In operational terms, therefore, it was not so much a city as a long, fortified bridgehead on the western bank of the river. The Germans could never put it under siege. Behind it flowed a great river, behind the river a huge mass of artillery that could intervene in the battle at will, and behind the artillery a vast, secure, and rapidly industrializing Soviet hinterland.
Not for the first time in this war, the Wehrmacht had conquered its way into an impasse. It could not go forward without sinking into a morass of urban fighting. Every German officer knew what a city fight would mean. The preferred way of war, Bewegungskrieg, would inevitably degenerate into Stellungskrieg. Indeed, Hitler and the General Staff had designed the entire convoluted operational sequence in 1942 for the very purpose of avoiding this prospect. At the same time, however, it could not simply go around Stalingrad, and there was no possibility of staying put, not with Paulus and Hoth both sitting out on the end of a very long and vulnerable limb.
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Given a choice of three unpalatable alternatives, the German army made the only decision consonant with its history and traditions, dating back to Frederick the Great, Field Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher, and Moltke. On September 5, the big guns roared, the panzers stormed forward, and the Stukas screamed overhead. The assault on Stalingrad had begun.
Every student of the war knows what happened next—how the fighting broke down into battles for the crumbling buildings and rubble-strewn streets of the dying city. Both sides incurred huge losses. The Germans, as usual, kept attacking, driving ever closer to the Volga riverbank that was their operational objective. Their last shot (Operation Hubertus, in November) would take them just a few hundred yards away from it. The Soviets were managing to hold on, just barely, to an ever-narrowing strip along the river.
In operational terms, the "dual offensive" was now firmly stuck in neutral, and this at a moment when Rommel, too, had come to a dead stop in the desert. His own last shot—the offensive at Alam Halfa, August 30 to September 7—had also broken down against a revived British Eighth Army. The Wehrmacht was in deep trouble, shorn of its own ability to maneuver and seemingly helpless against enemy strength that was waxing on all fronts.
And yet, modern war—and the peculiar German variant of it, Bewegungskrieg, remained unpredictable. Even in extremis, with a balance of forces that had gone bad and a logistical situation that edged ever closer to disaster, the Wehrmacht could still show occasional flashes of the old fire. Take the Caucasus. As the summer turned into fall, with the Black Sea front frozen in place, the focus of the campaign shifted to the east, along the Terek. The last of the major rivers in the region, it was deep and swiftly flowing, with steep, rocky banks that sheltered a number of key targets: the cities of Grozny and Ordzhonikidze (modern Vladikavkaz), as well as the Ossetian and Georgian military roads. These roads were the only two routes through the mountains capable of bearing motor traffic, and taking them would give the Wehrmacht effective control of the Caucasus. The Georgian Road was the key. Running from Ordzhonikidze down to Tbilisi, it would give the Germans the potential for a high-speed drive through the mountains to the Caspian Sea and the rich oil fields around Baku, the greatest potential prize of the entire campaign.
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[...] History Roundup 08-31-2009 As we sit on the doorstep of the 70th anniversary of the start of World War II in Europe (Sept. 1, 1939 Germany invades Poland), I'm looking around at what has been going on in the Weider History network and around the Internet. Here are some of the goods, starting with a piece appropriately titled Death of the Wehrmacht. [...]
How the Allies eventually learned how to deal with the Wehrmacht is comparable to how Bonnie and Clyde were eventually dealt with. When the posse leader was told that he never gave them a chance, the leader replied, "They were too good to be given a chance."
[...] Death of the Wehrmacht [...]
The recently published third volume by Richard Evans, "The Third Reich at War", contains fascinating information which contextualizes this very good review article. Instead of offering a blow-by-blow account of the Russian campaign, Evans focuses upon the social and cultural themes which of course gave invasion of Slavic lands its barbaric nature. The barbarism practiced at literally all levels of the Germans involved in the campaign became one of the most important reasons why the Third Reich ultimately failed in such a spectacular and definitive manner.
