The Road to Berlin (50 page)

As Army Group Centre crashed in ruins, spilling out its enormous debris of shattered units and broken divisions, the reverberations made themselves felt across the length of the Eastern Front, from the Baltic to the Balkans. The Red Army was now in a position to ram the German centre as far back as the Vistula and the East Prussian frontier; it could threaten German troops in the Baltic states with isolation from the main body and finally menace the German strongholds in the south-eastern theatre. This was more or less the order in which Soviet fronts and armies went about their strategic tasks in the summer of 1944. In mid-July, intent on denying the enemy either the time or the opportunity to build any kind of defensive front east of the Polish frontier, the Soviet command extended operations north and south of the Belorussian breakthrough area. With the capture of Vilno, Grodno, Baranovichi and Pinsk, together with the forcing of the Niemen and the seizure of, bridgeheads on its western bank, the German ‘strategic front’ had been well and truly breached: the ‘Niemen line’ had gone and with Soviet troops once in Grodno, Olita and Kaunas the way would be open for an advance on a broad front towards the East Prussian border. In the ‘gap’ being ripped out between the Niemen and the Dvina, Chernyakhovskii’s 3rd Belorussian Front raced on with a two-pronged thrust, from Minsk to the Niemen and through Vilna to Kaunas, in Lithuania; Bagramyan with 1st Baltic Front put five armies over the Dvina and advanced in his turn on Lithuania and Latvia. The main weight of Rokossovskii’s attack was through Baranovichi and to the north of Brest-Litovsk, thence to the Bug which ran north-east of Warsaw, pressing into the Bialystok–Brest-Litovsk ‘gap’ and threatening to split the German defensive front down the middle.

At this stage the Soviet command jammed another great crowbar into the cracking German fronts. Marshal Koniev’s 1st Ukrainian Front, the most powerful
single Front entity in the Red Army, was now aimed at Lvov and at Army Group North Ukraine under Col.-Gen.Harpe, who was holding the front running from the Pripet marshes to the Carpathians. Though abutting on to Rokossovskii’s left flank west of Kovel, the bulk of Army Group North Ukraine faced 1st Ukrainian Front and covered that area where the German command had originally anticipated that the main blow of the Soviet summer offensive would fall. Army Group North Ukraine held what was left to the Germans of the Ukraine; its function was to prevent a Soviet breakthrough to Lvov and into the valuable industrial region of Drohobych–Borislav, as well as to cover the approaches to southern Poland, Czechoslovakia and Silesia with their industrial resources.The disaster in Belorussia forced the transfer of six divisions (three of them armoured) to Army Group Centre, leaving North Ukraine with thirty-four infantry divisions, five
Panzer
divisions, one motorized division and two infantry brigades on the eve of Koniev’s attack—900,000 men, 900 tanks and assault guns, over 6,000 guns and 700 aircraft. For all the collapse in the centre, Lvov retained great significance as a communications centre linking German forces to the north and those in Rumania; taking advantage of the favourable terrain (including natural defensive barriers formed by the several tributaries of the Dniester), the Germans established a powerful defence in depth, with three defensive belts reaching from twenty-five to thirty miles, fortifying the river lines of the Dniester, San and the Vistula and fitting out the towns of Vladimir—Volynsky, Brody, Zolochev, Rava Russkaya and Stanislav for protracted defence. The most powerful German force was deployed on the axis covering Lvov (from Brody to Zborov); the infantry was committed to holding the first two defensive lines, the armour held back some ten miles from the forward positions, a disposition forced on the German command by the lack of reserves.

Marshal Koniev had already battled with Stalin over his proposed plan which envisaged a double thrust, where Stalin insisted on only one main thrust in the direction of Lvov; Koniev proposed to strike along the Rava Russkaya axis and also from the centre of his front towards Lvov itself—proposals to which Stalin grudgingly agreed, though not without a warning to Koniev that if his ‘stubborn attitude’ failed to produce results then it would be ‘on his own head’. The
Stavka
directive issued to the Front command on 24 June duly specified the two thrusts aimed at the destruction of enemy forces ‘on the Lvov axis’ and ‘on the Rava Russkaya axis’; the first attack would be made from the area south-west of Lutsk in the direction of Sokal–Rava Russkaya, the second from the area of Tarnopol towards Lvov, the flank cover for this latter attack being provided by Front left-flank armies attacking towards Stanislav–Drohobych, all to bring Koniev’s armies out onto a line running from Hrubieszow (south-east of Lublin)–Tomaszow–Yavorov–Galich. (The same directive also mentioned the possibility of the right-flank formations, operating between Hrubieszow and Zamosc, co-ordinating their operations with Rokossovskii’s left-flank armies, which were due to launch their offensive on the heels of Koniev’s attack.)

