Tigers East

Chapter 4

Hitler had been in a jubilant mood for some time as he watched the progress of the German summer offensive in Russia. Fall Blau, Operation Blue, was well underway before the Allies launched their bold attack at Lisbon and Casablanca. Manstein’s powerful SS Panzer Korps was the tip of the spear, massing at Kantimirovka and then driving southwest between the Donets and Don Rivers, just as he had explained it to Hitler long ago. The rivers shielded both his northern and southern flanks as he pushed forward, finding little resistance after the initial breakthrough.

“It was only the sodden ground in the spring and the lack of good roads along our axis of attack that forced us to delay this long,” Manstein explained to the Führer. “But we should have good ground for at least eight weeks now, and in that time I can get over the Don to begin the attack on Volgograd—of this I am certain.”

“How long will it take to secure the city?”

“That will depend on the forces the enemy puts against us, but in that phase of the operation, we will need good infantry divisions. It would not be wise to commit our mobile units to an urban battle of attrition. No. I intend to break through, force a crossing of the Don, and then move in a fresh infantry Korps. Halder has his eye on just the troops I will need.”

“Here, my Führer,” said Halder, leaning forward over the map and pointing out the formation with his pencil. “General Hansen’s 54th Infantry Korps is following the SS Korps, and it will soon move north to take up positions here, along the Don. There is some indication that the enemy is establishing bridgeheads there, and we will have to watch them closely. Schwedler’s 4th Korps will be on the left, east of Boguchar. Hansen will be in the center, covering the area near Veshenskaya, and on his right, approaching the big river bend south of Frolovo, we will bring in the 42nd Infantry Korps under General Kuntze. It is already boarding the trains at Belgorod.”

“Excellent. But what infantry for the city fighting?”

“We have von Seydlitz and his 51st Korps in reserve, and Kempf has two more infantry divisions presently attached to the 48th Panzer Korps. That will give us seven divisions.”

“Then what will you do with the SS once they cross the river?”

“They will secure the crossing point,” said Manstein, “then push for the city. When the infantry arrives they will reposition here.” He pointed to a rail junction at the town of Morozovsk. “From there they can force a crossing of the Donets at one point or another, and then we link up with Volkov’s troops. After that, it is only a matter of opening a secure rail corridor to the oil fields. He has already retaken the fields at Maykop. And the Soviets never got close to Grozny, let alone Baku. Yet to move those resources by rail, we will first have to take Rostov, and then most likely take a month or more to rebuild the rail lines to the proper gauge.”

“How soon can we take Rostov?”

“If all goes as planned, I will be closing on that city in a month—mid-August at the latest.”

“Then we can expect deliveries in late September,” said Hitler. “This is wonderful, just what I had hoped, and well before the winter sets in. Do you foresee any problems?”

“Nothing is ever certain in war, as we must all know,” Manstein cautioned. “That is what makes it all so interesting. One thing I do know is that we can expect they will fight hard to prevent us from doing all of this, and they will definitely plan a counterattack.”

“Where?” Hitler’s eyes played over the map.

“The most likely spot would be here, along the line of the Don. That is undoubtedly why they are trying to establish bridgeheads there, and so our infantry must operate to reduce those positions and push the enemy north of the river at the earliest opportunity.”

“48th Panzer Korps is in reserve,” said Halder. “It can be used to break any stubborn resistance south of the river, and then stand as a fire brigade for the winter, for yes, they will certainly attack there when the snows come again.”

“But we will stop them,” Hitler smiled. “We will stop them just as we stopped their last offensive. Gentlemen, carry out this plan to the letter. Once we take Volgograd and Rostov, then Sergei Kirov is finished. Now then—when can we expect to destroy what remains of his forces in the Kirov Pocket?”

“That should still be considered a secondary objective,” said Halder. “Resistance is collapsing there, but it will take some weeks to mop everything up. It’s work for the infantry, as we are repositioning our mobile forces for further operations to the east. We already have Orel back, and we will shortly begin the offensive to retake Tula in the north, then Kursk in the center, with our final objectives being Lipetsk and Voronezh. After that, they will have very little left—no major industrial centers worth mentioning—except Leningrad.”

Halder glanced at Manstein, for the two men had clashed the previous year when Manstein was elevated to overall commander of Army Group South, and so many troops were taken from Group Nord. Leningrad still sat well behind the front lines in the north, the one major Russian city that had been spared the ravages of war.”

“That will be work for next year,” said Hitler, “assuming they survive our summer offensives. Admiral Raeder just smashed a big convoy bound for Murmansk, and with our strong base at Nordstern operational, he promises me he will stop them all. So the Soviets will soon feel us choking the breath out of them, and I would be most surprised if they do not collapse before year’s end. You see? All that doom and gloom last winter is forgotten now. Even Guderian is in better spirits, and I have him supervising all the upgrades for the Panzer Divisions. Given that the situation is favorable, he has asked me to withdraw certain divisions to France for refitting. Do you object?”

“How many divisions?” asked Halder warily.

