Where the Iron Crosses Grow

Over the next week, the soldiers of the 72. Infanterie-Division fought a series of pitched battles for three steep hills just east of Balaklava. Despite losing the high ground early, the Soviets had fortified the town of Kamary and the Blagodat State Farm, which they used as springboards to briefly retake much of the high ground on November 14–15 when the 514th and 1330th Rifle Regiments arrived to reinforce the battered 383rd Rifle Regiment. Once the Soviet counterattack had run its course, Müller’s IR 105 launched an all-out attack on the key piece of terrain in the sector, Hill 212.0, a steep and sparsely vegetated hill on which the vintage Balaklava North Fort sat, and which dominated Balaklava’s harbor. After two days of intense fighting on November 16–17, Müller’s infantry gained only a toehold on the hill, which they then lost to a Soviet battalion-strength night counterattack. The Soviets also repulsed all efforts by IR 266 to overrun the Blagodat State Farm strongpoint. In one final throw of the dice, Müller’s IR 105 was reinforced with two battalions of pioneers in an all-out assault on November 21, which finally captured Hill 212.0. However, the Black Sea Fleet finally committed the battleship Parizhskaya Kommuna and two light cruisers to bombard the Germans outside Balaklava, which halted any further German attacks. The 72. Infanterie-Division’s strength was spent, with only 20 percent of its infantry left, and it was forced to shift to the defense, thus bringing the first German offensive to a close. The frontline in Sector I now reverted to World War I-style trench warfare, with very little change over the next six months.

Manstein made two mistakes in his first effort against Sevastopol, and both were characteristic of his style of generalship. First, he underestimated the enemy. He believed Petrov’s Coastal Army to be a broken reed and discounted the ability of the Black Sea Fleet to form ad hoc naval infantry units. During the November offensive, Petrov received over 9,000 replacements from various quarters, whereas Manstein received none.⁵ Altogether, Manstein’s AOK 11 suffered about 3,000 casualties in the first attempt to seize Sevastopol, further reducing the combat effectiveness of his infantry divisions. He also underestimated the ability of Morgunov’s Coastal Artillery and the Black Sea Fleet’s naval gunfire to repel his Stossgruppen with heavy-artillery barrages. Manstein’s second mistake was to not include the Romanian mountain infantry (vanatori de munte) in the offensive, instead relegating them to mop-up duties along the Black Sea coast near Alushta and in the Yaila Mountains. The Romanian 1st Mountain Brigade was the only fresh unit available to AOK 11 and it was a large one, comprising over 10,000 troops in six mountain-infantry battalions, two artillery battalions, and an engineer battalion. If this unit had been teamed up with the 72. Infanterie-Division, Manstein would have gained a clear superiority against Sector I’s weak defenses and almost certainly captured Balaklava. However, Manstein was reluctant to include Romanian units in his offensive plans because he did not respect their abilities and did not want to share any victories with them; this kind of attitude would often undermine Axis cooperation in the Crimea throughout 1941–42.

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After the defeat of Manstein’s first assault upon Sevastopol’s outer defenses, which cost both sides over 2,000 casualties, a lull of sorts settled over the frontline positions. Both sides were exhausted and fought-out, requiring weeks to replace casualties and restock for the next round. Operation Barbarossa had stalled almost everywhere, from Leningrad to Moscow to Rostov, but Manstein was determined to capture Sevastopol before the end of 1941. Recognizing that hasty attacks with depleted units could not succeed, he set about planning and organizing a deliberate offensive to begin by mid-December. Meanwhile, the frontline soldiers still engaged in desultory combat, with harassing artillery bombardments, air raids, and snipers taking their toll. During the month-long lull between the two offensives, AOK 11 still suffered about 3,000 casualties, or the equivalent loss of one of its depleted companies, every day.