The Road to Berlin (82 page)

On his way back to Yugoslavia from the Soviet Union Marshal Tito stopped at Craiova, which became a temporary command post for the Yugoslav National Liberation Army and also the site of joint Soviet–Yugoslav–Bulgarian talks during the first week in October. The preliminary phase of the Soviet offensive into Yugoslavia had already begun late in September, with Akimenko’s 75th Corps (on Tolbukhin’s left flank) fighting its way towards the Yugoslav frontier from the Danube bend, a series of actions that cost the corps 340 dead and 900 wounded for nine days of operations; on 28 September 75th Corps reached the frontier and Gorshkov’s gunboats from the Danube Flotilla moved up into the area of Negotin, the first Soviet objective, which finally fell on the afternoon of 30 September. The road into Yugoslavia was now open and the chances of a Soviet–Yugoslav link-up much increased, though on that same day Tito sent a special signal to his 1st Army Group with instructions not to start out on the proposed ‘Belgrade operation’ without his express authorization.

Though Soviet troops were now on the move in the opening phase of the Belgrade attack, much still remained to be done to co-ordinate the actions of the Russian, Yugoslav and Bulgarian forces involved in the whole offensive. Under orders from the
Stavka
, Biryuzov flew into Craiova on the morning of 5 October, where, in addition to Marshal Tito, a Bulgarian delegation headed by Dobri Terpeshev of the Fatherland Front waited to complete the political formalities for the tripartite operation. High on the agenda was the conclusion of a Yugoslav–Bulgarian armistice. Though broached earlier and pressed by the Russians, the Yugoslav command insisted that they needed more time in which to persuade their own people, who had suffered drastically at the hands of the Bulgarian occupation troops, that this was a ‘new’ Bulgaria and its army an ally rather than a cruel enemy. The Craiova meeting also provided the occasion for a review of the final attack plans involving the troops of all three nations; none, according to Biryuzov, disputed that Bulgarian troops were needed, and no one wished to brand the Bulgarian people with ‘the mark of Cain’, holding them responsible for ‘the criminal acts of the former royalist government’. The talks lasted the whole day. Biryuzov gave details of the Soviet strength to be committed, Terpeshev the Bulgarian and Tito the Yugoslav strength. For operations in the area of Nis, Leskovac and Belets the Bulgarians proposed to use three armies—1st, 2nd and 4th, nine divisions in all, plus three brigades (one of them armoured)—on Yugoslav territory; Tito in turn supplied the latest information on the strength and deployment of his two ‘army groups’ committed to the offensive.

It was plain from the outset that the Yugoslavs were woefully short of weapons and in desperate need of heavy weapons. The political sections of 3rd Ukrainian Front submitted reports earlier in September about the need to arm the Yugoslav units and stressed partisan expectations of receiving Soviet arms. On 7 September the State Defence Committee
(GKO)
in Moscow granted formal permission for 500 men of the Yugoslav National Liberation Army to be trained as tank-crews in the Soviet Union, but this did not solve the immediate question of the Yugoslav divisions thrown in against well-equipped German troops. Nearer the front the Soviet command agreed to stockpile equipment and ammunition for twelve Yugoslav divisions in the region of Craiova and Sofia; this prompted a Yugoslav request for Soviet instructors to be sent to Yugoslav units, while with the approval of ‘the Soviet government’ two Soviet air divisions (with an ‘air-base’ contingent) were earmarked for service in Yugoslavia. Slowly at first, but speeding up in the ensuing weeks, Soviet weapons found their way to the troops under Tito’s command—100,000 rifles, 68,000 machine-guns, over 800 anti-tank and field guns of various calibres, 491 aircraft, 65 tanks and equipment for seven field hospitals and four surgical units.

By the evening of 5 October, when the conversation came down to reminiscences and the mood turned to mutual back-slapping, the prime business of the Craiova meeting was concluded; Terpeshev got his armistice and thus refurbished the honour of Bulgaria, Biryuzov pocketed the tripartite military agreement now signed and sealed, while Tito could be well satisfied that this self-same document safeguarded the independent status of each national army and in no way infringed national sovereignty. Meanwhile General Korneyev, that obedient if somewhat bibulous officer, received instructions from the
Stavka
to pass on details about the Belgrade operation to the Yugoslav command, though at this stage—before the joint plan was mutually agreed—Tito also sent an order to his 1st Army Group not to move any units towards Belgrade without express authorization. But the day after the signing of the agreements, 6 October, Tito sent another signal from Craiova instructing Peko Dapcevic of 1st Army Group that his units should now move on Obrenovac (south-west of Belgrade)—the Belgrade offensive was now fully agreed with the Red Army and the Yugoslav command must wait for Tito’s final directive: ‘… the whole of your [1st] group with a strength of nine divisions will take part in the Belgrade offensive. It is desirable that our troops enter Belgrade first, and the Russians are of the same opinion.’ Dapcevic attacked at once that same day, but the Yugoslav troops were immediately pushed back, after which they waited another four days before renewing their push.

