Russia

In May 1942 a Soviet offensive at Kharkov failed, and over twenty divisions guarding the Crimean front were routed. This reverse finally convinced Stalin of the incompetence of the commander, Mekhlis. Sevastopol was cut off except for perilous submarine runs, and was subjected to pulverizing attacks. When the defending guns finally ran out of ammunition, the surviving gunners blew them up; Sevastopol succumbed. Voronezh fell, and in July Rostov-on-Don. Enemy units crossed the Don and threatened to wheel south into the Caucasus. Had they succeeded, the prospects for the Soviets would have been grim. Not only would the Baku oilwells be at Hitler’s disposal, but he would be able to call on the help of local peoples who would be as grateful as many Ukrainians had been at first for liberation from Communism. But General von Manstein’s thrust was stopped on the river Terek. He had run out of fuel.

Attention now centred on Stalingrad, and it was a measure of the importance Stalin attached to this battle that Zhukov was brought in as his deputy. The fighting was as grim as any battle fought in this war or any other. The German command fully expected the city to fall before long; attempt after attempt to relieve it failed, and Soviet security troops are said to have executed as many as 14,000 Soviet soldiers for cowardice in order to stop flight and prevent desertion. ⁴¹ The two sides fought building by building through late September and early October - and still the terrible struggle was not ended. At this point preparations, supervised by Zhukov personally, were made for an offensive to start in November 1942. Reserves were brought in, and what remained of shattered units were re-formed into new ones and re-equipped; wounded soldiers released from hospital were posted in to provide a leavening of battle-hardened men.

In the Stalingrad operations Soviet artillery loosed off as much ammunition as in the rest of the war. ⁴² Five million German troops were deployed over the front — with dive-bomber support at crucial times. The Soviet forces lacked air support - but the Soviet command mustered over 6 million men against the invader.

The eventual Soviet assault was heralded by salvos of rockets. Then 3,500 guns and mortars roared and thundered out their bombardment along a 14-mile front. After an interval, tanks bearing sharpshooters began to trundle forward through the freezing fog. The Germans counterattacked, sending in the Romanian Third Army, which quickly met its doom. The Soviet tanks moved forward. The most convenient point for crossing the river Don was seized, and at 2 p.m. on 26 November units of the Stalingrad front joined up with tanks of South-Western Command to surround between 80,000 and 90,000 men of the German Sixth Army under Friedrich von Paulus. He thought of breaking out. Hitler ordered him to stay firm. In the end he was forced to surrender.

By the end of January 1943 it was clear that the invader’s southern front had been shattered and preparations went forward for an offensive to break its backbone. The triumph at Stalingrad had given a huge fillip to morale, and the fresh troops rushed up to front-line positions were no longer merely dour and determined but eager for battle. The elation, however, led to overconfidence on Stalin’s part. Rather than concentrating resources on the achievement of one objective and against one of the three enemy army groups, he ordered a series of offensives along the entire front. ⁴³

This onslaught, which began in late January and early February, was overambitious and soon ground to a halt. The Germans regained some territory; the scales of war tipped one way, then the other, until eventually a state of equilibrium was reached. In August the city of Kharkov was finally retaken, and then a battle which was to take its name from the Kursk salient began to take shape. It covered a vast area of the steppe, lasted from August to the beginning of October, involved multiple armies, and was directed on the Soviet side by Zhukov and on the German by Field Marshal von Manstein. It is regarded by some specialists as the decisive battle of the Second World War, and it ended in complete Soviet victory. The German general staff itself concluded that from that point on Soviet Russia would surpass Germany in the mobilization of men and the production of equipment, and in the field of propaganda. ⁴⁴ It was not long before yet another mass offensive was started and Soviet troops were crossing the Dnieper and racing towards the western frontier. The tide of war had changed decisively.