While the Wehrmacht was making its easternmost advance in the Caucuses, on the western periphery of the Greater Reich there was mundane construction work. The result of this, however accelerated the demise of Germany by anywhere from 6 months to a year or more. Fixed fortifications were an anathema in the German doctrine of mobile warfare. From their own experience when fighting against them, the knew that they were vulnerable and could be bested, yet they pinned their hopes on the Atlantic Wall to stop Overlord. Circumstances in the Med caused them to buy into this even more. After all, hadn't the Germans almost thrown the Allies into the sea at Anzio? Germany's underestimation of what was going to thrown against them in the channel crossing was as glaring of an intelligence error as their miscalculation of Soviet military strength in 1941. Rommel had a clue, having dealt with the punishing allied air power in the Med, but even he couldn't comprehend that there was no way that the Panzers could throw the Allies back into the Sea-He was half correct in the positional defense measures he employed. Conversely, Runstedt half of being correct involved making the fight inland and out of naval gunfire range, but wrong in engaging with mobile forces. There were not enough panzer forces to cover both fronts, so Peter the east was robbed to pay Paul in the west. The Atlantic Wall forced the Germans into this situation. With no Atlantic Wall the sensible approach would be to mass the panzers in the east , where there was more natural tank country and room for a mobile elastic defense and counterattack oppurtunities. although the VVVS (Red Air Force) had improved , it had nowhere approached the USAAF or RAF in the damage it could do on ground targets. Panzer unit strength and mass could be maintained and not leached away by the constant shuttling-But now what avout the West?
Yes, what about the west,now with no Atlantic Wall and no major panzer formations….. German leadership could fall upon two previous experiences: their defensive measures of World War I, much of it on the same ground, and the fact that they should expect to be on the opposite end of what they experienced in 1940 in France. A series of defensive arcs, built around natural features and built up areas as strongpoints and festungs, manned with the volksgrenadiers, kreigsmarine coastal gunners and Luftwaffe flak and field units that otherwise would have been smashed or demolished on the coast would man these arcs, supported in key areas by higher echelon combat forces. The would be oriented to stop anyone using the road systems and bring Allied mobility to a crawl. These would be established in depth forming conectric arcs from the bocage to the Seine. In these regions to objective was to force a meat-grinder, infantry style war based on mines, mortars Mg 42s, anti tank guns and field artillery. Aside from STg and SP anti tank gun contingents there would not be a turreted German tank on this front The various lines would be able to absorb or make very time -consuming any Cobra or Goodwood type of operation and providing fewer targets for Allied Air Forces. This front secraemed out for Kesselring or a Heinrici as commander-The political implications next
Germany's only chance to survive involved splitting the alliance. To do that they would have to draw out the war as long as possible and force the Allies to pay too high of a price for unconditional surrender. The personalities and situations of the three major Allies had to be taken into account. Stalin, always suspicious that the west would make a separate peace and only fight "to the last Russian" Reading the intelligence reports and seeing that the German elite panzer units were arrayed against the Red Army in the east, while tha Allies were getting nowhere in France would only fuel his paranoia. The British and Commonwealth leadership would be aghast at refighting the same meatgrinder battles on virtually the same sites as they occurred in the Great War. It might cause them to ask FDR to rethink "unconditional surrender" Even DeGaulle may recoil at the prospect of large tracts of France turned into a moonscape for a second time. The pivotal element here is the US and FDR. 1944 was an election year. Would he take the chance and try to win the war by any means possible or play it safe until the election was over? Would Eisenhower and Bradley get impatient and plan ill-advised operations out of expediency? If 1944 turns to 1945 and the Allies haven't reached Paris yet, and if the Russians have been checked in the east, could it boil down to whether or not Paul Tibbetts will have Hiroshima as his target, or Magdeburg??
Thus, the surviving bunkers, flak towers and emplacements of the Atlantic Wall today serve as monuments to a rapid Allied Victory in Europe.
I was born in Sept 1942, nine months after Pearl Harbor and my father and grandfather followed the war news in Time magazine and on the radio with all its censored news reports. Guadalcanal in the Pacific and the German drive to Stalingrad and the vast Baku oil fields were often speculated upon by US and British reporters. See a book, "The Onslaught: The German Drive to Stalingrad" which can be found on some sites and in larger libraries. My Dad enjoyed it in the mid 80s.
Are we talking about 'blockade', a stifling of the mobility of German flexibility? I have two points I would like a comment on:
1. If in 1914-18 instead of charging headlong against machine guns and barbed wire, the allies had sat in their trenches building up more and more supplies and allowing the German Army to impale themselves and be cut to pieces, would such a strategy have worked? It certainly seemed to work for Cunctator against Hannibal: no engagement, just cut off supplies.
2. Do you think the same principles are transferrable to Chess? In short, blockade the centre, bring up the artillery, cut down the mobility of the opponent's pieces and either strike when the time is right or force the opponent to run out of time. This was the strategy employed by THE RUSSIAN World Champion Petrosian.