. Out of the original convergence arose a fatal divergence of effort.

The direct advance on Stalingrad was carried out by the 6th Army, under Paulus. It pushed down the north side of the corridor between the Don and the Donetz. Helped by the great armoured drive that was proceeding on the south side, the 6th Army made good progress at first. But as the advance extended its strength dwindled, as more and more divisions had to be detached to cover the ever-extending northern flank along the Don. The shrinkage was increased by the wastage due to long and rapid marches in great heat, as well as to battle-losses. That shrinkage in turn became a handicap in overcoming the successive stands made by the retreating Russians. Harder fighting entailed heavier losses, and thus less power to deal with the next stand.

The effect became pronounced when the 6th Army approached the great eastern bend of the Don. On July 28 one of its mobile spearheads reached the river near Kalach — 350 miles from the starting line and barely forty miles distant from the western bend of the Volga at Stalingrad. But this was a flash in the pan, and the general advance was delayed by stubborn Russian resistance in the Don bend. The narrowed front and the lower proportion of mobile troops in the 6th Army, compared with the panzer armies, handicapped its manoeuvring power. A fortnight passed before the Germans were able to crush the Russian forces in the bend. Even then it was a further ten days before they established bridgeheads across the river.

On August 23 the Germans were ready to begin the final stage of their advance on Stalingrad. It took the form of a pincer-attack, by the 6th Army from the north-west, and by the 4th Panzer Army from the south-west. That same night German mobile units reached the banks of the Volga thirty miles above Stalingrad and came close to the bend of the Volga fifteen miles south of the city. But the pincers were kept well apart by the defenders. In the next phase the Germans developed an attack from the west, thus completing the semi-circle of pressure, and the tenseness of the situation was manifested in the tone of the call to the Russian troops to hold on at all costs to the last man. They responded to the call with wonderful endurance, for they were fighting under nerve-racking conditions that were also hard for the problem of supply and reinforcement. The two-mile wide river behind their backs was not wholly a disadvantage. With such troops, it helped to stiffen resistance as well as complicating it.

Along the arc of Russian defence, attack followed attack in seemingly endless succession, with frequent changes of site and method, but with only slight progress to compensate the attackers’ cost. At times the defence was pierced, but the thrust could never be driven deep enough to cause more than a local withdrawal. More often, the attacks failed to penetrate. As check followed check, the psychological importance of the place increased — as with Verdun in 1916. In this case it was multiplied by the name that the place bore. ‘Stalingrad’ was an inspiring symbol for the Russians, and a hypnotic symbol for the Germans — especially for their Leader. It hypnotised Hitler into a state in which he lost sight of strategy, and lost all regard for the future. It became more fatal than Moscow — because its name meant more.

The unprofitableness, and risks, of the continued effort were apparent to any analyst of war experience who kept a clear head. Such repetitive attacks rarely pay unless the defending forces are isolated from reinforcement or their country’s reserves are running short — whereas in this case it was the Germans who were less able to bear a prolonged process of attrition.

Despite Russia’s immense losses, her reserves of manpower remained much greater than those of Germany. Her most serious shortage was in equipment; a shortage due to the 1941 losses which had partly accounted for her renewed defeats in 1942. Artillery was lacking, and was substituted to a large extent by mortars that were brought up on trucks. Tanks and all forms of motor-transport were other serious deficiencies. But towards the end of the summer an increasing flow of fresh equipment came from the new factories in the back areas, as well as from American and British supplies. At the same time the much extended call-up of men that had been applied after the outbreak of war was bearing fruit, and the volume of new divisions from Asia was rising.

The Stalingrad battle-area lay so far east that it was the more accessible to this inflow from the east. That helped the defence of the city, and while the scale of the direct reinforcement was cramped by its awkward situation, the mounting strength of the Russian armies on the northern Hank had an indirect effect which was equivalent to an important reinforcement. Their counter-pressure on that flank would have turned the scales long before it did, if it had not been handicapped by material deficiencies in the predominant weapons of modern warfare. But the effect increased as the Germans, through becoming entangled in a localised attrition battle, used up their limited reserves of men and machines. In that kind of battle their expenditure was higher proportionately, being the attackers, and they could afford it less.

