by Acad. Gennady MATISHOV, Chairman of the RAS Southern Scientific Center, Yevgeny KRINKO, Dr. Sc. (Hist.), Deputy Director for Science of the Institute of Socio-Economic and Political Studies of RAS SSC (Rostov-on Don), Vladimir AFANASENKO, Research Assistant of the Laboratory of History and Ethnography of the same institute

The Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 holds a prominent place in the fate of Russia. Despite numerous studies related to this war its history still has blind spots including inter alia combat operations in the Russian south in 1942-1943. Their significance was underestimated in the Soviet time, and only in recent years there appeared works whose authors abandon previous stereotypes. It is impossible to make head or tail of the combat operations in the space between the Don and Volga rivers to Caucasia, between the Azov and Caspian seas, and to understand the causes of temporary successes of the enemy without referring to declassified archives and memoirs of the direct participants of the events.

After the successful battle near Moscow ill luck pursued the Soviet troops, and Wehrmacht again seized the initiative. In the summer of 1942-autumn of 1943 the fate of the country was decided in the south of Russia. It was just where the events developed which could ultimately affect the war outcome. The following battles were of prime importance: in a large bend of the Don (07.07-23.08.1942), in the direction of Astrakhan (01.08-28.12.1942), Gudermes-Kizlyar (25.08-17.09.1942) and Grozny (02.09-30. 12.1942), strategical battles near Ordzhonikidze (25.10-13.11.1942) and Stalingrad (17.07.1942-02.02.1943), Rostov-on-Don combat operations (20-24.07.1942, 08-14.02.1943) and breakthrough battles of the Mius front (17.02-30.08.1943) and the so-called Blue Line (13.02-09.10.1943). They became the principal landmarks of the fundamental turning point in the war.

ACTIONS OF THE GENERAL HEADQUARTERS

In the summer of 1941-winter of 1942 the Soviet leadership headed by Joseph Stalin set and solved vital tasks in the military-political and military-economic spheres. The first decisive steps were taken at the very end of summer of 1941 when the USSR and Great Britain led jointly troops into Iran on August 25. More than a 100-thousand Soviet military grouping with 522 aircraft took control of the whole northern territory of this country.

Earlier, on August 16, the CC of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and the USSR Council of People's Commissars took a decision to construct a new railway from Kizlyar to Astrakhan and a section Akhtuba-Paromnaya and at the same time the Volga crossings near Astrakhan and Stalingrad. The new railway was

put into operation on August 4, 1942, a record-breaking time, and played a significant role in the battle for Caucasia are coming a kind of road of life for the Red Army formations defending it. A tight schedule was also used in the construction of the railways Stalingrad-Vladimirovka-Baskunchak, Ilovlya-Petrov Val-Saratov, Guryev-Kandagach-Orsk and some other directions, which provided transportation of troops and military impediments in the most intense period of combat actions in the south of the country.

Of great importance in securing victory over the enemy was creation, together with our allies, of a military-industrial bridgehead in Iran, whose potential allowed in many ways for compensation of the Soviet losses in military technology borne in the beginning of the war. The allies constructed motor-car assembly and aircraft plants in the territory of Iran, aerodromes, storage hangars and berths, laid new or reconstructed the existing highways and railways from the ports of the Persian Gulf to Transcaucasia and Central Asia. Through "the Persian corridor", the Caspian Sea and the Volga by the railway Kizlyar-Astrakhan-Kamyshin-Saratov cars, tanks, aircraft, petroleum products, ammunition, strategic raw material, foodstuffs, uniform, medicines and many other things were delivered to the USSR. The trans-Iranian route was rather important in the most complicated and crucial moment in the war from the summer of 1942 to the spring of 1943. Already in March of 1942 the Soviet pilots received the first 72 bombers in Tehran, and all in all through the "Persian corridor" 742 aircraft, 8,816 lorries and hundreds of thousands of tons of other military impediments were delivered in 1942.

