The Road to Berlin (69 page)

Having received their new orders, the armies of the 2nd Baltic Front moved off punctually at dawn on the morning of 1 August, preceded by heavy artillery barrages. Within three days all were engaged in sharp fighting in the central area of the Luban plain. After five days 10th Guards pushed the German rearguards back to the eastern bank of the Aidikste, and by the evening of 5 August established a small bridgehead on the western bank just below Lubana. Behind 10th Guards came 3rd Shock and 22nd Armies, moving up to their sectors on the river line and launching their infantry in assault crossings. With his left-flank and centre armies over the Aidikste, Yeremenko at once looked for some way of exploiting this success to the north and west. The situation with 4th Shock Army, however, was not so encouraging, since two corps bumped into strong German resistance in the reach of land between the Aidikste and the Dvina, where Krustpils and Plavinas had been turned into powerful fortified positions.

The task of reducing this bridgehead area fell to 22nd Army; two corps (100th and 44th) from 4th Shock Army were to join in this battle for the reduction of the German positions once the railway bridge over the Dvina just north-west of Krustpils was in Soviet hands. On the morning of 8 August infantry from 130th Latvian Rifle Corps with the tanks of 5th Tank Corps—supporting 22nd Army—cut the Krustpils–Plavinas road and the railway line, broke through to the railway bridge over the Dvina and fought their way into the railway station at Krustpils. The two rifle corps from 4th Shock Army were by this time coming in from the east and had penetrated the suburbs of the town. At noon the two bodies of Soviet troops linked up and Krustpils was cleared of Germans.

The capture of Krustpils, an important road and rail junction, was a very useful gain for Yeremenko, but his left-flank armies fought for the next ten days in the triangle formed by Gulbene–Madona–Luban without any real success. Soviet troops pushed across the Luban plain and finally forced the Aidikste along its whole length, capturing Tsetviane and Madona (west of the river) and Leigrade (on the Aidikste itself). Yet all attempts to break north and west achieved little or nothing; after Krustpils came Plavinas, and Plavinas proved to be a very tough nut to crack. The terrain almost everywhere lent itself very readily to effective defence; though Soviet troops were over the Aidikste, they then stumbled into a morass of swamp which gave way to the stretches of forest around Madona. To the north and west lay more uncongenial country with its hilly, broken ground.

Yeremenko was using the traditional route along the Dvina, exploited three hundred years earlier by the armies of Muscovy, but this passage became much less convenient the closer it came to Riga; the route contracted into a much narrower channel lying between the Dvina and its tributaries, the Oger and the Egel—a channel the Germans could certainly block. Moving into this funnel, Soviet armies were quickly stopped short: 3rd Shock Army forced the Oger on 19 August and then had to fight off three German divisions counter-attacking with heavy air support: at Ergli, north-west of Madona, Soviet divisions found their way effectively blocked and to the south, at Plavinas, Soviet attempts to
reduce the German positions in the area lying between the Aidikste and the Dvina also proved to be fruitless. For the moment, Yeremenko found the way to Riga completely barred.

If Yeremenko was held before one bastion, Plavinas, so Maslennikov with 3rd Baltic Front was finally pinned down at another, Valk. At the end of July Maslennikov’s armies, with Pskov and Ostrov in their hands, prepared to assault the ‘Marienburg line’ running from lake Pskov to Gulbene and then to break into Tartu and Valk. Izborsk had fallen on 30 July and for a few days in early August 3rd Baltic armies carried out a series of local operations to improve their positions; the capture of Laura on 6 August afforded another useful jumping-off position. Four days later the Front offensive began, mounted along a line running north-west of Izborsk–Laura at the junction of 67th and 1st Shock Army: the first objective was Verro. Pechory, north-west of Izborsk, fell on 11 August and Verro on 13 August, whereupon Maslennikov switched his attacks, committing 67th Army to an attack in the direction of Tartu and 1st Shock Army against Valk, a key position connecting both Estonia and Latvia. The right-flank attack on Tartu made slow but perceptible progress, boring its way along the Verro–Tartu road and also hugging the shore of lake Peipus, assisted in mid-August by an amphibious landing carried out by the small craft of the Baltic Fleet river flotilla. On 24 August Soviet troops were already in the south-western suburbs of Tartu, and the following day they cleared this ancient city and moved north, establishing a bridgehead on the northern bank of the river Emaiga. The formations on the centre and left flank meanwhile moved down the eastern shore of lake Virts Jarvi and to the east of Valk, all marshy ground well suited to defence and held by over four German divisions prepared to hold the ‘Valk line’. As Yeremenko was halted before Plavinas, so was Maslennikov stalled before Valk, caught in the swamps and pinned by the Germans, unable to wrest this central bastion of the whole Estonian–Latvian theatre from its defenders.