The dangers of the process were soon appreciated by the General Staff. On returning from his daily conference with Hitler, Halder would often throw out his hands in a gesture of exasperation and depression that told his assistants of one more vain effort to make Hitler see reason. His arguments against a continuance of the offensive became more urgent as winter came nearer, and the combined effect frayed Hitler’s nerves, so that their relations became intolerable to both. In discussing plans Hitler continued his airy habit of waving his hand over the map in big sweeps, although the advances were now so slight that they were hardly discernible. As he became less able to sweep aside the Russians, he became more inclined to sweep obstructive counsellors out of his office. He had always felt that ‘the old generals’ were half-hearted about his schemes, and the more these failed to progress the more he felt that the General Staff was the brake.

So at the end of September Halder took his departure — following some of his assistants — and was succeeded by Kurt Zeitzler, a much younger man who at the time was Chief of Staff to Rundstedt in the West, In 1940 Zeitzler had been Chief of Staff of Kleist’s panzer group, and it was largely due to his bold supply planning that the long-range armoured sweep from the Rhine to the English Channel had proved administratively possible. Apart from that important qualification, Hitler felt that he would have less difficulty in dealing with a younger soldier over the longer-range problem of advancing to the Caspian and the Volga — especially where the latter started with the spur of sudden promotion to the highest post. Zeitzler at first justified his confidence in this respect, for he did not worry Hitler with continual objections as Halder had done. But Zeitzler himself became worried within a short time, and as the prospect of gaining Stalingrad faded he began to argue with Hitler that the idea of maintaining the German front so far forward was impracticable. When events proved the truth of his warning Hitler did not like his advice any the better, and in 1943 took a distant attitude towards him, so that his advice became more and more ineffectual.

The same basic factors that governed the frustration of the Germans’ attack on Stalingrad turned it into a fatal reverse, by assisting the eventual Russian counteroffensive.

The more closely the Germans converged on the city, the more their own power of manoeuvre became cramped, whereas the narrowing of the frontage helped the defender in moving his reserves more quickly to a threatened point on the diminished arc. At the same time, the Germans forfeited the advantage which they had formerly enjoyed from their power of distraction. During the opening drive of the summer campaign, as far as the Don, uncertainty as to their aim had helped to paralyse opposition, but now their aim had become obvious — and the Russian Command could commit its reserves with assurance. Thus the attacker’s increasing concentration of force on Stalingrad became decreasingly effective as such — concentrated attack meeting concentrated defence.

At the same time, the Germans’ concentration at Stalingrad increasingly drained reserves from their flank-cover, which itself was already strained by having to stretch so far — nearly 400 miles from Voronezh along the Don to the Stalingrad ‘isthmus’, and as far again from there to the Terek, across the Kalmuk Steppes. While these barren wastes restricted the weight of any Russian counterstroke against the second stretch, that limitation did not apply to the Don sector, which, though covered by the river, was liable to become very vulnerable when the river froze or the Russians found unguarded spots for a crossing in strength. Moreover, they had succeeded in retaining a bridgehead over the Don near Serafimovich, 100 miles west of Stalingrad.

The danger to this long-stretched flank was foreshadowed by a number of small exploratory attacks that the Russians delivered from August onwards. These showed them how thinly held it was, and that it was mainly entrusted to Germany’s allies — Hungarians from Voronezh southward; Italians around the point where it turned eastwards, near Novaya Kalitva; Rumanians near the final southward bend west of Stalingrad, as well as beyond Stalingrad. That long flank-front had only a slight German stiffening of odd regiments, or occasionally divisions, interspaced among the allied troops. Divisional sectors were up to forty miles long, and there were no properly fortified positions. The railheads were often a hundred miles or more behind the front, and the country was so bare that little timber was available for constructing defences.

An uncomfortable realisation of these handicaps led the German General Staff to tell Hitler as early as August that it would be impossible to hold the line of the Don, as a defensive flank, during the winter. Their warning was not appreciated. All defensive considerations were subordinated to the aim of capturing Stalingrad.

The cramping character of this too direct offensive became more marked after the middle of September, when the Germans penetrated into the straggling suburbs, and then into the factory area. To become entangled in street-fighting is always a handicap on the offensive, and it was specially detrimental to an army whose advantage lay mainly in a superior manoeuvring power. At the same time the defence was able to make use of workers’ units, who fought with the ferocity of men whose own homes are the immediate stake. In such circumstances, that local infusion was an important addition to the strength of the defending forces — the 62nd Army under General Chuikov and part of the 64th Army under General Shumilov — during the crucial weeks until the flow of reinforcements began to turn the tide. For the 62nd Army had been badly mauled in the fighting west of the Don, while few immediate resources could be found for it by General Eremenko, who was placed in charge of the sector as a whole.