In themselves these decisions represent a cheering progress,
but they still fall short of the clear-cut operational objectives
essential to a sound basis for future developments. With these
tactical reasonings as a starting point, the" Führer was
deftly steered towards our viewpoint on operational objectives. For
the moment this is a relief.
A radical improvement is not to be
hoped for unless operations become so fluid that his tactical
thinking cannot keep pace with developments.
There can have been few more concise expressions of contempt for
Hitler's military ability, or more clearly indicated intention to
force his hand by a delicate sabotage of the orders of the Supreme
Command. What in fact Halder was "hoping for" was exactly
the situation which Guderian had, half deliberately, been trying to
precipitate by his deep advance to Yelnya and his operations at
Roslavl. If the Supreme Command would not, or could not, give the
orders, then it must be drawn into committing itself by the headlong
rush of "tactical developments."
The generals' attitude to their Führer at this time is the
sounding board for Hitler's own ruthless contempt, which was to echo
about their ears, magnified tenfold, after the winter debacle. "While
flying back [from the conference]
I decided in any case to make
the necessary preparations for an attack towards Moscow."
Guderian feels sure enough of his case to have committed this
calculated insubordination to paper ten years later, and from what
followed there is no doubt whatever that his army group commander was
in complete agreement with him. Halder's diary, his guarded
references to conversations with "ObdH"—as he would
refer to Brauchitsch—and everything that has been written by
those other commanders and staff officers like Blumentritt who
survived the war point to a general conspiracy to thwart Hitler's
intention, if not by direct disobedience, then by circumvention of
unwelcome instructions.
This conspiracy, fumbling and barely articulate though it may have
been, was nonetheless obstructive enough to result in a completely
disastrous effect on the German campaign. For in dealing with the
various hypotheses which offer themselves, we can now see that the
Germans did the one thing which was fatal—namely, nothing. The
probable outcome of a direct thrust on Moscow has already been
discussed. It remains to be said that had the generals accepted
Hitler's orders and put themselves wholeheartedly into the
preparation of an immediate drive on Leningrad, that city would
probably have fallen by the end of August. This would have left time
for an autumn campaign against Budënny and consolidation on the
Donetz before winter.
It is hard to avoid the view that the Russian capital, isolated on
both flanks, would then have fallen to the Germans in the first rush
of their spring campaign. But instead, as will be seen, Army Group
Centre procrastinated. The Panzers were not taken out of the line,
yet they did not move forward; some divisions were sent north to
Leeb, others, were released with great reluctance by Bock for a
southward move; but neither was done in the strength required. And
while these hesitations and delays dragged on, the days—the
priceless summer meridian of dry going and soft temperatures—slipped
past.
The Russians were well aware of their vulnerability in the Roslavl
gap, but petrified by their lack of mobility, they had neither the
men with which to plug it nor the machines to move them. In the first
days of August a substantial body of the force encircled at Smolensk
managed to cut its way through the German ring at Yermolino, and
these divisions were all packed into the front around the Yelnya
salient.
Both the 66th and 67th Panzer corps were still tied down here, and
although three fresh infantry divisions had been put into the line,
Lemelsen had managed to extricate only two armoured formations (the
29th Motorised and 18th Panzer) for "rest." In this way, by
continually reinforcing their position at Yelnya and keeping up a
succession of local counterattacks, the Russians managed to hold firm
at the northern end of the breach. To the south the 5th Army with its
satellites was urgently piling men up along the Sozh, oblivious to
the yawning cavity on its right wing and keeping up pressure on the
newly arrived infantry of the German 2nd Army.
The effect of the Russians' keeping their nerve (and once again it
is impossible to say whether this arose out of calculated generalship
or simply in conformity with the general orders that no more ground
was to be yielded) was that the width of the Roslavl gap remained
constant—at about fifty miles. Its exploitation required as a
preliminary the breaking down of one or both the buttresses, at
Yelnya and along the Sozh, which constricted it.
