The Road to Berlin (79 page)

At this point the
Stavka
intervened to modify Malinovskii’s previous orders outlined in the directive of 29 August. Although 2nd Ukrainian Front had advanced more than 150 miles at the centre and on the left flank in those nine days between 6 and 15 September, German resistance on the Targul Mures–Turda sector prevented Malinovskii’s troops reaching all their objectives: Cluj was still in German–Hungarian hands, while at Arad and Timosoara German–Hungarian troops also managed to build something like a firm front. So far these forces effectively blocked the passages leading from the southern Carpathians into Cluj and thence to the Hungarian plains. The
Stavka
had also to reckon with developments to the north and south of Malinovskii; Petrov’s 4th Ukrainian Front launched its attack towards Mukachevo and Uzhorod on 9 September—though progress was slow on this front—while Tolbukhin on 8 September proceeded with the occupation of Bulgaria, which abandoned its allegiance to Germany. The situation seemed ripe for a co-ordinated operation involving the final sweep in Rumania, the invasion of Hungary and a thrust into Yugoslavia.

Ahead of Malinovskii lay the plains of Hungary. His latest orders from the
Stavka
, embodied in the directive of 15 September, instructed him to move up to the Bystritsa–Cluj–Lugo line by 19 September, continue his advance in the direction of Cluj–Debrecen–Miskolcz and by 7–10 October to bring his main force to the line of the river Tisza in the area of Chop–Szolnok, thus advancing himself to assist Petrov’s 4th Ukrainian Front in its struggle for the Carpathian passes and for possession of the Uzhorod area. The essence of the
Stavka
plan lay in maintaining the momentum on all of Malinovskii’s sectors but to mount the main attack along the Cluj–Debrecen–Miskolcz axis in order to bring Soviet forces into Hungary along the line of the river Tisza, an advance of some 300 kilometres. The new line of advance was also dictated by the fact that Malinovskii’s central forces had not managed to reach Satu-Mare, the original objective set on 29 August: now the attack was shifted further to the south. But the most important implication of the
Stavka
plan lay in connecting Malinovskii’s and Petrov’s operations—and all without due regard for the difficulties facing Malinovskii, whose offensive had now run for twenty-seven days and covered distances
ranging from 250 to 400 miles, doubling his frontage and drawing him ever further from the supply bases. Malinovskii, however, could scarcely disregard these orders even though they did not allow him time even to regroup. Once again the
Stavka
underestimated the difficulties on the ground.

To bring his armies into the rear of those German forces fighting off Petrov’s 4th Ukrainian Front, Malinovskii planned to use three infantry armies on his right and centre, plus Gorshkov’s ‘cavalry-mechanized group’ and Kravchenko’s tank army in an attack aimed to the north-west in the direction of Bystritsa–Cluj–Targul Muros. Denied any chance to regroup, Malinovskii’s right-flank and centre armies moved off on 16 September in their attempt to break right through northern Transylvania. For the next seven days, armour and infantry tried to smash down heavy German resistance, stiffened with
Panzer
reinforcements moved into the area of Cluj and along the Targul Muros–Turda sector. By 24 September it was plain that the Soviet attack could not manage a breakthrough. Gloom on this score, however, was relieved by the rapid advance on the left flank, where 53rd Army, 18th Tank Corps and the Rumanian 1st Army took Arad, only ten miles from the Hungarian frontier, and pushed along the Orad–Timosoara road in the direction of the frontier. On 24 September Soviet–Rumanian forces were on the Hungarian frontier at Mako and had pushed a few miles to the north-east of the town.

Further to the north the Slovak rising was already entering its final crisis, while Soviet and Czechoslovak troops tried to force their way through the Carpathian passes to link up with the Slovak insurgents: it still remained to force the Dukla pass. To the south Malinovskii could only conclude that it was no longer feasible to think of fighting forward to Miszkolc; on 24 September he reported his conclusions to the
Stavka
, emphasizing the resistance encountered by 40th, 7th Guards and 27th Armies but also stressing that the successes of 53rd Army on his left flank now made it possible to turn the whole attack along the ‘Oradea–Mare, Debrecen axis’. Malinovskii asked for permission to swing 6th Guards Tank Army on to this axis, to halt his offensive at the centre until the divisions there could be supplied and better reconnaissance of enemy positions undertaken, and finally to complete the concentration of reinforcements for his left flank (46th Army and Pliev’s ‘cavalry-mechanized group’). The
Stavka
agreed but insisted that the offensive involving the three armies of the right and centre be kept up, otherwise the Germans would simply transfer their forces to check Malinovskii’s left: the new ‘Debrecen operation’ was to begin on 6 October. For the moment, save for the holding attacks on his right, Malinovskii’s operations came to a brief halt, the last respite for both sides before the storm broke over all of eastern Hungary.

