Russia at war 1941-1945

reduced to 2,593 calories, and that of "rear" troops to 1,605 calories; from November 20

—that is, at the height of the hunger blockade—front-line soldiers were getting 1 lb. of bread and about 4 oz. of meat, besides small quantities of other food. This, at the height of winter, was far from satisfactory, though the knowledge of what was happening in

Leningrad at the same time made the soldiers feel that they were highly privileged in comparison with the civilians. Whenever civilians visited the front, soldiers gladly shared their meagre rations with them. Moreover, most of the reserves of potatoes in Leningrad were handed over to the Army's field kitchens, and this created an illusion of "bulk"; also, the army bread was of slightly better quality than that given to civilians.

The soldiers, however, suffered severely from the Leningrad tobacco shortage, and all kinds of admixtures were devised—such as hops and dried maple leaves. Desperate

remedies were resorted to in order to keep the troops well supplied with tobacco, which was found to be essential for morale. Very few soldiers, it was found, would agree to exchange their tobacco even for chocolate, which was among the "concentrated" foods brought to Leningrad by air.

Chapter VI THE ICE ROAD

There were only two drastic remedies for the appalling famine from which Leningrad had suffered, especially since the end of October: one was the evacuation of as many people as possible; the other was the organisation of a reliable supply-line for food, fuel and raw materials. The organisation of an ice road across Lake Ladoga had been in the Leningrad authorities' minds ever since the blockade on land had closed round Leningrad on

September 8; the lake was expected to freeze in November or early December. But

everything depended on the intensity of the frost; to build a proper motor road across the ice, it was essential that the ice should be uniformly two metres thick. This thickness could be reached rapidly in only extremely cold weather of at least minus 15°C.

By November 17 the ice was only one metre thick, but by November 20—that day of the

all-time-low ration cut in Leningrad —it reached a thickness of 1.8 metres; horse-drawn vehicles were sent across the ice, but the horses were so underfed that many of them collapsed and died. The drivers were instructed to cut up such horses, and deliver them to Leningrad as meat. At last, on November 22, the first motor transport ventured on to the lake; but the ice was still so thin that only small loads could be carried by the two-ton lorries, and even so, several of them fell through the ice. On the following day a system was adopted of attaching sleighs to the lorries, and putting most of the load on the sleighs, so as to spread out the pressure on the ice more evenly. Between November 23

and December 1 only 800 tons of flour were transported across the ice in these various ways, and, in the process, some forty lorries were lost, some of them falling through the ice, often together with their drivers. The results of this first attempt to use the Road of Life were negligible. It should be remembered that, at this time, Tikhvin was in German hands, and that most of the food transported during that week came from the meagre

stores that had been accumulated on the south side of the lake before the fall of Tikhvin on November 9. New supplies—if any—were now expected to reach Lake Ladoga along

the incredibly long improvised road from Zaborie, far to the east of Tikhvin. To maintain the starvation rations that had come into force in Leningrad on November 20, it was

essential to bring to the city at least 1,000 tons of food a day, besides ammunition and petrol which were absolutely essential to the troops of the Leningrad Front. Even in the best possible conditions, not more than 600 tons a day could be expected from the

Zaborie road. Thus, the liberation of Tikhvin on December 9 truly meant that Leningrad had been saved.

[Pavlov, op. cit., p. 156.]

Not that the recapture of Tikhvin solved all problems—far from it. Although Tikhvin, on the main Vologda-Leningrad line, had now become the main food base for Leningrad and became, as soon as it was recaptured, "like a gigantic ant-heap" (Pavlov), the task of transporting food and other supplies from Tikhvin to Leningrad was still an extremely arduous one. Since the Germans, in their retreat, had blown up all the railway bridges between Tikhvin and Volkhov, there was no alternative, for the time being, to

transporting the supplies by road, namely from Tikhvin to a number of points on the lake, such as Kabona or Lednevo, a matter of over 100 miles of very bad winter roads. It was not till January 1 that the railway bridges between Tikhvin and Volkhov were rebuilt; by this time, the Germans had also been driven a long distance away from Volkhov and