“Three, perhaps four at the most. The British and Americans show no sign of bothering us in France any time soon, but they will get around to it one day. In that instance, we should have a mobile reserve in the West.”

“Agreed,” said Halder. “With your permission, I will meet with Guderian to discuss this further, and we will select the most suitable divisions.”

“Well enough.” Hitler was in such a good mood that he did not stick his thumb in the pie, much to Halder’s relief. It was Manstein, he knew, though he hated to admit that. Manstein’s cool presence, his unshakable morale, his keen eye for strategy, had an equally calming effect on Hitler. At the height of the crisis the previous December, it had been Manstein, arriving on a cold windy night, who had intervened in a badly deteriorating OKW staff meeting with the Führer, and within an hour, he had settled everyone down, established a plan for holding operations, and laid out how the spring counterattack would unhinge all the Soviet gains in due course.

Yes, while I juggle numbers, pour over casualty lists, manage the logistics, Manstein pushes divisions around the map and gets the Führer clucking like a fat hen. Yet one day we will have to address the matter of Leningrad, for that will surely be the last refuge of the enemy if they continue to resist into 1943. This war is far from over. Let us hope our miracle worker delivers on the promises he makes here today. Oil deliveries by late September? I will personally drink a cup from the first arrivals if Manstein manages that.

Of course, Halder would never say that aloud, not to Manstein, and certainly not to Hitler. No, he would simply do what was necessary now, provide the infantry requested if possible, and keep a firm hand on the 48th Panzer Korps.

What about Army Group Center, thought Halder? Manstein promises to deliver Volgograd and all of Volkov’s oil, and he wants the infantry to fight in the cellars and sewers of the city. I will send him 48th Panzer Korps, and the divisions needed to hold the line of the Don, but as for von Seydlitz and the 51st Korps, I will need that for Armeegruppe Center, so that is where it will go. If Manstein actually gets to the city, I will find the infantry for him somewhere else. Hitler will never have to know about it, and will likely forget the names and numbers discussed here in any case.

Something tells me that the one thing we can be sure of in all these plans was Manstein’s statement about the uncertainties of war. Surely the enemy has plans of their own. Might they have recovered enough to act before winter?

We shall see….

The Germans seemed to be advancing into thin air, meeting only scattered resistance at Millerovo from a Soviet engineer battalion, but otherwise simply sweeping over the steppe country in the vast open spaces between the two great rivers flowing east. The weather was clear and warm, and the troops were in high spirits, with memories of the bitter winter of 1941 behind them. Long columns of vehicles followed the thin tracks of the roads, and many simply rolled off over the open country, as the ground was flat and firm. Elsewhere, Hansen’s 54th Infantry Korps was trudging over the grassy steppes, and slowly advancing on the long winding course of the Don as it flowed east. As they approached, enemy planes were spotted, and some made brief strafing runs to register their protest, though these attacks inflicted few casualties.

Kempf’s 48th Panzer Korps began to flow into Kantirmirovka with two infantry divisions, artillery, flak, engineers and other service troops. The first two Panzer Divisions assigned to this Korps had also arrived, the 11th and 23rd. Halder proposed that the two infantry divisions follow the SS for ready infantry support, but that the panzers should be retained behind the line of infantry that was now screening the Don. There the Soviets continued to move troops into several bridgeheads, the nails that these panzers would soon have to begin hammering down to clear the enemy from the southern bank of the river.

Kempf moved forward to observe the enemy positions, and seeing signs of earthworks and entrenchment, he immediately ordered both his heavy divisions forward to begin the attack. He soon found that he was up against far more than a simple bridgehead operation. The Soviets already had most of Cherevichanko’s 9th Army south of the river in a vast bridgehead served by roads and bridges from Verkhne Mamon and Boguchar. He quickly got on the radio to Steiner with the SS Korps.

“Look over your shoulder,” he said. “There is a substantial bridgehead south of the Don at Boguchar, and now Hansen is reposting he’s come up against similar forces further east approaching Veshenskaya and Serafimovich.”

“Well, what do you want me to do about it?” said Steiner. “Our main body has already reached Morozovsk.”

“Just be wary. This could be the makings of a planned counterattack. These are army level formations, not merely a few divisions.”

That was an understatement, for just east of Kempf’s operation, General Lukin had his 58th Army in position south of the Don to cover the crossings at Kasanskaya. Further east, the bulk of the 2nd Siberian Shock Army under Vlasov, the Heroes of Moscow, had also crossed between Veshenskaya and Zomovsky, and there was a similar operation underway at the big bend in the Don near Serafimovich involving Yeremenko’s 4th Shock Army. If any of these formations had been correctly identified, the Germans would have certainly realized that something big was in the offing. As it was, it was high summer in the Don Basin, and General Felix Martin Julius Steiner was already far off to the south, his mind fixed on the approach up the shallow river valley of the Chir.

A veteran of the first war, Steiner had gained the favor of Himmler and helped build the SS Panzer Korps to the formidable force it had become. After a command with the 5th Wiking Division, he was selected to lead the entire Korps. Born in Prussia, Steiner had a broad face with deep set eyes under heavy brows, and a visible scar on his forehead where a bayonet had wounded him in the first war. He already had his Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross in Gold, and now he wanted those Oak Leaves and Swords.