After the capture of Negotin, Gagen’s 57th Army (with 75th Corps attached) fought its way for a week through the eastern Serbian uplands and towards the river Morava; on 4 October 75th Corps finally made contact with a Yugoslav brigade from the 25th Division and Gagen received orders to co-ordinate the operations of two Soviet rifle corps (75th and 68th) with the two Yugoslav divisions in immediate contact with the Red Army, with the aim of cutting off
the German escape route. At the centre of his front Gagen made good progress, but on the flanks German resistance proved to be stiff and effective; along the mountain roads German troops from Group Müller held on to slow the Soviet advance, but again at the centre 68th Corps ground its way to the river Morava by 8 October and seized a bridgehead in the area of Velika Plana. General Shkodunovich’s success with 68th Corps in reaching the Morava galvanized Tolbukhin’s command into action; Tolbukhin himself doubted if tanks and artillery could negotiate the gorges and ravines in due time, but his staff assured him that they would make it and on the morning of 9 October 4th Guards Mechanized Corps received its orders to pass through the gap punched by 68th Corps. These orders to 4th Guards specified that ‘not later than noon on 14.10’ Belgrade must be taken and held until the arrival of 57th Infantry Army: the tanks were to move off for Belgrade itself on 11 October, which meant first heaving them over 120 miles of rugged country up to the start line for the attack.

General V.I. Zhdanov’s 4th Guards Mechanized, with 17,000 men and 180 tanks, was presently deployed in the area of Archar, a small Bulgarian village south of Vidin, having crossed almost the whole of Bulgaria from east to west after receiving orders on 30 September to move up to the Yugoslav frontier. Zhdanov decided to advance his corps towards the Morava in a single column through the heights, with ‘powerful combat echelons’ along the whole length of the column; 36th Guards Tank Brigade took the lead, supported by special groups of tommy-gunners mounted on tanks to take on any opposition encountered
en route
. Once committed to the main action, the corps would split into two echelons, a main attack force and the ‘artillery anti-tank reserve’: three brigades operating on the left flank were to put in the main attack. The bulk of the fuel and supplies needed would be carried by the forward units, loaded on to the tanks and self-propelled guns, hampering their manoeuvrability but ensuring at least that they did not run short of fuel and ammunition; the tank-crews and riflemen were issued with two days’ rations. The only other way to shift 2,000 tons of fuel, 800 tons of ammunition and 400 tons of supplies was to use 1,600 two-ton lorries, but since 4th Mechanized did not possess transport on anything like this scale, it had to be loaded on the tanks. By the evening of 10 October 4th Mechanized had completed much of its mountain march and was concentrating in the area of Petrovac, preparing to attack on the following day in the direction of Palanka–Belgrade.

Once at Velika Plana, Tolbukhin’s columns cut the Nis–Belgrade railway line and the motor-road: on 8 October Marshal Tolbukhin ordered General Stanchev’s 2nd Bulgarian Army to start its attack aimed at Nis itself, an action co-ordinated with the 13th Corps of the Yugoslav National Liberation Army. While Tolbukhin smashed his way forward at the centre, splitting the German forces in two once Soviet troops reached the Morava, and as the Bulgarians started their attacks on the left, Malinovskii’s 2nd Ukrainian Front on the right flank launched a fast-moving attack with Shlemin’s 46th Army using three mobile columns operating
north of Belgrade. Striking through Vrsac, 10th Rifle Corps brushed past weak German opposition and made for Pancevo, clearing it on 5 October.

