By October, First Panzer Army had concentrated what was left of its fighting strength along the Terek. Col. Gen. Eberhard von Mackensen's III Panzer Corps was on the right, LII Corps in the center, and XXXX Panzer Corps on the left, at Mozdok. On October 25, Mackensen's corps staged the last great set-piece assault of the Caucasus campaign, aiming for an envelopment of the Soviet Thirty-seventh Army near Nalchik. Mackensen had the Romanian 2nd Mountain Division on his right, and much of his corps' muscle (13th and 23rd Panzer Divisions) on his left. The Romanians would lead off and punch a hole in the Soviet defenses, fixing the Thirty-seventh Army's attention to its front. The next day, two panzer divisions would blast into the Soviet right, encircling the defenders and ripping open a hole in the front. Once that was done, the entire corps would wheel to the left (east), heading toward Ordzhonikidze.
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It went off like clockwork. The Romanians opened the attack on October 25th, along with a German battalion (the 1st of the 99th Alpenjäger Regiment). Together they smashed into Soviet forces along the Baksan River and penetrated the front of the Thirty-seventh Army, driving toward Nalchik across three swiftly flowing rivers, the Baksan, Chegem, and Urvan.
Ju 87 Stukas supported the attack, achieving one of the war's great victories by destroying the Thirty-seventh Army's headquarters near Nalchik, a blow that left the Soviet army leaderless in the first few crucial hours of the attack.
The next evening, the two panzer divisions attacked by moonlight, crossing the Terek and achieving complete surprise. Soon they had blocked the roads out of Nalchik, and the Wehrmacht had achieved one of its few Kesselschlachts in the entire Caucasus campaign. Some survivors of the Thirty-seventh Army limped back toward Ordzhonikidze; others apparently threw off discipline and fled to the mountains directly to the south.
Now the Panzer divisions wheeled left, heading due east, with the mountains forming a wall directly on their right. With 23rd Panzer on the right and 13th on the left, it was an operational spearhead reminiscent of the glory days of 1941. On October 27 and 28, the panzers crossed one river after the other, the Lesken, the Urukh, the Chikola, with the Soviets either unwilling or unable to form a cohesive defense in front of them. By October 29, they had reached the Ardon River, at the head of the Ossetian Military Road; on November 1, the 23rd Panzer Division took Alagir, closing the Ossetian road and offering the Wehrmacht the possibility of access to the southwestern Caucasus through Kutais to Batum. At the same time, the 13th Panzer Division was driving toward the corps' main objectives: Ordzhonikidze and the Georgian Military Road.
Kleist now ordered the division to take the city on the run. That evening, 13th Panzer's advance guard was less than ten miles from Ordzhonikidze. It had been through some tough fighting, and just the day before, its commander (Lt. Gen. Traugott Herr) had suffered a severe head wound. Under a new commander, Lt. Gen. Helmut von der Chevallerie, it ground forward over the next week against increasingly stiff Soviet opposition; indeed, so heavy was Soviet fire that the new general had to use a tank to reach his new command post.
On November 2, 13th Panzer took Gizel, just five miles away from Ordzhonikidze. The defenders, elements of the Thirty-seventh Army, heavily reinforced with a Guards rifle corps, two tank brigades, and five antitank regiments, knew what was at stake here and were stalwart in the defense. Mackensen rode his panzer divisions like a jockey, first deploying the 23rd Panzer Division on the right of the 13th, then shifting it to the left, constantly looking for an opening. Closer and closer to Ordzhonikidze they came. There was severe resistance every step of the way, with the 13th Panzer Division's supply roads under direct fire from Soviet artillery positions in the mountains, heavy losses in the rear as well as the front.
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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.