His lead division, the SS Wiking, had already encountered a pair of small rifle divisions forming the 20th Rifle Corps at the hamlet of Oblivskaya on the Chir. These troops appeared to have been posted only as a delaying force, for they withdrew when pressed, and fell back toward Surovinko on the main road and rail line to Kalach. That was the town he really wanted, the only suitable crossing point on the Don west of Volgograd. He expected it to be hotly contested, but he was fully prepared to mass his entire Korps here, and bull his way through, one way or another.

It was a strange echo of the battle that was fought in Fedorov’s history, only most of the units involved were different. The strategic situation, however, would not change. Both Halder and Manstein had clearly seen the vulnerability of that long left flank along the Don. A successful offensive there could effectively drive south to Morozovsk, cutting the lines of communication to any forces that had gone on to fight for Volgograd. This time, Freidrich Paulus was nowhere to be found here, and the 6th Army was instead replaced by all these arriving infantry formations sent to screen that dangerous flank. They would be a tougher defense against any Soviet counterattack—much tougher than the Rumanian and Hungarian troops that had been placed there in the old history. That said, they would not now have the strength to reduce these strong Russian bridgeheads as Manstein had wanted—not with only the two Panzer Divisions in Kempf’s 48th Panzer Korps.

Steiner had other business, and while the Wiking Division pushed out the last of the 20th Rifle Corps at Oblivskaya, he sent his 2nd SS Reich Division on a wide sweeping maneuver south of the main road. That took them through State Farm 79, and on the high ground due east, they found the 180th Rifle Division dug in deep. The first battle on the River Chir was now well underway, for Steiner ordered all of the Das Reich Division to take those heights and clear the way forward. Division commander Paul Hausser notified him he would attack at once, but that he had reconnoitered the ground east of the hill and found it unsuitable for armor.

“There’s no decent ground for a crossing operation there. The river banks are too soft and marshy. I will kill this division, but you had better look north of the road for a better route to Kalach.”

Steiner wasted little time in doing that. In addition to the four SS divisions under his command, he also had a pair of aces in hand, the elite Brandenburg and Grossdeutschland divisions. The Brandenburgers moved north of the rail line to Surovinko, intending to go for Kalach. To their great surprise, the enemy had not covered the ground there with any appreciable defense. Steiner was soon notified that they had opened the route, and decided to send up Grossdeutschland.

“Be quick about it and we can get over that damn river in two days,” he said to General Hornlein, but the General did him one better. He raced on up the road, eventually swinging north and around the Brandenburgers where they deployed to clear another two Rifle Divisions screening Kalach. At a little after 15:00 on the 8th of July, his fast moving recon battalion reached the river, finding no defense. With boats in hand, and equipment available to build small pontoon rafts for their armored cars, they decided to cross.

And that they did.

It was the opening act in a very old and well known play, only this time it would have a cast of all new actors, and a very different finale.

Chapter 5

Georgie Zhukov had worked a miracle the previous winter, but now he was trying to pull the army together again, and build up reserves to face the onslaught that was now underway.

“They will drive on the Volga this summer,” he declared in a meeting with Sergei Kirov and Intelligence Chief Berzin. Kirov had finally re-established his government in Leningrad, old Saint Petersburg, the city he had been warned to avoid by Fedorov. As the old national Capitol under the Czars, it seemed a suitable place, the last real major city with resources, population and industrial capacity, still safe from war and well behind the front.

“That is no mystery,” said Kirov. “They want Volgograd, where they hope to shake hands with Ivan Volkov’s troops all along the lower Don. It’s a pity we could not hold our lines there.”

“That could not be helped,” said Zhukov. “Given your refusal to abandon the Caucasus and Kuban line, I had no choice but to evacuate the region south of the Don. There are only a few places an army can cross that river there, and so I can hold that line with just a few divisions. It would have taken three armies to hold it further south.”

“Well enough,” said Kirov, “but what will become of our troops in the Caucasus.”

“You tell me,” said Zhukov flippantly. “If I had my way, they would be on the line far to the north. As it stands, they will soon be encircled and cut off permanently, another nice fat Kirov pocket for the Germans to chew on.

Sergei Kirov flashed him a dark and angry glance. “We held off the Germans there for six months!” he said sharply. “We hold them still.”

“But not for very much longer,” said Zhukov. “Thankfully, I got the 24th Siberian out and sent it back through Orel. All the rest will be lost. It is only a matter of time now.”

“Yet we still have all the Donets Basin,” said Kirov. “We still have Rostov, the Kuban, all the Taman Peninsula. Hell, we still hold out at Sevastopol, and we will keep that city for months.”

“Only because the Germans pulled their 11th Army out and replaced the investing troops with Rumanians.” Zhukov folded his arms on his broad chest, a man with a reputation for speaking his mind, and one who was never cowed by political higher ups throughout the war. In his mind, he was the man who had saved Russia the previous year. He had planned and executed the counterattack, stopped the Germans, even if he could not keep them out of Moscow. Now he was patching the shattered fronts back together again, and trying to rebuild the army to a point where further offensives might be possible.

