The Year of Ruin
Part 13: Operation Save-Ze-Germans IV, July 4 – July 10, 1945
During the invasion of Greece, the Italians proved that concentrating in time was just as powerful in certain situation as concentrating in space. However, concentration in either dimension is typically the action of the stronger power. The weaker party disperses, to avoid being caught and defeated. It is a rare scenario in which the weaker party concentrates, although it must be admitted that concentration in time is typically far more forgiving for a weak belligerent than concentration in space. Concentration relies upon mass, which the weak rarely have. Italy and Germany were, partly by design and partly by inadvertence, concentrating in time even though the Soviet army, together with Persian and Finnish co-belligerents, remained stronger than the combined might of the Axis powers, particularly given German ineptitude. The Soviets had been to some extent concentrating in space against the Germans, bolstered on its flanks by the Finns and the Persians. Yet the Italians had deliberately followed a military strategy of concentrating in time against the Soviets in Ukraine and the Caucasus. The German element in Finland was entirely accidental, although it had some useful purpose and on occasion even that front burst into life.
The Italians were, meanwhile, concentrating in space on the operational level in Poland, where three of their seven armies deployed against the Soviet Union were waging war. Two other armies were in the Ukraine, and the remaining two in the Caucasus. The three armies in Poland were continuing their forward push despite somewhat stiffening Soviet and Polish resistance. By July 4th, the battle for Warsaw had begun as the northernmost Italian division swept around the city and the forward Soviet lines of defense to strike toward the heart of the city directly. That Soviet frontline was, meanwhile, being overwhelmed by the rest of the corps Bastico had dedicated to the investment of Warsaw. Even the presence and use of Soviet armor was not enough to halt Italian momentum in that sector of front. Pintor’s 7a Armata, meanwhile, was swiftly coming up alongside Bastico’s solitary corps and striving toward a position from which it could engage the Soviet reinforcements moving northward, as was the second of Bastico’s corps. Nearly all Soviet pressure on the Germans had halted by this point, the Soviets more concerned with the plausibly looming destruction of their forces in Poland than with plausibly destroying German forces in front of them.
The Polish theater of operations on July 4th.
Soviet pressure had slackened to such an extent that the Germans even managed a couple of very limited, but successful, counterattacks. At the base of the once so-called Polish Corridor, the Germans recovered the east bank of the Vistula River. Further south in Silesia, a German counterattack led to the actual encirclement of a Soviet formation, which would actually result in its destruction. Operations had ground to a near standstill around Krakow as Cei’s mobile corps could not prize the Soviets out of their positions around the city, resulting in Vercellino’s infantry finally finding a significant role trying to push the Soviets further toward Germany and away from Krakow. Yet the real events were, of course, in the north around Warsaw. There, Bastico and Pintor were together planning on sweeping through the plains of Poland and rolling all Soviet formations before them. Bastico’s prize, already being fought over, was the Polish capital of Warsaw. Pintor’s objective was Poland’s third city, after only Warsaw and Krakow: Lodz. The fall of these two major cities was anticipated to crumble the Polish will to fight. The consequences of a general Polish surrender were calculated to possibly be immense.
Bastico and Pintor maneuvering in Poland.
The war also continued outside of Poland. Graziani and Guzzoni and the few German expeditionary forces left to them maneuvered desperately across the face of Ukraine, eking out tactical advantage in order to protect strategic opportunity. With German forces streaming away from the Ukrainian front back through Dacia and Illyria to the bankrupt fatherland, these few formations, infinitesimal as they were when compared to the Soviet masses before them, fought hard and well. Soviet formations were continually encircled and broken, and the Dnepr had been crossed. Kharkov and Kursk had fallen back into Italian hands. The Italians dispersed operationally in such a way that they could quickly concentrate tactically to inflict local defeats upon the Soviets, and make incisions through which they could move to isolate solitary divisions and destroy them before they could be relieved. The Soviets could do little against such operational measures save concentrate in time and try to move forward everywhere, yet while successful to some extent at the same time it only gave credence to the Italian efforts and spurred them on further. In and north of the Caucasus, Baistrocchi’s army and some loyal German formations was operating at just as high a tempo to keep the Soviets on the plains, rather than let them get to the mountains where they could entrench and hold ground. Amadeo Duca degli Abruzzi, meanwhile, was splitting his attention between aiding Baistrocchi to his north and dealing with the Persians to his south, going as far as to invade their actual country.
The near-total situation; not shown are the Caucasian and Persian campaigns.
Even the Germans were finally beginning to do their part once more, emaciated as their war effort had become. Besides achieving minor tactical successes in Poland, they also took advantage of the ever shrinking Soviet presence in the far north to launch an offensive of sorts there, and quickly pushed both Soviets and Finns southward to a significant extent. The Germans reached central Finland and on Soviet soil were nearing the great lakes that once defined the Russo-Finnish border. Italy was concentrating in time to the very best of its abilities, and even the Germans were contributing to this effort by mounting tactical distractions in Poland and a successful operational distraction in Finland.
Even the Germans were fighting—albeit in Finland.
The tempo of operations was high, and results were, overall, promising. The German collapse had been halted and the Soviet presence in Poland was being put in a very uncomfortable situation. The Soviets were spreading themselves thin having to deal with threats emerging from multiple quarters, a task which their army was becoming too small to do successfully. Yet these successes were coming at a cost. The week had possibly been the single most costly week of the entire war, with over thirteen thousand five hundred Italians dead in seven days. As usual, Soviet casualties were approximately double at just over twenty-six thousand eight hundred. The question remained, as ever: who would break first?