Soviet troops were now only a few miles to the east of Belgrade, though the formidable stretch of the Danube still lay between them and the Yugoslav capital. During the next three days more units from 10th Corps closed in on Belgrade from the north and the north-east, establishing themselves along a broad sector of the Danube bank; further north, a column from 31st Rifle Corps struck into the great rolling plain of the Voivodina, making for Petrovgrad and the lower Tisza, while a third column—from 37th Rifle Corps—drove from the area of Timosoara towards Velika Kikinda, rolling up the units of 4th
SS
Division and a force of Hungarians in three days of continuous fighting. By the evening of 8 October Red Army troops, assisted in many places by the ‘main Voivodina staff’ of the Yugoslav army, had cleared all Yugoslav territory east of the Tisza from Kanjiza in the north to the source of the river Tisza, not many miles from Belgrade.

Malinovskii’s armies were now in action along the entire length of the Tisza, from the area where this river runs into the Danube in the north to its source in the south; having cleared the valley of the Maros, Malinovskii turned at once for the Tisza, whose course lay right across the approaches to Budapest. The ‘Debrecen operation’, the revised line of advance decided upon when German troops blocked 2nd Ukrainian Front at Cluj, brought Soviet troops across the Hungarian frontier west and north of Arad on 5 October; Mako, directly ahead of Szeged, was captured within twenty-four hours and with every hour stronger Soviet forces were piling over the middle and lower reaches of the Tisza. Szeged was captured on 11 October, giving Malinovskii control of a major rail and road junction and one more crossing over the Tisza. Meanwhile 37th Corps, which had moved straight over the Yugoslav frontier and taken Velika Kikinda, also crossed the Tisza lower down at Senta and Stari Becej, swinging then a little to the north and liberating Subotica—the chief town of the Banat—in co-operation with those units that had taken Szeged not many hours before.

As Malinovskii swept across the plain to the north, Tolbukhin’s columns were on the point of opening the battle for Belgrade from the south. Covered by elements of 68th Corps and 5th Independent Motorized Brigade, Zhdanov’s tanks crossed the Morava by the morning of 12 October and started their advance in the direction of Topola and Mladenovac, to the south of Belgrade. The German command, desperate to hold its lines of communication with the south until its divisions pulled right out of Serbia and Macedonia, was determined to hold Belgrade against all comers, reinforcing the defence with every available man. No longer were the German troops fighting only partisans, staunch fighters but so often short of weapons and supplies; a Soviet Guards mechanized corps was closing on Belgrade, several Soviet rifle corps disposed of their own complement of heavy weapons, and to the north of Belgrade more Soviet tanks and artillery rolled in day after day. With Bulgarian and Yugoslav units advancing on Nis,
and with the lines connecting Nis with Belgrade cut, the divisions of Army Group E could only swing away in their withdrawal through the valley of the Ibar; but at Kraljevo—a vital point of access for both the Ibar and Morava valleys—heavy fighting was already in progress. Everywhere German units fought with the greatest tenacity. They were fighting to stave off annihilation, and they knew it: along each road German commanders formed mobile and powerful ‘screening forces’ equipped with infantry, tanks and assault guns, allowing Soviet tanks to move up to point-blank range and then blasting them to pieces. Fighting off 4th Mechanized on the road leading through Markovac and Topola to Belgrade, German anti-tank gunners, supported by a few Tiger tanks or by groups of tommy-gunners in half-tracks, savaged the Soviet columns until they were themselves completely destroyed.

To spare the inhabitants of Belgrade the terrors of a major battle in the city, and to save the city itself as far as possible (though British and American bombers pounded it heavily in the raids of mid-April and May), Tolbukhin planned to head off the Germans falling back on Belgrade and to finish them off to the south. While Soviet aircraft harried the retreating German units, 4th Mechanized Corps, which had already linked up with the Yugoslav 1st Proletarian Corps at Velika Plana, swept on to the heights of Avala, ten miles south of the city; here Soviet tanks made contact with Peko Dapcevic’s 1st Army Group. With Soviet tanks in the southern outskirts, the German front was split down the middle; units of Gagen’s 57th Army surrounded a strong force of Army Group F south-east of Belgrade, and those German troops retreating towards the city now faced a full circle of Soviet divisions in position, with Malinovskii’s 2nd Ukrainian Front to the north and east and Tolbukhin to the south and south-east. In Belgrade itself the German command put the city in a state of siege and mustered 22,000 men with a few dozen tanks in order to fight off attacks to the bitter end. To the south-east another force of 20,000 men was trying to smash its way into the city and to safety, struggling to escape Soviet encirclement at Pozarevac and further south at Kucevo. Still another force, 15,000 men in all, managed to break through the right flank of 57th Army, crossed the Morava and began moving along the southern bank of the Danube towards Belgrade, aiming for the bridge over the river Sava and thence to freedom towards the north-west.