“That doesn’t matter,” said Kirov. “What matters is that we hold Sevastopol—we have heroes to speak of there, as we had heroes in Moscow.”

“Ah,” said Zhukov, “Yes, the Siberians. I put them to good use there, but now they must go elsewhere. The Germans seem to have no interest in trying to clear the northern segment of the city we still hold, and frankly, I have no interest in trying to take what they hold—all we would get back is a burned and blackened ruin.”

“We have that traitor Beria to thank for that,” said Kirov bitterly.

“Just the same,” said Zhukov. “We don’t want Moscow any more than they do. What they want now is Volgograd, a linkup with Volkov, and then they will most likely push into the central heartland—Kursk, Lipetsk, Voronezh. If they take all those cities, then they will likely consolidate to receive our winter offensive—assuming I have the troops to launch another such attack, and next year, they come for us here—Leningrad.”

“Then we must foil their plans.” Kirov was adamant. “We will hold our ground wherever they face us.”

“So this is your strategy? Simply hold in place? We have the Kirov Pocket, and then soon we will have the Volga Pocket, Donets Pocket, Kuban Pocket and so on.”

“You may see no purpose in my insistence that we hold ground. Yes, we will lose the Kirov Pocket this year, but the struggle there gave us something that was in very short supply last year—hope. Moscow was burning, but the defenders of my city held out. In just the same way, we will fight them tooth and nail in Volgograd if they get there, and we will do the same in Rostov.”

“That may come sooner than you think,” said Zhukov. “They have broken through with a single Panzer Division on the northern segment of our defensive front screening the Donets Basin. We still hold Voroshilovgrad, but frankly, that whole northern front is mainly guarded by the Don itself. I have virtually nothing to send there. A few divisions got through by rail before the SS reached Oblivskaya and Morozovsk. The rest will become another of your heroic pockets, the largest ever seen in the world—all the Donets Basin, along with the Kuban and Taman regions are now completely cut off. I sent Rokossovsky there after his defense in front of Moscow, and there he shall likely remain for the duration of his war. Watch what happens at the Kirov Pocket over the next week or two. That is a preview of what will happen to all the rest.”

“Yes, Kirov may fall, but it will take the Germans half a year to take the other terrain we still hold on the Donets Basin and Caucasus. Its size alone is daunting, and so I will hold it as long as humanly possible. I spoke to Rokossovsky this morning. He is in Voroshilovgrad, fighting to stop the Germans from crossing the Don there.”

“Good for him. The 1st SS Division has already crossed further east at Donetysk.”

Kirov looked at Berzin, and the bristly haired Chief simply nodded, confirming the report.

“The SS have turned south?”

“Not entirely,” said Zhukov. “I think they merely want a bridgehead there. That single division was detached to secure that crossing point. All the rest are after Volgograd.”

“They crossed the Don north of Kalach this morning,” said Berzin.

“Only a single battalion,” said Zhukov. “Unfortunately, they will have a very brief stay. I moved the 8th and 19th Tank Corps down to Martinovka yesterday. They are now in a perfect position to counterattack.”

“Good,” said Kirov. “Drive those bastards into the river. Let them know we mean business here. They will not get Volgograd without a fight. Are we still on track with our planned counteroffensive?”

“I have moved five armies, including three Shock Armies, into a large series of bridgeheads south of the Don. They have reached their assigned positions, and now we are trucking in the supplies and fuel necessary to sustain an offensive. The Germans are trying to screen that flank with infantry.”

“Rumanians?”

“No, German troops, but they have not been able to cover that entire front yet. In fact, I could attack tomorrow and raise a good bit of hell there.”

“No,” said Kirov. “We wait as you suggested earlier. Wait until we have the supplies to do more than raise a little hell. When we go, it will be with all of Satan’s wrath. In fact, if the Germans do cross the Don west of Volgograd, then everything they send there could be easily pocketed if our counterattack is strong enough to reach the river behind them. So we wait. When you can tell me you are strong enough, then I will turn those armies loose, but not before. How long will that take?”

“That will depend,” said Zhukov, hedging his bets. “This is not the only battle we will fight before this year ends. Their Army Group Center is going to push east soon. The plan was to send our reserve tank corps south into those bridgeheads over the Don, but I may have to send many west to stop von Rundstedt, Hoth and Model. The Germans spent a good deal of time to refit their mobile divisions, and they have new tanks. One is a real monster—the Tiger, and something tells me they will soon be on the prowl. The Tigers are coming east, Mister General Secretary, and soon.”

While Manstein drove deep into the Don Basin, the offensive launched by Armeegruppe Center began to gather real momentum. It had taken many months to extricate all the panzers from the front lines, moving them into rear areas to refuel and repair damaged equipment. Supplies finally arrived from Germany, with replacements, and most importantly of all, with fresh tanks. The divisions were getting more of the series I Lions, the 55-L, and in a very few units, a faster medium tank, the Panther V, was being introduced. With it came a fearsome looking heavy tank, the Tiger, and it mounted the dread 88mm main gun. Germany’s answer to the increasing numbers of Soviet T-34s was bigger tanks, with heavier armor and good long range hitting power.