The
Stavka
did not stint Koniev over reinforcements. In addition to the nine rifle divisions and ten aviation divisions, Koniev received over 1,000 tanks and not far short of 3,000 guns and mortars. On the eve of the offensive 1st Ukrainian Front mustered seven infantry armies (3rd Guards, 13th, 60th, 38th Army, 1st Guards, 18th Guards and 5th Guards Army), three tank armies (1st and 3rd Guards, together with the 4th Tank Army), two air armies (2nd and 8th) plus two ‘cavalry-mechanized groups’—Baranov’s (1st Guards Cavalry Corps and 25th Tank Corps) and Sokolov’s (6th Guards Cavalry Corps and 31st Tank Corps): this gave Koniev a grand combined strength of eighty divisions (six of them cavalry), ten tank and mechanized corps, four independent tank brigades, plus the 1st Czechoslovak Corps—843,000 men, 1,614 tanks and self-propelled guns, almost 14,000 guns and mortars, 2,806 aircraft. Koniev’s own tally of his Front strength is, in fact, greater, setting his manpower at 1,200,000 and his strength in tanks and
SP
guns at 2,200. With this formidable force Marshal Koniev intended first to encircle and to destroy German forces in the Brody–Lvov area, then to split Army Group North Ukraine in two, driving one segment back into Polesia and the other into the Carpathians, and finally to bring the main forces of 1st Ukrainian Front on to the Vistula.

On his right flank, aimed along the ‘Rava Russkaya axis’, Koniev grouped ‘the Lutsk assault group’ consisting of Gordov’s 3rd Guards Army, Pukhov’s 13th Army, Katukov’s 1st Guards Tank Army and Baranov’s ‘cavalry-mechanized group’, supported by Lt.-Gen. (Aviation) Slyusarev’s four corps from 2nd Air Army: fourteen rifle divisions, two tank corps and a mechanized corps, a cavalry corps and two artillery divisions were concentated along this six-mile breakthrough sector. On the ‘Lvov axis’, with a seven-mile breakthrough sector, Koniev concentrated fifteen rifle divisions, four tank and two mechanized corps, a cavalry corps and two artillery divisions drawn from the ‘Lvov assault group’ with Kurochkin’s 60th Army, Moskalenko’s 38th Army, Rybalko’s 3rd Guards Tank Army, Lelyushenko’s 4th Tank Army and Sokolov’s ‘cavalry-mechanized group’, supported by five corps of 2nd Air Army (commanded by the Air Army chief, Col.-Gen. Krasovskii).The two left-flank armies assigned to cover the flank of the Lvov ‘assault group’, Col.-Gen. Grechko’s 1st Guards Army and Lt.-Gen. Zhuravlev’s 18th Army, occupied a front of some one hundred miles; 1st Guards, exploiting the success of Moskalenko’s 38th, was to set up its own assault group of five rifle divisions with Lt.-Gen. Poluboyarov’s 4th Tank Corps to seize a bridgehead on the Dniester in the area of Galich, while Zhuravlev’s 18th (with units of 1st Guards) was to be ready to attack in the direction of Stanislav. Zhadov’s 5th Guards Army and 47th Corps remained as Front reserve.

Marshal Koniev and his chief of staff General V.D. Sokolovskii had good reason to plan the double thrust on Lvov: in August 1914 the Russian South-Western Front under General Ivanov had also fought for Lvov (Lemberg) with two armies, Brusilov’s 8th and Ruzskii’s 3rd; though the Austro-Hungarian forces were defeated east of Lvov, the failure to move the right-flank Russian armies
in due time allowed Field-Marshal von Hötzendorf’s battered troops to fall back on excellent positions to the west of Lvov and hold on at Rava Russkaya. Marshal Koniev intended no repetition of this mishap and pushed on with elaborate preparations for a double breach of the German defences, in particular to conceal the weight of the blow about to fall along the Rava Russkaya axis, where Koniev intended to mount a massive surprise attack. Front movements were planned to suggest to German observation that the weight was going to the left wing, where two tank armies and one tank corps would be ‘located’ amidst 1st Guards and 18th Army. Night movements hid the true concentration and the pattern of regrouping involving the three tank armies and Moskalenko’s 38th Army: German intelligence was presumed to know about the attack building up in front of Lvov and against Stanislav, but the Soviet command worked to keep the other deployment secret. The Germans were not wholly deceived, though Koniev’s command calculated that the movement of 1st Guards Tank Army to the south of Lutsk and 4th Tank Army into the Tarnopol area had gone largely unobserved.

