The Year of the Masters of War
Part 9: The Great Gamble of the War IV, July 24 – August 6, 1944
Surprise is a powerful ally for any soldier, this is certain. However, its effects rarely lost long. Military organizations intuitively understand certain aspects of war that tend to escape the notice and realization of their civilian superiors. These aspects include friction, surprise, enemy action and so on. Thus, the armed forces are chock-full of redundancy, and yet it is this redundancy that gives them flexibility in unforeseen situations. The Soviets had no real need of half a million men on Illyria front at the beginning of the year. By mid-summer, however, they were certainly glad to have had that many troops, for those redundant troops were making something of a difference.
By midday on the 23rd, Pintor’s army had an empty front before it. He saw the opportunity and took it, sending Roatta’s corps racing along the Hungarian southern border eastward, though within twenty-four hours a Soviet formation appeared to try to block the way. He directed Gambara southeastward at first, to sweep some minor Soviet flanking elements out of the way before he too would turn to exploit. At the same time, German units, both those under Italian operational control and those beyond it, began the attack to clear the Soviet pocket in the north, in which six Soviet divisions were trapped. Within twenty four hours, the pocket had been reduced by half and the final assault was finally underway. In the south Zadar, too, lay isolated by this point, albeit perhaps even only one Soviet division remained there. The second thrust to the Adriatic coast, at Korcula, was about to close like a great vice, and here it was anticipated perhaps even another half dozen Soviet and Allied divisions would be trapped. In the center of the front, the Soviets were simply getting pushed back, and with greater ease than before. Their formations were being ground down, their combat efficiency worn away. It would not be long until breakthrough all across the front.
The Illyrian front at midday on the 24th of July.
In the east, progress could of course not be nearly as rapid. Whereas the Illyrian front comprised five armies, after all, the Dacian and Thracian fronts together comprised only two, albeit large, armies. Here the advance was slow, particularly in Dacia, where Soviet resistance had truly begun increasing to potentially dangerous levels. If the Soviets managed to wrest control of the initiative from the Italians, they could concentrate sufficient strength to burst through Vercellino’s overstretched army and create a supply corridor into southeastern Europe. On the positive side, Baistrocchi’s and Vercellino’s armies finally linked up. Vercellino sent both of his infantry corps pushing south and southwest along the coast, and this resulted in the encirclement against the coastline of two Soviet divisions. Until these divisions were to be destroyed however, they remained just as dangerous as ever, and even more so as they forced the Italians to reverse fronts. The back and forth across this sector of front was unlike the character of operations further west. The Soviets were moving north, and Vercellino and Cei were simply trying to slow them down using their cavalry divisions. One of the two infantry corps was attacking southwestward into the flank of a Soviet formation that was itself attacking an Italian position directly east of it, and at the same time the other infantry corps was attacking directly southward into the pocket of Soviet troops that was directly behind the Italian troops that were being attacked. Even further south, the Soviets had been just stalled outside of Constanta, which was garrisoned by only a single headquarters brigade. The Italian lines in Dacia were looking very fragile as the sun set on the 26th of July.
The situation on the Dacian front on the 26th.
On the Illyrian front, the coast was finally cleared of Soviet divisions and the advance could continue southwestward. There the front had emptied considerably as a result of the Italian successes with their two coastal pockets. The very north in front of Roatta was again empty for a while, and he exploited. The greatest concentration of Soviet formations was in the center, opposite Guzzoni’s, Graziani’s and Bastico’s armies, and the southern wing of Pintor’s army. Here fighting was raging heavily: Slavonski Brod finally fell to the Italians after losses of over fifteen hundred on their part, and nearly thirty-eight hundred Soviet deaths. The Italians were nevertheless grinding forward there. In the north, Pintor’s army achieved another encirclement, of two divisions, and opened the front ahead of them again. The east, however, seemed nearly deadlocked. While the Italians were making some progress in relatively undefended sectors, the center of Dacia was locked up tight by the Soviets and their pressure on the thin Italian lines was increasing. The Soviet attack that was developing against the Italians on the Black Sea coast had reached such disturbing proportions, there were up to seven divisions with immediate access to the front of the one Italian division, that Mussolini called in all of Italy’s medium bombers to support the fight. The Italians were only just hanging on, and beginning to take heavy casualties in the east now as well. By the 2nd of August, only one thin cavalry screen stood before the Soviets and a supply line. Here, two of Cei’s three cavalry divisions were attacking to restore a buffer of security, along with Bergonzoli’s motorized infantry. Carrier aviation flew in support of the attack. This gambit eventually proved successful, but decimated—in the original sense of the word—the Italian forces involved. And yet the desperate defense was not yet over, as the Soviets were attacking elsewhere as well. The cavalry had to move to block them. By the 6th of August, the pressure had lessened. The Soviets had either shot their bolt or were reorganizing for another try. The buffer zone had been expanded, the Black Sea coastal pocket destroyed and the Dacian and Thracian fronts were more secure than ever before, despite horrific casualty rates in some battles. On the Illyrian front, Pintor’s army was beginning to race ahead in the north, with nothing but open space in front of it. In the south, Amadeo duca degli Abruzzi’s army too had pushed past the Soviet frontlines and was approaching Albania from the north. The center remained a cauldron of fire and blood.
The entire situation at noon on the 6th of August.
The previous thirteen days had cost the Italians, Germans, Soviets and Allies together nearly thirty-five thousand casualties. With the intensity of the fighting in Dacia increasing so too did the overall casualty rates for the campaign. In these thirteen days, nearly sixteen thousand Italians and Germans—and those only the Germans under Italian operational command, the Germans not under Italian control must also have suffered casualties—had died. At the same time, the Soviets and Allies had lost nearly twenty-four thousand six hundred. This is to say that the Soviet casualties increased by four hundred from the previous thirteen days to this set of thirteen days. Axis casualties, however, had increased by nearly five and a half thousand. This increase can probably be entirely put down to the increase of pressure on the Dacian front. However, making up for this increase of Italian and German casualties is the fact that during this period the first Soviet divisions were eradicated: Italian intelligence estimated that perhaps sixteen divisions had been destroyed during this time.