Politburo or the State Defence Committee (GKO) Stalin also sent out his representatives; Malenkov of the GKO had already held a watching brief at Stalingrad during the critical days of the defence. Mekhlis, reduced since May 1942 in rank to corps commissar (lieutenant-general), returned to the front as a member of the Volkov Front military soviet; Lt.-Gen. Bulganin joined the military soviet of the Bryansk Front, and Zhdanov (a lieutenant-general at the beginning of 1943 but well ahead in the prestige race as a colonel-general by the end of it) formally sat on Govorov’s Leningrad Front military soviet as the third member. Lt.-Gen. Khrushchev soldiered on as the political member of the Southern Front.
Victory at Stalingrad was immediately and perceptibly decisive in terms of the survivability of the Soviet Union. Hitler had proclaimed that ‘a decision’ was mandatory on the’ Eastern Front in 1942 and he had invited his allies to join in this ‘crushing blow’. But the blow was spent and still the decision eluded him—for ever, as it transpired. Militarily, the results of the Russian triumph were impressive in scale—the amputation of a crack army from the Wehrmacht , the destruction of a whole segment of the Ostheer , the damage inflicted on the Luftwaffe , and the annihilation of large bodies of Axis satellite troops, Italians, Hungarians and Rumanians (who had not always served Germany so badly)—though not with such catastrophic short-term effect upon German arms as the Soviet command tended to believe. Politically, Stalingrad was a victory full of long-term potency, a slow-burning fuse which worked its way through the subsequent history of the war both on the Eastern Front and at large. If the battle of Poltava in 1709 turned Russia into a European power, then Stalingrad set the Soviet Union on the road to being a world power. In Germany, Stalingrad wrought immense psychological havoc as a harbinger of defeat. Mussolini quaked immediately. In 1943, Germany presented Japan with a plain démarche at the transfer of Soviet troops to the European theatre without any hint of Japanese ‘threat’, still less an aggressive move. Turkey had now to reckon on the Soviet Union as a potential victor.
In one of the most nightmarish battles of modern war, its duration matched by its ferocity, the Red Army had ground down a crack German army tounparalleled defeat. It was now Stalin’s turn to capitalize upon disaster, to seek decisive strategic success. Exuberance there was certainly over Stalingrad, in abundance and at all levels—German intelligence reports underlined the movement of kampflustig Soviet formations to the front—but the Soviet command did not as yet draw definite distinctions between confidence, overconfidence and miscalculation. At the end of January, vastly overrating the present capabilities of the Red Army and seriously underestimating the ability of the Wehrmacht to recover itself, Stalin prepared for the transition to a massive, multi-front counter-offensive aimed along three strategic axes: south-western, western and north-western. One year ago, in the winter battles of early 1942, he had tried a simultaneous assault on all three German army groups only to fail. Now he was about to repeat the strategy and, with it, the blunder (as costly as ever to the Red Army) of failing to concentrate decisively on clearly prescribed objectives—either the destruction of enemy forces in the field or the recapture of territory (with vital fuel supplies, sources of power and raw materials). Stalin wanted both. Therefore the ‘main blow’, the glavnyi udar , would unroll in staggered offensives across the entire face of the Eastern Front.
2
The Duel in the South: February–March 1943
With the German line from Voronezh to the foothills of the Caucasus ripped apart, and confident that the strategic initiative rested with the Red Army, the Soviet command planned to entomb an estimated seventy-five German
Victory at Stalingrad was immediately and perceptibly decisive in terms of the survivability of the Soviet Union. Hitler had proclaimed that ‘a decision’ was mandatory on the’ Eastern Front in 1942 and he had invited his allies to join in this ‘crushing blow’. But the blow was spent and still the decision eluded him—for ever, as it transpired. Militarily, the results of the Russian triumph were impressive in scale—the amputation of a crack army from the Wehrmacht , the destruction of a whole segment of the Ostheer , the damage inflicted on the Luftwaffe , and the annihilation of large bodies of Axis satellite troops, Italians, Hungarians and Rumanians (who had not always served Germany so badly)—though not with such catastrophic short-term effect upon German arms as the Soviet command tended to believe. Politically, Stalingrad was a victory full of long-term potency, a slow-burning fuse which worked its way through the subsequent history of the war both on the Eastern Front and at large. If the battle of Poltava in 1709 turned Russia into a European power, then Stalingrad set the Soviet Union on the road to being a world power. In Germany, Stalingrad wrought immense psychological havoc as a harbinger of defeat. Mussolini quaked immediately. In 1943, Germany presented Japan with a plain démarche at the transfer of Soviet troops to the European theatre without any hint of Japanese ‘threat’, still less an aggressive move. Turkey had now to reckon on the Soviet Union as a potential victor.
In one of the most nightmarish battles of modern war, its duration matched by its ferocity, the Red Army had ground down a crack German army tounparalleled defeat. It was now Stalin’s turn to capitalize upon disaster, to seek decisive strategic success. Exuberance there was certainly over Stalingrad, in abundance and at all levels—German intelligence reports underlined the movement of kampflustig Soviet formations to the front—but the Soviet command did not as yet draw definite distinctions between confidence, overconfidence and miscalculation. At the end of January, vastly overrating the present capabilities of the Red Army and seriously underestimating the ability of the Wehrmacht to recover itself, Stalin prepared for the transition to a massive, multi-front counter-offensive aimed along three strategic axes: south-western, western and north-western. One year ago, in the winter battles of early 1942, he had tried a simultaneous assault on all three German army groups only to fail. Now he was about to repeat the strategy and, with it, the blunder (as costly as ever to the Red Army) of failing to concentrate decisively on clearly prescribed objectives—either the destruction of enemy forces in the field or the recapture of territory (with vital fuel supplies, sources of power and raw materials). Stalin wanted both. Therefore the ‘main blow’, the glavnyi udar , would unroll in staggered offensives across the entire face of the Eastern Front.
2
The Duel in the South: February–March 1943
With the German line from Voronezh to the foothills of the Caucasus ripped apart, and confident that the strategic initiative rested with the Red Army, the Soviet command planned to entomb an estimated seventy-five German
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