For an operation on this scale Bock and Guderian no longer
disposed of the force—much less the authority—required.
Yet even after spending two days in the Yelnya area, where he saw at
first hand how his men were being compelled to give ground by the
accumulating Russian strength, Guderian
told my staff to prepare for an advance on Moscow as follows:
the Panzer Corps were to be committed on the right, along the Moscow
highway [i.e., directly into the Roslavl gap] while the infantry
corps were to be brought forward in the centre and on the left wing.
By attacking the relatively weak Russian front on either side of the
Moscow highway, and then rolling up that front from Spas-Demiansk to
Viasma, I hoped to facilitate Hoth's advance and bring our forward
movement into the open.
In the meantime a clumsy attempt by the German 34th Infantry
Division to force the Sozh below Krichev had been repulsed. The
strength of the Russian reaction had caused considerable alarm at 2nd
Army headquarters, and on 6th August, Guderian received a "request"
from OKH that at least two Panzer divisions be detached from his
command and placed under the 2nd Army for an attack on Rogachev.
After a telephone conversation with Bock ("Both staffs regarded
the resumption of the advance on Moscow as the primary objective"),
Guderian refused the "request" on the grounds that the long
approach and return march, of 250 miles, would be too great a strain
on tanks which had had so little maintenance.
For the next few days Bock, in spite of his private support of
Guderian's scheme, continued to pass on messages from OKH that the
Panzer group should "at least send a few tanks off to Propoisk"
(in the 34th Division area). Guderian himself admits that
before the attack on Moscow could be launched or any other
major operations undertaken, one condition must be fulfilled: Our
deep right flank in the Krichev area must be secured.
But he was loth to part with any units from his own diminishing
strength to allow another commander to attempt this. Finally, under
continuing pressure from OKH, he decided to clear the flank himself,
and sent the 24th Panzer Corps due south toward Krichev and the left
flank of the 2nd Army.
Not unnaturally, OKH was becoming increasingly restless at the
continuing disobedience of its forward commanders. On 11th August,
Army Group Centre was formally notified that the plan of Colonel
General Guderian (for an advance along the Moscow highway) was
rejected as being "completely unsatisfactory."
Bock thought it prudent not to demur, and "agreed to the
cancellation" (of the plan). Guderian, however, was furious, and
retorted with the threat to abandon the Yelnya salient, "which
now has no purpose and is a continual source of casualties."
This was unacceptable to OKH, and even Bock had the temerity to
assure Guderian, "It is far more disadvantageous to the enemy
than it is to us."
Matters remained in a state of deadlock for some days, during
which OKH, Guderian claims, "deluged us with a positive stream
of varying instructions—which made it quite impossible for
subordinate headquarters to work out any consistent plan at all."
During this time the concentration of the Panzer army was being
hourly diluted as the mass of Freiherr von Geyr's 24th Panzer Corps
moved south. Soon there were barely as many German troops in the
Roslavl gap as there were Russians defending it. The 29th Motorised
was ordered from its short-lived "rest" to this area, and
both
Gross Deutschland
and
Das Reich
were moved
straight there from the north of the Yelnya salient as soon as they
were relieved by regular infantry. Already "tactical
developments" were relegating the Roslavl gap from being the
point of opportunity to the status of a "quiet area" where
tired formations could recuperate.
While these manoeuvres and discussions proceeded, the matter was
being pursued at the highest level by Halder, who for the last week
had been compelled to listen thrice daily to Bock's grumblings over
the telephone. The Chief of the General Staff had managed to persuade
ObdH, but Brauchitsch himself was too nervous about Hitler to put the
matter to him directly until he could be sure of support from someone
else at OKW. Together the two men approached Jodl and put their case.
After "a lengthy discussion" the Chief of the OKW staff
declared himself to be strongly impressed and promised to use his
influence with Hitler. Accordingly, Brauchitsch drafted a long
memorandum on the desirability of an immediate offensive toward
Moscow and formally "submitted" it to OKW through Jodl.