In the second half of 1942, after Arctic convoy PQ-17 heading for the USSR with strategic cargo and military equipment from the USA, Canada and Great Britain had been destroyed, deliveries under the Lend-Lease Act to the USSR through the North Atlantic were stopped for almost half a year (except for convoy PQ-18, which also suffered heavy losses). From the start of combat operations by Japan against the USA transportation opportunities through the Pacific Ocean also were limited. Therefore, in the second half of 1942 the trans-Iranian route acquired paramount importance. Through Iran 28.8 percent of the total cargo under the Lend-Lease Act were delivered in 1942 and 33.5 percent in 1943. Without the support of the allies it would have been difficult for the Red Army to withstand in 1941-1942 and moreover to carry out strategic offensive operations in 1943-1945. All in all, 4,160 thous. tons of cargo or almost a quarter of all deliveries to the USSR was owing to the "Persian corridor" in the war years.

Certainly we must take into account an uninterrupted delivery of troops and combat equipment by the Caspian military flotilla and shipping companies between Astrakhan, Makhachkala, Krasnovodsk, Baku and ports of Iran, Azerbaijan and Turkmenia. The military impediments were also transported by highways between Baku-Derbent-Makhachkala and Sukhumi-Tuapse. The regiments and divisions were transferred from

Basic communications of lend-lease deliveries through Iran.

Transcaucasia to the front lines near Gizel, Ordzhonikidzeand Malgobek by the Georgian Military Road and the Ossetian Military Road. As a result, the delivery of arms and military impediments became a large-scale engineering and technical operation using railway, motor-car and air transport. This is how it was assessed by the Soviet leaders, who highly appreciated the role of lend-lease in achieving victory in the war. According to Marshal of the Soviet Union Georgi Zhukov "without the American Studebakers it would have been impossible to carry our artillery. In general, for the most part they made up our front-line transport". He also wrote: "It must be admitted that American supplies helped us form our reserve forces and continue the war."

IN THE LARGE BEND OF THE DON

In July of 1942, after the German troops captured the city of Voronezh, there developed large-scale sanguinary battles in this region especially in crossings through the Seversky Donets, Don and Manych rivers. The enemy concentrated 900 thous. soldiers and officers, above 1.2 thous. tanks, above 17 thous. guns and mortars and 1,640 war planes in the south. The opposing troops of the Bryansk, South-Western and Southern fronts numbered 1,715 thous. men, about 2.3 thous. tanks, 16.5 thous. guns and mortars and 758 war planes. The enemy was in the rear of the South-Western front armies. The Commander-in-Chief of the South-Western direction Marshal of the Soviet Union Semyon Timoshenko and

his headquarters lost control of the troops and already on July 12 found themselves in Stalingrad. In the region of Millerovo the units of the 9th, 24th and 39th armies were encircled, and dozens of thousands of Soviet soldiers fell prisoner.

After the three-day battles on July 24 the 1st tank army headed by Colonel-General Ewald von Kleist captured Rostov-on-Don, an important transport junction considered to be "Gates to Caucasia". In the July battles the Soviet troops suffered heavy losses, while the enemy got a chance to approach the oil fields of Maikop, Grozny and Baku. It was then that the People's Commissar of Defense issued Order No. 227, which contained the well-known words: "Not a step backward!" The troops of the Southern Front withdrew from Rostov-on-Don not to get encircled like the spring "boiler" near Kharkov. The commander of the Southern Front General Rodion Malinovsky was demoted for the surrender of the said city but he made the only correct decision in that situation.

Field studies, topography of the locality and stories of direct participants and battle witnesses make it possible to understand how the peculiarities of the terrain and climate affected the operations and their results, to comprehend the "trench truth" of the war. The Soviet soldiers displayed mass heroism in sanguinary rearguard actions. For example, on July 27 an unknown soldier exploded the Veselovsky reservoir dam at the price of his life. This delayed the crossing of the Manych river by the German armored materiel for three days and enabled the retreating to the south Soviet troops to disengage from the enemy. On July 31, the 4th tank army of Colonel-General Hermann Hoth turned from Bolshaya Martynovka on the left bank of the Don to Kotelnikovo, thus strengthening the German grouping in the direction of Stalingrad.