Generalfeldmarshall Gerd von Rundstedt commanded Armeegruppe Center, an aristocratic Prussian with a long family history in military service. He was to have commanded Armeegruppe South, but when that went to Manstein, he moved north. Hitler had a mind to relieve him after the disastrous Soviet Winter counterattack, but Manstein prevailed upon him to keep the stolid von Rundstedt in command. He would have two very able subordinates, General Walther Model leading 2nd Panzerarmee, and General Hoth leading the smaller 3rd Panzerarmee.

The divisions sorted themselves out, becoming a leaner force when four divisions were withdrawn by Guderian and Halder for deployment to the West. All were hard fighting divisions, the 2nd, 6th, 7th and 16th Panzer Divisions, and their absence would be keenly felt. All their equipment was left in the field, and that allowed the remaining units to refit more quickly. When the troops arrived in Germany, they would get all new equipment, and then take up positions in France.

Now Rundstedt looked east. The Soviet line ran from Moscow to just east of Serpukhov, then down to Tula, which they had taken at great cost the previous winter. 5th Army held there, and then 43rd Army under Sobbenikiov ran along the main road and rail line south towards Mtensk and Orel. That was the same road Guderian had clawed his way up the previous November, and the Russians had fought hard to maintain control of that vital communications corridor. 7th Army under Meretskov now held the line from Plavsk down past Gorbachevko and Orel, and then they moved in the17th Siberians under Paturov. He was tasked with securing the tentative Soviet hold on Orel, but it was not to be, at least not that summer.

Von Rundstedt was planning a major offensive, and to prepare the way he sent 18th, 22nd, and 24th Panzer Divisions storming into Orel before the Soviets could consolidate there. This forced the 7th Army back, which prompted Zhukov to send in his war heroes, the Siberians. One of Karpov’s armies was already south of Orel, the fighting 24th. They had held out in the Kirov Pocket for many long months, then moved to Bryansk to hold that city against all comers until Zhukov ordered them to break out of the pocket and fight their way east to Orel. This they did, and now they were to be reinforced by the 17th Siberians, for this segment of the line screened the vital rail line east to Lipetsk. The 24th took the line about 30 kilometers east of Mtsensk, where it began licking its wounds and looking for supplies and equipment. The 17th came in on its left and southern flank, opposite the newly German occupied Orel.

“This is where they are strongest,” said von Rundstedt, “and so this is exactly where we will hit them. “We will break through with 2nd Panzerarmee, open a hole between those two Siberian armies, and then send Hoth right on through with 3rd Panzerarmee. He will drive due east to Lipetsk.”

That was the plan, and it was executed with traditional German ferocity in the attack. The 17th Siberians had barely had time to catch their breath after arriving on the trains, when suddenly they were faced with the mobile wrath of five massed German Panzer Divisions. Concentrated against the 17th Siberians, they punched through in a grueling two-day fight, whereupon Hoth ran through the hole in the line like a madman, his 57th Panzer Korps leading the Schwerpunkt through with 12th Panzer Division. On July 8th, the tip of Hoth’s spear was already 40 kilometers east of the breakthrough point where the battle was still raging. The Siberians had tried to plug the gap by sending in their one reserve unit, the 57th Motor Rifle Division, but it bought them only a brief stay.

Hoth would drive that penetration 100 kilometers before the Soviets could react and bring in two reserve armies to try and staunch the deep wound in the front. His lead elements were nearing Yelets, covering half the distance to Lipetsk in three days before growing pressure on both the north and southern flanks of the penetration prompted him to stop. It was here that the wisdom of Sergei Kirov was most keenly seen. What Hoth needed now, more than anything, was good infantry to hold the flanks of his drive so he could keep the Panzer Divisions moving instead of having to fend off enemy counterattacks. But all that infantry was far to the west, fighting to reduce the Kirov Pocket and claim the city named for the Soviet head of state.

Events would continue to develop rapidly over the next week. The Grossdeutschland Division Recon Battalion fought like demons to hold the narrow grip they had over the Don north of Kalach. They held off the entire Soviet 8th Armored Corps, a formation that perhaps had less striking power than its name suggested. Further south, 1st SS Division reached the lower Don, then turned the area over to German security regiments and moved northeast to rejoin the main attack on Volgograd.

Then, on July 15, 1942, the SS 5th Panzergrenadier Regiment of the Totenkopf Division met a strange looking band of cavalry. The SS had been sent to see if a crossing point could be forced south of Tormosin that would allow an approach to Volgograd from the southwest. There, Ivan Volkov had mustered units at Kotelnikovo and sent them up to that very place. It was defended by a pair of Soviet Rifle Divisions that had been dug in there for nearly a month. Volkov’s troops merely watched them from their positions on the southern bank of the river… Until the Totenkopf Division arrived. Volkov’s men fished, swatted mosquitoes, lolled about on the banks of the river occasionally firing a mortar or artillery piece at the Soviets, and basically watching the German troops methodically reduce the defense to nothing over a three-day battle.