The defence of the eastern regions of Latvia and Estonia, now entrusted along with the whole Army Group North to Col.-Gen. Schörner (the latest in the line of Hitler’s special ‘firemen’ committed to averting further catastrophe), was greatly facilitated by the peculiar topography of the region stretching from the gulf of Finland to the river Dvina. Any east–west advance depended on forcing the few existing passes between the numerous obstacles—the spreading swamps, reaches of forest and the high ground running between the several rivers, each with oozing marshy valleys. Both Yeremenko and Maslennikov had run into difficulties in trying to force their way along their chosen routes. North and west of Madona, Yeremenko’s armies bumped into heavy German resistance or were checked where the Aidikste joins the Dvina; Maslennikov’s troops were caught in the marshy stretches south of lake Pskov whose tributary rivers meandered through swampy valleys, separated from each other by more high ground. One other east–west route remained to the Russians, the neck of land running between lake Peipus and the coast of the Gulf of Finland, a passage not more than thirty miles wide
with its landward side largely screened by swamp; Narva covered the eastern approaches to this east–west ‘bridge’, the forcing of which was assigned to Marshal Govorov’s Leningrad Front. Narva itself lay astride the river Narva, whose breadth varied all the way to the gulf of Finland from just under 200 yards to over 700, with a depth of ten feet and high, steep banks. Behind the Narva lay a marshy valley and, to the south of the Narva–Tallinn railway line, more impassable swampland. The only useful sector for Soviet operations was confined to the north of the railway line, but here the river Narva ran at its broadest.

Lt.-Gen. Fedyuninskii’s 2nd Shock Army received orders to force the Narva passage. The German fortifications at Narva ruled out a frontal assault, but Fedyuninskii proposed to attack north of Narva and to strike from the south with 8th Army, breaking into the rear of German forces holding the town.
Armeeabteilung ‘Narva’
consisted of some twelve German divisions at the end of May, strength that fell steadily as divisions moved to other sectors of the Soviet–German front until at the end of July in
Abteilung Narva
only five divisions and three brigades remained—the core of III
SS Panzer
Corps, three German infantry divisions, the
SS
Motorized Division
Nordland
and three
SS
motorized brigades (22,250 men). Leningrad Front
HQ
issued its operational directive in mid-July, laying down Kudrukiula–Vasa as the ‘breakthrough sector’ and specifying a southerly advance after the breakthrough to link up with units of the Soviet 8th Army; after the fall of Narva Soviet divisions would move westwards along the shore of the Gulf of Finland.

At 7 am on the morning of 25 July 1,000 guns and mortars in 2nd Shock Army area fired off an eighty-minute barrage as Lt.-Gen. Ivanov’s 13th Air Army bombed forward German positions. Under cover of the artillery and air bombardment, two Soviet divisions, 191st and 131st, launched their makeshift rafts and boats on to the Narva, the steady roar of the barrage giving way to the strains of the Soviet national anthem and Aleksandrov’s sombre battle hymn
Svyaschchennaya voina
broadcast along the banks of the Narva by Soviet loudspeakers working at full blast. Hot and sweating under the July sun, with the Narva reflecting the light cloud skimming across the blue skies, Soviet riflemen, assault parties and assault engineers ploughed on through the shell-bursts to the western bank, unloaded artillery pieces set to fire over open sights and worked on constructing pontoon bridges. By eleven o’clock the sappers had the pontoon bridge laid; 76mm regimental artillery, anti-tank guns and finally tanks began to trundle across, followed by 109th Corps under the cover of darkness. Shortly after dawn on 26 July Soviet troops were fighting inside Narva itself, clearing both fortresses towards 8 am and linking up with the Soviet 8th Army moving up from the south-west. The ‘gateway to Estonia’, captured by Russian troops in 1558 during the Livonian wars and the scene under Peter the Great of a crushing Russian defeat, was again in Russian hands, though the town was in ruins, the streets strewn with German dead and littered with smashed vehicles, the ashes of burning papers blowing in the wind beside the gloomy
building that housed the German headquarters. In the streets, girl traffic-controllers directed the swelling columns of Soviet artillery moving over the Narva, shunting them through the crossroads and on towards the ‘Tannenberg line’, where the Soviet offensive was momentarily halted by six German infantry divisions. Marshal Govorov finally decided to embark on an extensive outflanking movement through Tartu and into the rear of the ‘Narva group’, marching like the medieval Russian armies into the Livonian strongholds.