Early in September, as Malinovskii’s columns began cutting their way deeper into Transylvania, the Rumanian armistice delegation arrived in Moscow. Headed
by Prince Stirbey, the Rumanian delegation was received with deliberate and obvious pomp, but all too soon the Rumanians discovered that they were in Moscow simply to sign what the Soviet government set before them, not to talk terms. Though present at the ‘negotiations’, the American and British Ambassadors played no active part and took great care to avoid personal contacts with the Rumanians, a precaution designed to prevent these hapless visitors being compromised in Soviet eyes. Minister Patrascanu, the communist representative and the mouthpiece of the delegation, did much of the talking, betraying nevertheless considerable nervousness and confiding to at least one member of his own delegation his fears for the future of a ‘collaboration’ which already seemed so ominously one-sided.

On 12 September 1944 the Armistice convention was signed, hammered home with all of Molotov’s obduracy. The document was important not only for Rumania but, as subsequent events showed, for Hungary and Bulgaria, Germany’s other Axis allies in Europe: the Soviet–Rumanian armistice served as a model upon which to base future transactions and stipulations. With its three signatures the convention bore some inter-Allied impress, but in practical terms Rumania was handed to the Soviet Union, lock, stock and barrel, in a very literal sense. Rumanian troops were placed at the service of the Soviet Union, Rumania formally ceded Bessarabia and the northern Bukovina (in return for northern Transylvania under the Soviet cancellation of the Vienna Award), and Rumanian indemnities—payable to the Soviet Union—were fixed at $300 million spread over six years (to be delivered in goods and raw materials), in addition to occupation costs imposed on Rumania. It was an armistice that stung the Rumanians with its injustice and left them with a rankling sense of grievance against Western powers who remained completely inert in the face of Soviet demands on Rumania, applying no pressure of any kind to sustain the Rumanian case for concessions.

For the nationalists among the political leaders, perhaps for the Rumanians at large, regaining northern Transylvania could conceivably offset the loss of Bessarabia, but this faint sentimental glow was extinguished by the realities of Article 11 of the Armistice Convention dealing with indemnities, for all this meant heavier economic burdens. The fiercest sting, however, lay in Articles 10 and 12, covering Soviet requisitioning and Rumanian restitution of ‘goods taken from Soviet territory during the war’. Red Army requisition quickly proved to be a costly affair for Rumania, involving the whole of the navy and a large part of the merchant fleet, equipment from the oil fields and the petroleum industry, railway rolling stock and every motorcar to hand, all commandeered and taken into Soviet ‘service’. With fresh Soviet troops moving into the country and without any effective arrangement for contact between the Soviet command and the Rumanian authorities, Sanatescu’s government found itself faced from the outset with a situation bordering on the chaotic. Once the first friction was engendered over implementing the ‘economic’ aspects of the Armistice Convention, the Russians quickly demonstrated their suspicions of the ‘historic parties’ and the nationalist leaders, while the
Communist Party—its ranks swelled with a horde of place-seekers, collaborationists and men on the run from their Iron Guard past—began to flex its muscles. Ana Pauker’s achievement was the creation of a vastly expanded party, though it was one bloated with elements which only weeks earlier had manned or supported the Antonescu dictatorship—the same thugs, secret policemen and soldiers, swelled with the riff-raff signed up by the new communist leadership. Sizeable contingents of these recruits were quickly used to fill out the membership of the political groups affiliated to the National Democratic Front consisting of the Communists and the Social Democrats; there were also men to spare for the special task of penetrating the Social Democrats.