Then the Argir Cavalry Regiment of Volkov’s Kuban Command swam their horses across the river to meet their new found ‘Allies’ for the first time in the war. The rag tag horsemen stared in awe when they saw the tough Germen Panzergrenadiers in their dark camo uniforms, MG-42s slung over their broad shoulders, and belts of ammunition dangling below their waist. The Germans did not quite know what to make of them. They looked much like all the other cavalrymen they had chewed up in their long year of war in Russia.

It was an awkward and near silent meeting, until one of the Lieutenants in the Argir Cav simply clicked his heels together and stiffened his arm in the traditional Nazi salute. “Heil Hitler!” he shouted, “Heil Volkov!”

This brought smiles and laughter from the Germans, and a burly SS Sergeant stepped forward, extending his hand. With that single handshake, the Germans had finally linked up with their ally deep within the heartland of Asia, the Orenburg Federation, and the war would never be the same after that.

Chapter 6

The strategic situation facing the Soviets at Volgograd was radically different from that in Fedorov’s history. The entire eastern bank of the Volga was a hostile shore, where despondent troops under the black flag of Orenburg huddled in heavy concrete bunkers studded with the cold steel of artillery and machineguns. The daily ritual was for both sides to exchange desultory artillery fire, but Volkov’s men had never been able to press a direct cross river assault against the city itself. In fact, Kirov’s troops had crossed years ago, occupying areas where the river swept in a wide bend near Beketova, and now they also sat in heavy fortified bunkers, waiting.

Yet nothing could get down that river from the north in the way of barges for supply. The guns on the east bank were plentiful enough to close that waterway completely. Instead, the city relied on the rail lines coming in from the north, west, and south. Two of the three had already been cut, leaving only the north rail line open to feed in the vital stores of food, fuel, ammunition and replacement troops, if they could be found. If that rail line were to be cut, then the city would have to rely on its own internal production.

The politically important city of Kirov had done this for over six months, the stony heart beating at the center of the Kirov Pocket. On July 19, that city finally fell, as the thick encircling bands of German infantry slowly closed on it like a steel vise. Sergei Kirov wept that night, not for the dint to his personal pride, but for the thousands of men who had fought there, enduring the whole winter, the rains and mud of spring, undaunted, until they were simply overcome by superior numbers and lack of supplies.

The city itself was a gaunt, broken ruin, its buildings decapitated by artillery and bombing, the cold stone walls of the ruins scored black with the char of fire. Virtually anything that could be burned for heat and cooking had already been consumed. There wasn’t a dog left alive in the entire city, as all had been killed for food long ago, and not even the ubiquitous rats survived the hunger that sought them out in the last extreme. In many ways it was harder to take the news of the city’s demise than the burning of Moscow, and it was compounded when on that same day, the German 51st Infantry Korps stormed into Kursk.

Further north, the Russians had taken hold of Hoth’s 3rd Panzer Army like a man wrestling with a mighty serpent. The 1st Shock Army under Konev had moved into reserve long ago, and it struck from the north, while Yeremenko’s 1st Red Banner Army came up from the south. He had not yet fully supplied his army, and felt he had been forced into combat before he was ready, but war was war. Now his army was strung out along the deep southern shoulder of Hoth’s advance, and the two armies had brought enough to the fight to slow and then stop the German drive.

“We’ve stopped them,” said Zhukov, “but we haven’t the strength to do anything more. Pushing them back is out of the question. And now, with this news of the end of resistance in the Kirov Pocket, I fear the Germans will soon be bringing all the infantry they had there onto the line. I give us another month, but after that, something will break.”

“What about all the troops we have on the Don?” asked Kirov. “Might we launch that offensive early?”

“We might, but it would likely stall half way to our planned objective. Give me time and let me build those divisions up a bit more. I’m sending them everything I can get my hands on. Under the circumstances, I will have no troops left for the planned attack towards Kharkov this summer… They are all in the Kuban.”

“Enough of that!” Kirov turned on him. “If they weren’t there, all the Germans facing them would be elsewhere.”

“You mean the two divisions at Kerch in the Crimea? Those are the only German forces presently in contact with our armies in the Caucasus. Even Volkov has been content to simply sit on his line south of the Kuban and wait. They are completely ignoring that front, as I knew they would. There is plenty of time for that later. The Germans just linked up with Volkov south of Tormosin. That route isn’t practical for any real communications between the two sides, but it was a nice little symbolic victory for the folks back home.”

“Yes,” said Kirov sullenly. “I’m sure the Führer was delighted, particularly since his Generals also handed him Kursk and Kirov today. Damn! It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. We should be stronger! Where are all our tank armies?”