North of the river Dvina, entrenched in Balka, Plavinas and behind Narva, Schörner had won a temporary respite. To the south of the Dvina river line, the German commander now proposed to smash in Bagramyan’s salient running up to the gulf of Riga by attacking Shaulyai from the west and the north-west, an ambitious plan which envisaged more than just slicing off the tip of the penetration at Tukums and Jelgava, and for which Schörner mustered the best part of ten divisions grouped under two corps administrations, XXXIX and XL
Panzer
Corps (operating with Third
Panzer
Army). The assault on the eastern face of the Soviet salient, directed against Birzha, was beaten off during the first week in August by 51st Army supported by aircraft, artillery and armour. Aware now that a German offensive against Shaulyai was in preparation, the
Stavka
put 4th Shock Army under Bagramyan’s command, thus enabling him to solidify his right flank and to build up divisions on his left and centre. On the extreme left flank Chanchibadze’s 2nd Guards Army forced the river Dubissa and pressed forward on the western bank, taking Rosieni on 10 August. But German resistance was stiffening with every hour, and German divisions were gathering for the blow aimed at Shaulyai: XL
Panzer
Corps (two
Panzer
divisions,
SS Gross Deutschland
and two infantry divisions) were to attack Shaulyai from the west and the south-west (from the area of Kelme), drive north-east and co-operate with 39th Corps in capturing Jelgava. East of Jelgava and Shlok (not far from the shore of the gulf of Riga) German units were to fight westwards to link up with the divisions cutting into the Soviet salient. For the moment the Soviet advance towards Riga from the central region of Latvia was brought to a complete halt.

Bagramyan’s armies were sprawled across a huge area running from Rosieni in the south to Shaulyai in the centre, Tukums and Jelgava in the north and Birzha in the east. Where a month ago three armies on 1st Baltic Front attacked along a 100-mile front, now with only one additional army Bagramyan had to hold a 300-mile front. The imminence of a powerful German attack made concentration imperative. Already on the afternoon of 16 August a German infantry regiment with sixty tanks in support was driving from Kelme in the direction of Shaulyai, an operation designed to pin Soviet forces south-east of Shaulyai before the main attack came from the west. Rozhdestvenskii’s 110th Guards Rifle Corps (2nd Guards Army) held the Kelme–Shaulyai road that first day, but during the night of 17 August 300 German tanks and assault guns rolled forward in the full attack on Jelgava and Shaulyai. West of Zhagar and south-west of Shaulyai, German units penetrated Soviet positions; 54th Rifle
Corps (2nd Guards Army) fought to hold the German advance west of Shaulyai, but the situation degenerated by the evening. German tank reinforcements crossed the river Venta and pressed on for another six miles to Smilgiai, not far from the western outskirts of Shaulyai. Bagramyan rushed artillery and armour into Shaulyai, sending up Volskii’s 5th Guards Tank Army, units of 1st Tank Corps and heavy artillery, all with orders to stop the German advance.

In the attack aimed at Jelgava more than 180 German tanks from two German
Panzer
divisions (the 5th and 14th) advanced up to ten miles on 14 August, striking into the left flank of 51st Army holding the Soviet line at Zhagar. To hold off this German tank strength Bagramyan ordered 3rd Guards Mechanized Corps to close with 51st Army and sent up heavy artillery to beat back the German assault. After four days of heavy fighting, with the fate of Shaulyai hanging in the balance more than once, 51st and 2nd Guards Armies contained the attack on Jelgava–Shaulyai, but at the very tip of the Soviet salient General Missan’s 1st Guards Rifle Corps (51st Army) could not deflect Battle Group
Strachwitz
from Tukums and on 21 August Soviet troops under orders from the Front command fell back to a line running from Jelgava to Dobele and Aust. German communications with Army Group North had been reopened, even if this remained a narrow and tenuous link.