The Year of Returned Hope
Part 6: The Indirect Approach V, May 7 – May 24, 1943
In Clausewitz’s opus magnum,
On War, one of the major features that distinguishes defense from offense as the superior of the two is the culminating point of victory. This culminating point comes when the attack has petered out, when offensive power has been diluted from requirements for manpower for securing the rear and the losses from casualties and friction. It is the point that the attack has sufficiently weakened that it becomes impossible and in its stead the defense takes over. At the same time, the defender had been forced to fall back onto his rearmost positions, closest to his bases of supply and his sources of reinforcement. At this uneasy point the war is finely balanced; though the defense inherently has the greater advantages, notwithstanding the damage done and industries and resources lost from the prior campaign, the further prosecution of the war rests upon the relative regenerative capabilities of both belligerents.
Beginning in mid-May, the specter of the culminating point of victory progressively grew to haunt Mussolini more and more. The defense was ultimately the stronger form of warfare and this Mussolini knew well. Italy was, however, on the attack. The Soviet defense was slowly strengthening, and from reports filing onto his desk Mussolini could see its growing effects. The changes were subtle, but they were increasing in scope despite continuing Italian victories. Bastico extended army went onto the offensive in the north, trying to keep the Soviets off balance. Two Soviet divisions were trapped and destroyed at Zvornik at the cost of nearly four hundred and seventy Italian lives. Other battles also took place: at Srbobran, at Ljubinje, at Novi Sad and at Foca. All were victories, but the price of victory a climbing ever higher. Over twenty-three hundred Italian lives were claimed in the process of gaining these victories, but so about thirty-five hundred Soviet lives were destroyed as well. In the south, meanwhile, the Soviets were simply shoving more troops into the ever shrinking battle area in an attempt to impose sufficient friction on the Italians to bring them to a halt.
The Italian advance was continuing despite ever increasing Soviet resistance.
Rudo, Dubrovnik, Prijepojie, Herceg-Novi, Ada. The roll of Italian victories continued, as did the inevitable drumbeat of carnage. Nearly three thousand Italians and over four thousand two hundred Soviets gave up the ghost in these battles. With operational surprise gone and tactical density increasing, casualties mounted rapidly. Italian momentum was too great for the Soviets to so easily halt them, but friction and casualties would take their toll eventually. On May 12th, however, a new ally appeared to aid the Italians. Rebels. Illyrian rebels materialized just south of the Hungarian border and immediately declared for Italy. It seemed that the Illyrians preferred Fascism to Communistic paradise. It would take the Soviets numerous divisions and some time to defeat this rebellion, though in the end they would defeat it. In the meantime, however, they served Mussolini well by providing both a minor distraction for the Soviets and useful intelligence for Mussolini. In the south, Soviet divisions were simply being ground down by the Italians. The Soviets had finally even achieved superior numbers in the area: at Herceg-Novi the Soviets had fielded four divisions of three brigades each against two Italian divisions of two brigades. In terms of manpower, these divisions varied, with one nearly full in strength but the other three ranging from ten percent under strength to thirty or even forty percent. However, most tellingly, the organizations of these divisions had been largely pulverized, the divisional commanders had difficulty controlling their formations. Oppositely, the Italian divisions were in superb shape, buoyed by their victories in past battles. The Italians rolled onward, southward.
The Italian war machine acting more like a juggernaut than it had any right to, particularly in the south.
In Greece Vercellino had not remained idle. After finally achieving the withdrawal to Amfissa, without losing a single formation despite Soviet superiority, he held his ground and bided his time. The Soviets were forced to disperse their formations to adequately guard against any move he could make. With the continuing chaos and defeat occurring for the Soviets in Illyria, they continued to slowly strip their blocking forces in Greece of divisions. By May 23, only five Soviet formations remained on the line there, albeit with a handful of others still nearby. It was on this day that Vercellino made his first attempt to break out of the dead end he had been forced back into and to again contribute materially to the major operations that were going on. He would use Cei’s mobile corps and slam into the Soviet line at Lamia, where only a single Soviet infantry division held the line. The corps would then wheel westward and, leaving rearguards in major towns, drive toward the eastern Ionian Sea. Vercellino aimed for nothing short of encircling the entire Soviet line in Greece.
More action in Greece!
Battle continued, with slaughter in attendance. Clausewitz, dreadfully impressed by the Napoleonic Wars that had dominated the first half of his life, had written that in war there was no interest in generals who could achieve victories without carnage, for blood was the currency of battle and battle was the sole referent tool of strategy. In abstract, Mussolini was forced to largely agree with this viewpoint. In practice, however, this could be taken to the opposite extreme—and indeed had been during the First World War—and bloodshed had become the currency of strategy and of war and its overriding aim. Between May 15 and May 24, the Italians had lost over eighteen hundred more men, and the Soviets forty-two hundred more. By May 19th another Soviet division, a marine formation, had been encircled and on its way to being destroyed as well. Italian forces entered Albania from the north and Soviet forces were reeling from continuing defeat and disaster. As usual, the Soviet front in the south was broken off from that in the north; the Italians moved into the gap again to exploit this by then turning northward. By May 24th, a Soviet armored division was encircled at Mionica and under assault, though there were major Soviet efforts in progress to rescue it from destruction. It was in the far north, however, that the greatest dangers seemed to lie: large numbers of Soviet formations were finally beginning to turn up from other fronts and from the strategic reserves. Bastico’s army was overstretched and dealing with too many tactical issues at once.
The situation late in the afternoon on May 24th.
The Italians had to wonder how long it would last—the procession of victory, that is. Surely they were approaching their culminating point of victory, particularly given that the Italian order of battle had become snarled all across the front and the armies had been mis-concentrated, with two armies pushing toward Greece and only one, albeit the single most powerful, holding half of the entire front in the north. This was why Mussolini had ordered some formations to exploit the gap and turn northward. It was soon coming time for a drive northward. If, indeed, the Italians were not halted before then.