Berzin stepped forward, nudging Kirov’s elbow, for Kirov’s remarks were opening a door that Zhukov had never walked through. The knowledge of what had happened in this war once before was still a closely guarded secret. Even though the old “Red Archives” had been deliberately burned by Berzin in those last hectic moments in Moscow, he had managed to save one book. Over many long nights since that time, both he and Sergei Kirov had poured over it like two high priests over a bible, until the pages were worn at the edges with their heavy use. And they could recite passages from that book as if they were scripture: Stalingrad, Chapter 7, verses 10 through 15. But it wasn’t happening that way this time, and they both seemed powerless to force the lines of battle into the shape they once assumed.

The Soviet Union was not producing anywhere near what it did in the old history. Oil was found in Siberia, but drilling was a slow and awkward process, delivery even slower. Factories had been relocated, but their output was sluggish. Now, to make matters even worse, the convoys had stopped coming to Murmansk and Archangelsk. PQ-17 had been slaughtered by the wolves of the Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe. The damage was so heavy that Britain cancelled the convoys for the foreseeable future. Kirov was promised that they would resume, and also promised that a Second Front would open soon, but not where he had hoped. It would come in North Africa, and not France—not this year or possibly even next year.

Those were verses Kirov and Berzin could also read of in their bible. They knew of Operation Torch, but wondered if it could succeed this time around. And yet, that history, the foreknowledge of what might come, was as much a mockery as a balm to them in these hours. There they could read of victories that could not yet be grasped, of massive tank armies sweeping over the steppes, but they were nowhere to be found.

At times Berzin marveled that Zhukov would conceive of the very same strategies and planned attacks that he had devised in the history. He was even calling them by the same names, operations named for the planets circling in their dark, cold orbits above—Mars, Uranus, Saturn. The plan that had been the undoing of the German attack on Stalingrad, Operation Uranus, was slowly taking shape now on the line of the northern Don. Yet there would be no southern pincer this time. All the ground that had been used to stage and build the armies in the south was now occupied by Volkov’s troops.

Now Zhukov was calling his new version of the plan Operation Mars. His war gods were lining up on the Don, gathering their strength each day in the slow process of rebuilding and delivery, and he hoped to unleash them in one mighty blow that would reach all the way to the lower Don, destroying anything in his path.

It was an agony of one kind for Kirov and Berzin to listen to him expound his plans. They could see what was done in the history, and see how it could not be done now, and that difference scalded their souls.

“He’s calling it Mars this time,” said Berzin when Zhukov had left them. “That was the big operation he planned around Rzhev where our losses were so heavy they would not be officially acknowledged for years.”

“Yes,” said Kirov, “the Rzhev Meat Grinder. It never happened, and thank god for that. Strange that he chose that name instead of Uranus as he did in the material. If we do launch the attack soon, let us hope it does not bear the curse of Zhukov’s old Operation Mars.”

On the 22nd of July, Zukov decided to act. The Germans already had a reinforced division over the Don at Kalach, but the local commander, Chiukov, had reacted by moving in some of his toughest infantry, the Volga Guards Rifle Corps. These hardened troops dug in and refused to move, in spite of every attack the Germans put against them.

In truth, Steiner’s divisions were now at the end of a very long logistics chain. They had come over 200 miles from their first assembly point at Kantirmirovka, and over terrain that had very poor roads along the line of their advance. The only rail line that directly served their present position ran southwest along the Chir River, through Morozovsk to reach the Donets at Belaya Kalivta before continuing west into the big industrial mining hub of the Donets Basin. This line was torn to shreds, and could not be used. The Germans were still fighting to seize its vital hubs and connection points, all on the south bank of the Donets.

Another line ran north to south, coming down from the German rail hub at Kantirmirovka through Millerovo where it split, with one line running southwest to Voroshilovgorad, and the second due south to Kamensk Shaktilinskiy on the Donets, and then into the basin again. So that meant Millerovo was now the closest rail hub the Germans would have in their effort to take Volgograd, and that was all of 150 miles behind the fighting.

Fuel stocks were running low in Steiner’s Korps, and ammunition was at a premium, with some units down below 30% of standard issue. The one good thing that had happened was the arrival of fresh infantry, which did much to aid the SS in eliminating the two stubborn Soviet Mountain Divisions that had been defending the western bank of the crossing at Kalach. Those divisions were broken, and the Germans pushed across, only to run into Chiukov’s Volga Rifles. Then, with his front line units in the Don bridgeheads reporting they were now at 100% supply status, Zhukov decided to spring a surprise attack. It was a long time until the first snows of Winter, and he knew he could not simply sit there, particularly with all that was happening in the center of the line as the Germans drove on Lipetsk.

At 04:00 he sent in the first waves of riflemen from 61st and 66th Rifle Corps. They had scouted out a weak point in the German line where the 530th Regiment of the German 299th Infantry Division had only just arrived, with no supporting units on either side for over five kilometers. 4th Mech and 7th Tank Corps were right behind them, ready to surge against the line at a point some 30 kilometers west of the Don.