Reports reaching Moscow (if that submitted by the political member of the Military Soviet of the 2nd Ukrainian Front at the end of September is a fair example) could only exacerbate the situation and stiffen the Soviet attitude. Malinovskii’s headquarters, reporting to the Central Committee and the Political Administration, emphasized the continuing presence of ‘reactionary elements’ in the state machine, stressing the activity of ‘several ministers, especially Maniu, who surround themselves with similar elements’; the ‘Green Guards’ were mustering in civil and military administrations; officials inclined to co-operate with the Red Army were persecuted. In Bucharest the press came under only partial control; and in the schools the teachers still filled the pupils with ‘Hitlerite propaganda and slander against the Soviet Union’. That this was not an isolated complaint is shown by Soviet reports on the Rumanian army, whose senior officers came in for a blasting from the Soviet command: General Mikhail, chief of the General Staff and a ‘thorough-going reactionary’, closely connected with Maniu, was the chief target of Soviet criticisms and his vacillations were trenchantly denounced. Even worse, though there were ‘progressive elements’ in the Rumanian officer corps, ‘German agents’ held important posts in several divisions sent to fight the Germans. None of this augured well for the future and the prospect grew bleaker with each passing week. As for Rumania’s one positive gain, northern Transylvania, that territory still remained to be cleared; and even when finally cleared, the problems of Transylvania were added to a fast degenerating situation.

Clearing Rumania cost the Red Army 46,783 dead, 171,426 wounded, 2,000 guns and mortars, over 2,200 tanks and 528 aircraft (casualties and losses recorded during the weeks from April to October 1944). Meanwhile Bulgaria fell without a shot being fired or a man being lost. On the morning of 8 September, three days after the Soviet declaration of war on Bulgaria, Soviet gunners with the 3rd Ukrainian Front stood ready to open fire, but ‘from our observation posts we did not see any target we could shell’. Georgi Dimitrov, the exiled Bulgarian communist leader in Moscow and hero of the
Reichstag
fire trial of 1933, had assured Marshal Zhukov late in August that there would be no war with Bulgaria: ‘You will not be met with artillery and machine-gun fire but with bread and salt—according to our old Slav custom. I don’t think the Bulgarian troops will risk engaging the Red Army.’ Georgi Dimitrov proved to be right. When elements
of 57th Army crossed the Bulgarian frontier in force, they were met by a Bulgarian infantry division lined up on both sides of the road, ‘welcoming our [Soviet] troops with unfurled red banners and music’.

Late in August, after Rumania’s defection from the Axis, Bulgaria succumbed to panic. Though an ally of Germany and a formal enemy of Britain and the United States, Bulgaria had never declared war on the Soviet Union; all attempts to send a volunteer force to the Eastern Front had failed and even war against the Anglo-Americans was both remote and virtually a token act, at least in Bulgarian eyes. The real Bulgarian effort lay in sending occupation troops into Yugoslav territory (Yugoslav Macedonia, which the Bulgarians regarded as theirs by right) as well as Greek Thrace and Macedonia, which was also considered rightfully to belong to Bulgaria. Though German pressure for naval and military facilities increased after 1942, German troops did not occupy the country and the Bulgarian government remained master in its own house, the king—Boris, who died in August 1943—resisting all and any German pressure to involve Bulgaria in the war against the Soviet Union. Of the right-wing extremists who were not so averse to an anti-Bolshevik crusade, General Lukov was the most important in the General Staff, but he was assassinated in February 1942. Pro-German policies persisted within the government; Bulgaria supplied Germany with raw materials and foodstuffs and Bulgarian troops did indirectly aid the German effort by supplying occupation troops, yet none would go to war against the Soviet Union, whose diplomats remained on the spot in Sofia.

The underground political opposition, a coalition that was reputed to have its origins in talks in 1941 between the Communists and the Agrarians, finally assumed the name of the ‘Fatherland Front’. As early as 1942 in his broadcasts from the Soviet Union Dimitrov found much to praise in the idea of this political association, which would be at once an inter-party group and the force behind the Bulgarian resistance movement. Four parties—Communists, Left-Wing Agrarians, the ‘Zveno Party’ (republicans and socialists) and the Social Democrats—finally forged this loose political alliance, which came to enjoy both the support of the Soviet Union and the approval of the Western powers, at least in broadcasts beamed to Bulgaria. The Front also overlapped with other political organizations, the Democratic Party and the Right-Wing Agrarians, who shared a common anti-German viewpoint but were not members of the ‘Fatherland Front’ coalition. It was the Front, however, that exercised the main control over the Bulgarian partisans, and it was the Communists who provided the underground organization necessary to start up and to pursue effective resistance. Yet neither the Front’s political leaders nor the partisan units themselves could organize a national liberation movement on a large scale, if only because there was no overwhelming German presence to galvanize the country to fervent resistance. The partisan bands turned instead against their own countrymen, the police and in a few cases the army itself. Operating in small groups, they raided villages, killed officials and harangued the villagers, frequently destroying official records; trains carrying
supplies to Germany were prime targets, but the very paucity of factories made industrial sabotage an isolated business.