“They moved the reserve panzer corps they used to blunt my Summer counterattack. It crossed the Don at Belaya Kalivta and so I have had to pull in everything I could in that sector to reform a front there. I have even pulled the Marines out of Novorossiysk and sent them through the Kerch Strait to Taganrog. We will hold Rostov, perhaps for another month. After that, I cannot guarantee you anything, unless we give ground somewhere else to get the troops. Take a good look at the map now. The Kuban and Donets Basin are the largest pocket ever formed in the annuals of military history. They must now fight with what they have, and supplies they can produce in Rostov and the other cities there.”
“Those troops you pulled back from Kursk,” said Kirov, pointing at the map. “Are you going to leave them there? The Germans are breaking through behind them.”
“I will attempt to get as many out as I can, but withdrawal from a prepared line in heavy contact with the Germans will not be easy. I expect casualties of 30% or higher. Yet if I do leave them in place, we get yet another pocket, and they have the infantry to digest this one after Kirov fell.”
Kirov was silent for a time, thinking, the lines around his eyes deep with worry. “And the morale of the troops?” He asked. “Will they fight?”
Zhukov could see his distress, and passed a moment of pity for him, wanting to be able to say something, anything that might bring him some comfort or relief. “Yes,” he said, “they will fight. They haven’t given up yet, not anywhere I have been on the front.”
“Then get them out of that trap. Save them. Pull them back to the Donets as you planned earlier, and god help us if we can’t stop those panzers after that. I approve your plan to extract those two Siberian Armies from the line south of Tula. Let us hope they still have some fight in them.”
The order for that withdrawal was given, and Zhukov was pleased that the casualty rate was much lower than he expected, perhaps no more than 5%. On the high ground southwest of Voronezh, troops in the 8th Panzer Division could see masses of brown infantry moving like a great herd of animals towards the river. More than 25 divisions had pulled back, all trying to get to any bridge the engineers could erect, or make it over the one bridge at Georgu Dezu.
North of that town, a small flotilla of Soviet river gunboats bravely patrolled the muddy waters, and they saw hordes of mechanical animals heading their way, in utter awe. Model had decided to cross north of their position, his engineers quickly building a pontoon bridge over which he pushed the massed armor of 1st, 4th and 18th Panzer Divisions, along with both the 101st and 103rd Schwerepanzer Brigades. There were over 400 tanks in the operation, a mailed fist that was driving right over the river bridge and then fanning out in all directions, pushing up to the rail line about 15 kilometers east of the crossing point.
It was there that a wild melee ensued, for the panzers arrived just as the troops of the 17th and 24th Siberian armies were leaping from the trains to deploy. The German tanks were advancing in rows, blasting at the long line of train cars that seemed to stretch over 20 kilometers. Soviet troops were throwing equipment from the flat cars, seized by the infantry, which then turned and began to set up makeshift positions for their AT guns, mortars, and machineguns. The armored assault was coming up against seven or eight Siberian Rifle Divisions, all deploying from the boxcars, clutching little more than a rifle and a few grenades. If they failed to stop Model’s thrust, those fast moving tanks could roll up behind Voronezh from the south, and that was the plan.
North of the city, Hoth’s 3rd Panzer Army was massing to form another pincer, and the Germans hoped to clamp down on the entire defense of the city with those two massive jaws of steel. There was no good news for either Zhukov or Kirov that day. Even in the south, Balck’s intrepid Ghost Division had punched through the thin Soviet line, and Hauser went dashing into the breach, soon finding his battalion alone on the road south to Rostov. On the 6th of September, Balck received a radio call from him.
“Where are you? I haven’t heard from you for two days.”
“I am five kilometers from Rostov. I sent a squad up to have a look an hour ago. The city is virtually undefended. There are heavy flak units, a few Marines and lots of service troops, but no line army here. Come on down! Bring the division and we can take it for the asking in three days!”
Hauptman Paul Hauser and General Hermann Balck were out to make a mockery of Zhukov’s prediction that he could hold Rostov for another month. It seemed that everywhere, Soviet hopes were failing, and the German summer offensive was reaching for its final objectives with the violence of its sweeping advance. If Rostov fell, Balck would literally cut the massive pocket Zhukov had spoken of right in two. The Donets Basin pocket would be separated from the Kuban Pocket, and he would be occupying the primary base of supply for both.
It was then that Zhukov decided on another desperate gamble. When the Germans had taken the Crimea the previous year, they extracted 17th and 11th Armies and replaced them with Rumanian troops, which simply invested Sevastopol, making no effort to take it. There were six Soviet infantry and two tank divisions in a small enclave around that port, and if he could get them out by sea, they might be enough to save Rostov. Sergei Kirov now had to choose which city to hold, and of the two, Rostov was by far the most important. His Black Sea Fleet would sortie to cover the operation, and then simply move south to base at Novorossiysk.
For Kirov it was the gravest moment of the war, even surpassing the holocaust in Moscow the previous winter. At one throw, four major Russian cities were all under threat of imminent capture. Sevastopol would surely fall once those divisions were moved out, Rostov’s fate was as yet in doubt. Voronezh was slowly being surrounded by two massive arms of German steel, and the citizens of Volgograd could hear the German guns at night, the sound growing louder day by day.
Chapter 17
Kirov sat in his office at the Smolny Institute in Leningrad, the one city that had been spared the fire of war. The news seemed so far off in the quiet of the night, but he knew it was only a brief respite. If we lose the south, he thought, then next year they will come for us here. If we lose Rostov…. Then the Kuban is next, and Hitler finally gets the one city and rail line he needs to move the oil home to Germany. Damn him and damn that traitor Ivan Volkov to hell. I have fought that man tooth and nail since the revolution, and all the while I knew there was one sure way I might eliminate him. Yet I let him live because the consequences of taking his life were too uncertain—potentially catastrophic. Yet that is what I see unfolding now—catastrophe.
Yes… One sure way….
“Grishin!” he shouted over his shoulder, wanting his Intelligence Chief Berzin.
“Sir?” The bristly haired Chief came in from the study.”
“Round up a team of the best men we have—the very best—company strength. Then get me an airship big enough to lift them.”
Berzin stood there with a puzzled look on his face. “May I ask what for? Are we going to move the headquarters?”
“You might say that, my friend. Yes, we are moving it to the one city that matters now, more than any other we fight for this day.”
Berzin could take his pick. “You want to go to Volgograd?” He chose that city because he knew Kirov prized it above all the others, even Moscow.
“Not yet,” said Kirov, a far off look in his eye. “We are going to Ilanskiy.” He stood up, opening his desk drawer, and taking out a pistol he had kept for decades. It was the weapon he had used as a young man to kill Josef Stalin.