In the Black Sea area of operations the enemy started bombing Sukhumi in July of 1942 and broke into Novorossiisk on September 6. Five days later it seized a major part of the city except for its south-eastern industrial territory. Due to heavy losses the German troops assumed the defensive near Novorossiisk, which lasted for more than a year. On September 9 between Maikop and Nalchik the German mountain infantry and a division of chasseurs, well trained and fully equipped, seized almost all mountain passes of Western and Great Caucasus. Thrice during September-November the main forces of the 17th army tried to break through to Tuapse but failed to seize the city.

The considerable superiority of the enemy in tanks and aviation enabled it to create powerful striking forces in the most important strategic lines. Early in August of 1942, the German military command concentrated only in the Caucasian direction 535,000 soldiers, 564 tanks, 4,540 guns and mortars, about 500 war airplanes. The enemy surpassed the troops of the North Caucasian Front: in personnel--1.5 times, in guns and mortars--2.1 times, in tanks--4.3 times, in airplanes--2.7 times. In the rear of the army group A there was a corps headed by General Helmut Felmi, whose mission was to advance to Iran and Iraq and further to the Persian Gulf and India. The Af-

Breakthrough of the Wehrmacht armies in the south in the summer of 1942.

rican corps of Field-Marshal Erwin Rommel, located at that time only at a distance of 100 km from Alexandria, was advancing to meet Felmi's corps.

NEAR ASTRAKHAN

In the mid-August of 1942, the German troops were stopped near Khulkhuta village at a distance of about 100 km from the Caspian Sea and 120 km from Astrakhan. This city served as a strategic point of oil and lend-lease cargo delivery from Iran, troops and fighting gear for the army in the field. The Luftwaffe airplanes tried to destroy the city, but the enemy failed to capture it. The German front area up to 300 km long between Stalingrad and Caucasian groupings was covered for almost five months by the reinforced 16th motorized division of Major-General Sigfrid Henrici. To oppose the enemy, the Soviet command raised urgently the 28th army headed by Lieutenant-General Vasily Gerasimenko. It was based on the 34th Guards' rifle division of Major-General Iosif Gubarevich, created on the basis of the 7th air-landing corps in Moscow and urgently transferred to the south. Actually in Nogai and Kalmyk steppe zones a real raid war was developed from September of 1942 to January of 1943. The German reconnaissance and subversive groups approached the Volga in several places and cut off repeatedly the road to Kizlyar-Astrakhan.

THE GUDERMES-KIZLYAR DIRECTION

Forcing the Don and Manych rivers, the enemy quickly approached the Terek three weeks later. The 1st tank army captured Mozdok on August 25, 1942, planning to proceed to Gudermes and Makhachkala on the left bank of the Terek. On August 29 the enemy seized the Chervlyonnaya railway station, 25 km to the north-east of Grozny. The blasted bridge across the Terek closed a route to Dagestan for the 40th German tank corps. Seven Guards' brigades, formed of raiders and also of separate amphibious and cadet rifle brigades with successful experience of defensive and offensive battles, were urgently transferred from under Moscow

via Astrakhan and Makhachkala to the Gudermes region. The troops were strengthened with tank battalions and brigades fitted with equipment delivered through the "Persian corridor".

Naursky and Shelkovsky districts of the present Chechen Republic witnessed large-scale combat actions with the use of tanks and aviation. There in September-October the German 1st tank army suffered heavy casualties especially in armor. The then Deputy People's Commissar of Oil Industry and later Chairman of the USSR State Planning Committee Nikolai Baibakov described an episode of bitter fighting near Chervlyonnaya early in September of 1942: "From the trenches I saw two fierce massed assaults of the German troops. Despite close fire of our artillery and aviation, whereby the field pitted by bombs and shells was actually covered with bodies of the dead and injured, they did not stop and continued to advance. They fell down and got up again, ran, crawled, emerged with fanatic horror-struck faces near the Russian trenches and being fired point-blank by our soldiers as if thrust back to the ground fell backwards. Before my eyes several thousands of German soldiers were killed. This awful sight will be always in my mind!" According to the wartime reports 96 out of 150 German attacking tanks were knocked out and destroyed in the mid-September near the Ishcherskaya village.