Zhukov’s plan was to launch a series of attacks against that flank, like successive hammer blows all along the line. This first attack was Gerasimenko’s 21st Army, now heavily reinforced with the addition of two more mobile corps, the 1st Guard Tank, and 25th Tank Corps. Next up the line on their right were the 3rd and 4th Shock Armies in the Serafimovich bridgehead, with the 2nd Shock Army further west near Veshenskaya. This was the main attack, where Zhukov hoped the combined mass of all three armies would overwhelm the German infantry screen and punch through for rapid movement to the south.

Next came Lukin’s 58th Army, which was to put in a pinning attack near Kazanskaya. Then, at Boguchar, Cherivichenko would throw his 9th Army against the line, hoping to reach Kantirmirovka and cut the rail line south into Millerovo. Even as far away as Rossosh, over 200 miles from that opening attack near the Don, all the units were to at least begin a masking barrage of artillery, hoping to convince the Germans that a big push was imminent there as well.

The last force of note in his larders was the powerful 2nd Guards Army on the line at Chernvanka, about 60 kilometers north of Valuki. That was another key rail hub for the Germans, and though he did not think this single army could go that distance alone, he told it to try. The threat itself would be likely to pull in German reserves that might otherwise move east. Then, for good measure, he ordered a counterattack at Kursk to contest the Germans there. If nothing else, it would put a new headline in the papers, both east and west.

All along the line the Soviet artillery roared. Tanks surged forward followed by the motorized infantry regiments. The cavalry divisions thundered after them, sabers drawn and gleaming in the summer sun. Ponderous rifle divisions followed, wave after wave of Soviet infantry swarming around the German regiments of the line, which were now in a fight for their lives.

A frantic radio call came in from General Kempf to Steiner at his headquarters near Oblivskaya. He was with the last of his Korps units, minus the two Panzer Divisions, and he was moving southwest, ordered to follow the SS with its supporting infantry divisions.

“Steiner! Do you realize what’s happening? My column is 60 kilometers south of the Don front, and a Soviet motorcycle regiment just came up on our rear. They are behind us!”

Steiner was shocked. The infantry shield screening all those Soviet bridgeheads had been pierced south of Veshenskaya, and the Russians had sent the 17th Tank Corps and 5th Cavalry Corps right on through.

“Where are your panzers?”

“11th and 23rd are still south of Boguchar, but Balck radioed and told me a goddamned tank brigade just came up on his position 35 kilometers south of the city. There’s a big attack there as well.”

“Damn!” Steiner swore, his forehead red with anger. Then he realized the danger that thrust represented.

“They want Kantirmirovka. If they take that, it cuts the rail line into Millerovo, and there goes the last of my supplies. You must stop them there. Turn your entire column around and get back up there. I don’t need your infantry here now. The 42nd Korps arrived two days ago. Just hold that rail hub. Understand?”

“Alright, but you had better look to your north flank. Hansen called to report the 54th Korps is under attack there—all along the line. This is a big offensive.”

“It can’t be that big,” said Steiner dismissively. “It’s probably nothing more than a spoiling attack to take the pressure off our push for the Volga. You’ll see.”

“Well what about those troops behind my column?”

“Go around them! Just protect that railhead.”

Kempf heard the line go dead, and threw down the radio handset in disgust. He reached for his gloves, pulling them on slowly. “Go around them, he tells me. I’ve got bridging equipment, Nebelwerfers and artillery regiments, a mortar battalion, and my lead division is already well to the east. I’ve only the 57th Infantry Division here, but go around them we will.”

He quickly found a staff Leutnant. “Get everything turned around. We move back to Kantirmirovka at once.”

The tank unit that had the misfortune of running right up on the 11th Panzer Division as it did was the Soviet 10th Brigade. There, another man was pulling on his leather gloves, one Hermann Balck, one of Germany’s most able panzer leaders. Wounded seven times in the first war, Balck had survived to join the Inspectorate of Motorized Troops before the war. He rode with Guderian in France, spearheading the crossing of the Meuse, then fought well in Russia with his fighting 11th. He would later be noted for his incredible defense against the Soviet 5th Tank Army along the River Chir during the winter counterattack that encircled Paulus and his 6th Army, killing over 1000 Soviet tanks in the defense, and basically stopping the entire Army. In fact, no other German division ever matched the 11th panzer when it came to confirmed enemy tank kills. Now here was a summer counterattack, most unexpected, and it aimed to do the very same thing to Steiner’s SS Korps that the winter attack had done to Paulus.

“What in God’s name is that?” Balck squinted through his field glasses, pointing at the oncoming Russian tanks. Then his mind raced to the only possible conclusion. His division was laagered 40 kilometers south of Boguchar, and if those were Soviet tanks, it meant they had broken through the 4th Infantry Korps line there, at least in one place. Yet knowing the German infantry well, he realized that they would have pulled in their flanks if hit with a really big attack, and adopted a defensive formation known as the hedgehog.

“Hauptmann,” he ordered. “Kill those tanks!”

With that order Balck would begin an odyssey of brilliant defensive maneuvers that would live up to the division moniker of Gespensterdivision—the Ghost Division, one of the most effective Panzer Divisions of the war. The division insignia often bore the image of a ghost, and now that spirit would begin haunting the Soviets like a demon from hell.