Ten days of inactivity had now passed since the conference at Novy
Borisov. The route march of the 24th Panzer Corps had ended in
victory at Krichev, where the three Russian divisions guarding the
Sozh were broken up, and sixteen thousand prisoners were taken. But
the result was that Guderian fell victim to the same sort of
situation he had exploited to his own ends less than a month earlier.
A local victory, achieved in a vacuum of indecision, threatened to
draw along behind it a train of exploitation which this time would be
fatally distracting to the Panzer group.
On 15th August, Army Group Centre asked Guderian to release one
Panzer division to the 2nd Army, "to stiffen the drive on
Gomel." Guderian telephoned Bock, and all the old arguments were
run over once again—the more fluently, we may think, as both
men were basically in agreement. The 24th Panzer Corps had not passed
a single day out of action since the start of the campaign, it was
urgently in need of a rest period for tank maintenance, and so on.
But, Guderian ended, "as a single division cannot operate
through the enemy's lines," then if the operation
had
to
be undertaken it should, once again, be done with the whole Panzer
corps. It seems likely that Guderian calculated that this argument
would deter Bock, for any continued southerly move by the 24th Panzer
Corps would still further upset the balance of the tank spearhead and
must delay—perhaps by as much as ten days—its
concentration for a renewed offensive.
Sure enough, the army group commander assented and gave up his
plan, but hardly had Guderian put the telephone down when another
order came through, this time directly from OKH, to the effect that
one Panzer division was to be sent to Gomel forthwith. With a
disregard for OKH instructions which by now must have seemed
habitual, Guderian ordered Freiherr von Geyr to move off with the
whole corps, thus removing three of his best divisions (the 3rd and
4th Panzer and 10th Motorised) and virtually dividing the Panzer
group into two halves.
"I shall pass over," Guderian has written, ". . .
the fluctuations of opinion at Army Group Centre as expressed during
the telephone conversations of the next few days," and the
historian is left without details of this stage in the dispute. But
the actual movement orders of the various formations in Army Group
Centre do exist, and they reveal the extraordinary degree of atrophy
and indecision which had taken hold of the German Army during that
critical period. Although the 24th Panzer Corps made good progress on
the left flank of its attack front (i.e., in the area where the
Russian line along the Sozh ended
in vacua
at the southern end
of the Roslavl gap), it was held up by fierce resistance on its left.
But here the 2nd Army, instead of attacking in support of the
Panzers, was actually in the process of extricating itself altogether
from its positions. By 18th August the Panzer columns moving south
were suffering from a disturbance of their rear communications by the
slow-moving infantry of the 2nd Army, which was marching diagonally
across in a northeasterly direction. When Guderian insisted that the
army group should reverse these orders and compel the 2nd Army to
join in the attack, the staff at Novy Borisov agreed to do so. But
the following day, with the 24th Panzer Corps' communications still
suffering, Guderian contacted 2nd Army headquarters directly and was
told that nothing could be done as ". . . it was the Army Group
itself which had ordered the move of formations to the northeast."
On 20th August, Bock surfaced again, and told Guderian that ".
. . attempts to press on southwards [with the 24th Panzer Corps] were
to be discontinued. He wanted the whole of the Panzer Group withdrawn
to rest in the Roslavl area, so that he would have fresh troops at
his disposal when the advance on Moscow for which he was hoping was
resumed."
The Alice in Wonderland atmosphere was strengthened by Bock's
contention that ". . . he had no idea why Second Army had not
made better time in its advance;
he had been continually urging it
to hurry.
"
While the commanders in Army Group Centre had been performing
their ponderous minuet and variations, two developments had occurred
which finally extinguished any hope of an immediate march on Moscow.
First, the offensive against Leningrad, which had gradually got under
way in the days following the first Novy Borisov conference, began to
run into trouble. On 15th August the Russians had put in a series of
counterattacks against Leeb's right flank at Staraya Russa and the
Germans had been compelled to give ground.