GROZNY IN FLAMES

The Mozdok-Malgobek battle in September 1947 played a pivotal role in the defense of the North-Eastern Caucasia. During September the Ingush city of Malgobek changed hands five times. But the Soviet defense in depth proved to be irresistible for the German troops. (Let us point out here that the battle details at the approaches to Grozny are not yet adequately studied by historians.) The Soviet troops created seven antitank stoplines using natural barriers. The hollows, ravines and ditches of the Alkhan-Churt valley between Malgobek and Grozny were filled with crude oil. In the face of breakthrough by the German tanks they could be stopped by a wall of burning oil. On October 10 and 12 the enemy conducted powerful bombing of Grozny by 130 and 152 Luftwaffe airplanes respectively. The burning oil streamed to the city through breaches in the destroyed dikes burning to ashes everything on its way. The massed bombing actually wiped Grozny off from the face of the earth but the city was never captured by the enemy.

The Soviet command carried out active maneuvering in the foothills of the Caucasus by deploying divisions and corps along the frontline between Ordzhonikidze, Malgobek, Naurskaya and Gudermes. The shock troops, armor, bombers, fuel and foodstuffs were delivered to the most dangerous parts of the front. The battalions of armored trains and antitank artillery which crippled substantially German tank and mechanized forces played an important role in the defensive actions. The heroic defense of the Soviet troops in Gudermes-Kizlyar and Grozny directions forced the enemy first to lower rates of the advance and then to stop.

DEFEAT OF WEHRMACHT NEAR ORDZHONIKIDZE

The advance of the German 1st tank army through the Elkhotovskiye Gates started on October 25, 1942. The enemy tried to seize the Georgian and Ossetian Military Roads. Near Nalchik the weakened Soviet

37th army stood on the defensive. In the 6 km breakthrough zone Wehrmacht had 3-fold superiority in manpower, 11-fold--in guns, 10-fold--in mortars and absolute supremacy in tanks. On October 28 the enemy captured Nalchik and on November 1 cut off the Ossetian Military Road near the Alaghir village. The next day Wehrmacht troops captured the village of Gizel 3 km to the west of Ordzhonikidze. To deliver a decisive thrust the Soviet command transferred to this area two Guards' rifle corps and several tank brigades, the main forces of artillery and aviation.

The turning point in the strategic warfare near Ordzhonikidze started on November 5, 1942, when the Soviet troops stopped the enemy advance and passed to the counteroffensive. The Gizel grouping of the German 3rd tank corps was actually encircled completely. Escaping complete destruction and leaving behind military equipment the German troops started withdrawal to the Dzuarikau village on the night of November 11. Breaking the enemy resistance, the formations of the left flank of the 9th army seized Gizel on November 11. Following the retreating enemy, the Soviet troops reached the Fiagdon river on November 12. For Wehrmacht November 5 and 6, 1942, became a non-return time and the foothills of Northern Caucasus--a non-return place, while for the Red Army it was a place, where liberation of Motherland from the enemy started.

THE BATTLE OF STALINGRAD

In September of 1942 the main war events on the Volga developed around Stalingrad. The tank, artillery and oil refining plants were located in the city. The striving of Wehrmacht to capture Stalingrad was explained also by political factors. Already on August 23, 1942, the German 14th tank corps managed to break through to the Volga. In September street fightings started in Stalingrad. The task of the Soviet troops in defensive operations was to exhaust and render lifeless the shock grouping of the enemy thus creating conditions for assuming the offensive. The powerful support to the small units of the 62nd army of Lieutenant-General Vasily Chuikov was given by the heavy artillery and regiments of rocket launchers from the left bank of the Volga and its islands. In the ruins of Stalingrad the German troops lost their mobility, their tanks could not advance among the stone debris. The battles were conducted for every house.