The final attack plans went from 1st Ukrainian Front
HQ
on 7 July to the
Stavka
for inspection by the General Staff; after three days they were officially confirmed and approved, subject to the proviso that the tank armies and ‘cavalry-mechanized groups’ must not be used for the actual breakthrough but for exploiting success. Tank armies would be committed twenty-four hours after the beginning of the operation in the event of success, ‘cavalry-mechanized groups’ forty-eight hours later and in the wake of the tank armies. The scope of the infantry commitments for the first day of operations must also be increased. As a result Koniev altered the sequence in which he intended to commit his armoured armies and increased the depth to which infantry formations must operate, completing all Front preparations by 12 July. That evening the Front command considered the evidence of German awareness of impending Soviet attack; to preserve the defending German troops from destruction through artillery bombardment in the customary opening phase of a Soviet offensive, Army Group North Ukraine was pulling men out of the forward positions, away from the first defensive zone into the second, from which the defence would be maintained. Fourth
Panzer
and First
Panzer
Armies were no novices in Soviet attack methods; north of Brody and along the ‘Rava Russkaya axis’, Soviet reconnaissance detected signs of a planned German withdrawal to the second line, at which Marshal Koniev decided to dispense with artillery preparation and immediately to commit the forward battalions of 3rd Guards and 13th Army from the ‘Lutsk assault group’ on the right flank.

By the afternoon of 13 July Pukhov’s riflemen from 13th Army were heavily engaged around Gorokhov; at the end of the day, the town fell to Soviet troops but it proved impossible to ‘leapfrog’ into the second German defence line, from which heavy German counter-attacks were being launched. On 14 July Marshal Koniev decided to commit the second-echelon formations of the rifle corps and to use his artillery, thereby bringing the main body of 3rd Guards and 13th
Armies into action at a time when 16th and 17th
Panzer
Divisions fought to hold off the Soviet advance and small groups of German bombers raided the Russian lines repeatedly. Having failed to rush the German defences, the right-flank offensive continued with air and artillery support on 15 July, with heavy fighting north-west of Brody. By the evening the assault armies had pierced the German lines to a depth of twelve miles, German reserves were exhausted and both
Panzer
divisons badly mauled. The same evening (15 July) and throughout the early hours of the following morning, the Front commander ordered Baranov’s ‘cavalry-mechanized group’ into the battle in the Stoyanov breakthrough sector punched out by Pukhov’s 13th Army. Baranov’s orders specified that he must be fully committed by 16 July, capture Kamenka–Strumilevskaya by 17 July and cut off the escape route for German forces in the Brody area. Baranov and his staff, however, were not quick enough off the mark, and not until the evening of 16 July could the mobile group pass through the infantry units, coming out through 13th Army sector at Kholoyuv and then pressing on to the south-west, fighting off the German 20th Motorized Division. Between 17 and 18 July Baranov forced the western Bug off the march and the capture of Kamenka–Strumilevskaya and Derevlyany effectively cut the German escape route to the west for German troops fighting in the Brody area. While Baranov’s tanks and cavalry moved to the western Bug, Col.-Gen. Katukov’s 1st Guards Tank army—with orders to attack from Sokal in the direction of Rava Russkaya, force the western Bug and capture bridgeheads along the Sokal–Krystonopol sector—was committed on 17 July. That day 44th Guards Tank Brigade reached the western Bug, forced a crossing and established a bridgehead in the area of Dobrochin. The lead tanks of 1st Guards Tank Army had already crossed the Soviet frontier and were now on Polish soil; behind them came the main force of 1st Guards Tank Army, followed by 13th Army and 3rd Guards Army (whose right-flank units struck out for Vladimir–Volynsk, the left for the western Bug in the area of Sokal).

The attack along the ‘Lvov axis’ fared badly. Bad weather, combined with stiff German resistance, meant grinding through strong concentrations of infantry and armour. Reconnaissance and preliminary actions by forward battalions on 13 July showed that the Germans were occupying their positions in strength and intended to hold them; there was no alternative but to launch Kurochkin’s 60th and Moskalenko’s 38th Armies in a full-scale attack preceded by heavy artillery and air bombardment. But the morning of 14 July brought only thick mist and heavy rain. Not until the afternoon could the Soviet barrage open, and at 1600 hours the assault groups from both Soviet armies attacked. At the end of the day, across a ten-mile front, Soviet troops had made only a slight penetration, varying from one to five miles; the German command committed its tactical reserves at once, 1st and 8th
Panzer
Divisions with the
SS
Division
Galizien
. Moskalenko’s 38th was particularly hard-pressed, being counter-attacked by assault groups from both
Panzer
divisions, and was actually being pushed back, with a
strong force of German tanks battering the left flank of the Soviet assault armies committed east of Lvov. Krasovskii’s ground-attack planes and bombers were called up, artillery mobilized and by the evening the German counter-attack was slowed down, but Marshal Koniev realized that ‘it was time to bring up the tank armies’. Rybalko’s 3rd Guards Tank Army moved up in strength on the morning of 16 July, although it had already begun to deploy the day before. At 0300 hours on the morning of 16 July Rybalko contacted the Front commander and asked for permission to push on with his main force, based on the success that his lead elements had enjoyed in the Zolochev area. Though Kurochkin’s 60th Army still needed greater depth of penetration to justify this decision, Marshal Koniev decided to risk it and to authorize Rybalko to move forward, which meant passing the Soviet tank army through a narrow corridor (running between Koltuv and Trostyanets Maly)—the ‘neck’ of the present Soviet breakthrough—and driving north-west.