In the heat of street fightings the preparations for a counteroffensive near Stalingrad were under way in conditions of top secrecy. Provisions were made in advance for two bases at a significant distance from the city for covert concentration of reserve units. The base of the southern group was in the Trans-Volga region in the flooded areas of the Volga estuary in the area of Kapustin Yar, Cherny Yar, Nizhni Baskunchak, Soleny Baskunchak and others. The northern grouping was concentrated in the region of Saratov and Kamyshin and also in the Don forests. During two autumn months the reserve units were drawn together and concentrated for an impetuous attack. (These massed actions remain practically an unknown page of the battle of Stalingrad.) It is important to note that elaboration of and preparation for two battles were carried out at one historic moment. Besides, both events in Caucasia and on the Volga developed according to the common scenario. This allows to characterize the operations near Ordzhonikidze after the battle of Stalingrad as Stalingrad-2.

On November 19 a powerful thrust was delivered to the enemy from the northern base by the troops of the South-Western Front. On November 20 the Stalingrad Front troops launched an offensive from the south. The choice of the direction of main thrusts, their suddenness and infallible determination of weak points in the enemy defense proved to be extremely important. On November 23 the South-Western and Stalingrad fronts met in the region of the Sovetsky village near the city of Kalach and closed a ring of encirclement near Stalingrad.

The encircled grouping numbered not 80-85 thous. men as evaluated by the Soviet military intelligence but almost 250 thous. effectives. Therefore, the attempt to divide at once the 6th army of Friedrich von Paulus into two parts and defeat it failed. For its all-round defense the enemy used the fortifications of the Stalingrad enclosing created in 1941-1942 for the city defenders. Despite supplying by air and an attempt of the breakthrough battle, the ammunition and food stocks of the 6th army were running dry. The troops of the Don Front broke the enemy defense and on February 2, 1943, forced the encircled German army to surrender.

In December of 1942 the German Army Group A in Caucasia lost finally offensive resources and found itself under the threat of encirclement. The general offensive of the Northern and Black Sea military forces of the Transcaucasian Front started on January 1, 1943. The troops of the Southern (the former Stalingrad) Front moved towards them in the direction of Rostov-on-Don and Salsk. By skilful maneuvering of reserves Field-Marshal Erich von Manstein stopped the Soviet offensive on the line of the Manych and Seversky Donets rivers in late January. The enemy retreated from Northern Caucasia having divided into two groups. The main forces of the 1st tank army retreated through Rostov-on-Don to the Donets Basin, and the remaining units stepped back to the Taman Peninsula, where they joined in with the 17th army into a powerful grouping numbering above 20 divisions.

BREAKTHROUGH OF THE MIUS FRONT

The Soviet troops liberated Rostov-on-Don on February 14, 1943, but their further offensive was stopped

by the German 104 km long defense line called the Mius Front. It began from the Sambek village near the Taganrog Bay, then passed along the Mius river and approached the Krasny Luch city of the Voroshilovgrad (today Lugansk) Region. The Soviet troops first faced the impregnable German combat formations at the Mius Front in the winter of 1941. During the first half of 1942 there were made vain attempts to break the enemy defense. In its degree of impregnability, strength of fire and number of permanent defenses the Mius Front can be compared with such widely known defense complexes as the Finnish Mannerheim Line, the French Maginot Line, the German Siegfried Line or the Soviet Mololov Line*.

*Molotov Line is a line of fortifications constructed by the Soviet Union in 1940-1941 along a new western border after annexation of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, western regions of Ukraine and Belorussia, and also Bessarabia.--Ed.

In the spring and summer of 1943 the Soviet troops assaulted repeatedly the German defensive positions. A bitter battle took place in the vicinity of the high point 277.0 (Saur Tomb burial mound) on July 30-31, 1943, on the boarder of Rostov and Stalin (today Donetsk) regions. The German command used elite tank units withdrawn in the heat of the battle of Kursk. In two days the enemy lost 239 tanks and self-propelled guns there. It is twice more than the German tank losses in the famous battle of Prokhorovka in the same period. Only on August 18, 1943, the Southern Front of Colonel-General Tolbukhin managed to break through the Mius Front in the vicinity of the Kuibyshevo village of the Rostov Region, and on August 30 the city of Taganrog was liberated. The operation was worked out with the participation of Marshal of the Soviet Union Alexander Vasilevsky, Chief of the Red Army General Staff. The success was achieved first of all

due to maximum concentration of forces, especially artillery and armor in a narrow strip of the breakthrough.

GOTENKOPF-GOTH'S HEAD

In the Taman Peninsula the Soviet advance was abutted against a powerful defensive line called by the Germans as Gotenkopf (Goth's Head), today more known as the Blue Line-- 113 km long from Novorossiisk to the Temryuk Lagoon. Eight defensive lines about 40 km deep accounted in full for a rugged topography such as a swampy estuary of the Kuban, Adagum, Protoka and other rivers, a woody and hilly terrain in the center with heights up to 200 m and a mountain terrain near Novorossiisk. For seven months sanguinary battles did not stop at this peculiar Mius Front 2. The Soviet troops suffered heavily in frontal attacks but with no success.

In the second half of April 1943, a big air engagement began in the sky over Kuban, which lasted till June 7. Sometimes the number of group air battles reached 50 involving up to 50-100 airplanes at each side. Not a few Soviet ace fliers distinguished themselves in these actions. Namely, the famous Alexander Pokryshkin, whose fighter P-39 Aerocobra shot down 23 Luftwaffe airplanes in the region of the Blue Line in April-May of 1943. The order of the North-Caucasian Front read: "Air domination has passed to our side. It has determined also the further ground situation". On September 10 the troops of the said front headed by Colonel-General Ivan Petrov penetrated the seemingly impregnable Blue Line and on October 9 fully liberated the Taman Peninsula.

Thus, from August of 1942 to October of 1943 in intense battles the enemy was flung back from the boarders of Dagestan, Chechnya, Ingushetia, the Caspian coastline, the Volga estuary and Astrakhan to the Crimea and the Donetsk Basin, in all for more than 1,000 km. If we now take a careful look at the events of the summer of 1942-autumn of 1943 at the southern flank of the Soviet-German front as a part of a single process of confrontation, the scale of the battles of Stalingrad and in Caucasia and their place in the history of the biggest defeats of the German troops become more apparent. It should be noted that 138 men were given the title of a Hero of the Soviet Union for the defense of Caucasia and 103 men were awarded this title for the battle of Stalingrad.

In the battles of 1942-1943 the Soviet troops passed from a strategic defense to a strategic offensive. The sanguinary battles accompanied by pulverizing of whole armies took place in a period under review in all directions of the Soviet-German front including the western and north-western directions. But a turning point in the war began just in the south, where the Soviet troops gained experience of big victorious battles in which their operational and tactical art developed and improved. The gained victories testified to an increased skill of the Soviet command to concentrate different arms of service in a short time for a breakthrough of the enemy defense in a narrow strip and organize coordination of striking and supporting forces, reserves, infantry, armored troops, cavalry and aviation.

Main battles in the south of Russia in 1942-1943

* Including the losses suffered in the Don river bend from July 17 to August 23, 1942

The analysis of the events in a period of the summer of 1942-autumn of 1943, i.e. the breakthrough of the German troops in the south and the sanguinary battles on the Don, Manych and Volga rivers, in Northern Caucasia, the Azov region and Taman, proves that they played a decisive role in a breaking point of the Great Patriotic War. The victory in bitter battles in the south was achieved by maximum coordination of all efforts and mass heroism of the people. Meanwhile, the number of the official places of memory (in particular, a share of hero-cities) is much less here than in the center and the north-west of the country.

The historical justice should triumph. The city of Ordzhonikidze (today Vladikavkaz) deserves the high title of Hero-City but it never received it. The Matveev Barrow and Krymsk, Ishcherskaya and Chervlyonnaya, Elkhotovo and Gizel villages and also other localities are worthy of the title of a City of Military Glory. The places of the sanguinary battles from Krasny Luch in Donbas to Sambek in the Azov Region, from Gudermes to Mozdok, from Nalchik to Ordzhonikidze, from Novorossiisk to Temryuk are actually the fields of military glory of all peoples of the former USSR. For the sake of memory of above 5 mln of lost soldiers and civilians of our region this imbalance in the policy of memory should be eliminated. Today it is imperative for all peoples of the multinational south of Russia.

The work has been implemented within the framework of RSSF project No. 14-01-00300 "The Don's Big Curve-Place of Decisive Battles of the Great Patriotic War (1942-1943)".

Illustrations supplied by the authors