Recap - The Battle for Kiev and the Dniepr crossing: Frunze had staged a diversionary attack against Kiev. The goal had been to keep the Germans too busy to send reinforcemnts into the Eastern Ukraine so that Trotzky and Sievers would be able to occupy it without encountering serious resistance. Their ultimate objective was to secure the Eastern bank of the Dniepr and then dig in. The diversion worked as planned: After pushing the Ukrainians back from Kiev, Soviet forces besieged the city until a massive German counteroffensive forced them to retreat to the Eastern bank of the Dniepr. The German pursued Frunze's army and managed to encircle it. In the meantime, two frontal attacks had been bloodily repulsed.
In the Eastern Ukraine, Soviet forces had advanced at a steady pace. While Siveres army attacked Kharkov from the North, Trotzky pushed westward from his base at Donetsk. Enemy resistance was weak: the Ukrainian forces were scattered and few in numbers. Mamontov's Cossacks were trapped on the Eastern bank of the Don by Soviet river fleets that controlled the entire length of the river. With nowhere to go, the Cossacks would soon starve. In the South Makhno's Anarchists and a seizable number of Greens controlled the countryside.*
On June 16th, Sievers conquered Kharkov for the second time in the war (after Budyenny had taken the city in January, Ukrainian forces had reoccupied it when the Soviets were forced to retreat due to the ultimatum). The small disorganized garrison was swiftly dealt with. Ukrainian papers soon wrote horrid reports about war crimes committed by Soviet units. Obviously this was nothing but hearsay; as Sievers stated in an interview with Pravda: "How can they claim that? Have they any witnesses? - Exactly, they don't! And they can't have because we didn't leave any survivors!"
On the same day, Orzhonikidze crushed a small pocket of Cossacks and Ukrainians that had still held out at Lugansk. Again Soviet losses were minimal.
While Sievers and Trotzky now joined forces and marched towards the Dniepr, Zhloba's cavalry army was dispatched south. His mission: clear the Southern Ukraine of counter-revolutionaries (Ukrainians, Anarchists and Greens) and secure the major railway towards the Krim. On August 10th, he clashed with a minor force of Ukrainians at Melitopol. The Soviet horsemen butchered their opponents and then swung east into the Anarchist heartland.
On September 1st, they made contact with Makhno's Anarchists. 3.400 enemies were killed at the cost of 82 Red horsemen. Three days later both forces clashed again. It was to be the end of the Ukrainian Anarchist movement. Outnumbered 10:1, they stood no chance and were slaughtered. Amongst the dead were 4.500 Anarchists and 1.700 Soviets.
At the end of the month, Zhloba turned to face the last remaining enemies of the revolution in the Eastern Ukraine: The Green rebels occupying the coastal cities south of Huilaipole. On September 28th, battle ensued. The Red cavalrymen wiped out the small peasant army. 5.000 Greens and 1.400 Reds died that day.
In the meantime, Trotzky had not only reached the Dniepr but crossed it in force. On September 1st, his army took Ekaterinoslav that had been left with nothing but a weak garrison of Ukrainian troops. 6.800 were killed. Red losses remained at a tenth of this number. More painful was the loss of general Zhdanov who was cowardly murdered by an Ukrainian sniper.**
The Eastern Ukraine was now safely in Soviet hands. Without Frunze's diversion this painless campaign would almost certainly have been impossible. It stands to reason that the German High Command would have used its control of the Ukrainian railway network to rush reinforcements into the Eastern Ukraine if they hadn't been preoccupied with Kiev.
Further west, Frunze was - inspite of his recent victories***- in a very dangerous position. He was surrounded by Austrian forces and all his supply routes were cut-off. If a new supply route couldn't be established soon, his huge army would starve. The Soviet leadership decided to launch two attempts to break the pocket simultaniously:
The main attack would try to break through at the northern flank of the pocket. This sector was guarded by von Bojna's 40.000 Austrians but they were sure to get support from Brecht's Germans further south. The Soviet attack was to be led by Budyenny who had just arrived at Kharkov with almost 90.000 men that weren't needed any longer against the crumbling Southern White. Ordzhonikidze was ordered to throw his 66.000 men into the fight once the battle had started.****
Initially the plan worked very well: Budyenny's men, battle-hardened veterans of the civil war, attack ferociously. The Red Army managed to inflict higher casualties than it suffered. Especially, the I. Austrian Korps was badly mauled. But right when the Red Army was on the brink of achieving a breakthrough, Brecht's Germans arrived on the battlefield and launched a devastating counterattack. Slowly but surely the Soviet forces were pushed back. A furious Budyenny had to order a retreat. But the blame for this defeat rests with Ordzhonikidze. Had he managed to bring his 66.000 men onto the battlefield in time, the Soviets would most likely have won. His failure to do so, doomed Budyenny's attack.***** Thus the lifes of 26.000 Soviet soldiers were sacrificed in vain. 8 infantry regiments had been entirely wiped out. But Austrian casualties had been high as well: Almost 23.000 soldiers died. 3 armoured car regiments and 2 infantry units had been annihilated.
In a secondary attack, Chervanin was ordered to try and slip out of the Dniepr pocket and open up a link to the depot in Chernigov. This wasn't a perfect solution since the lack of a railway line meant that supplies would have to be hauled in on dirt roads. Moreover, there was a chance that the Austrians would occupy Niyn again which they had left unguarded after Bojna had passed through. Fortunately, their main army was still at Kiev under the Archduke of Austria's personal command. On the other hand, the forces on the Eastern Dniepr bank would be fully occupied with keeping Frunze in the pocket and couldn't spare the troops to guard Niyn. The gamble paid off and Chervanin managed to establish a hole in the pocket through which a limited number of supplies could reach Frunze's army.
The moment of mortal peril for Frunze's army had thus passed. Nevertheless, the strategic situation was still unfavourable. Unless the railway line to Frunze could be reopened, his supply situation would remain critical and troop movement in reaction to further Austrian offensives would be slow.
In the meantime, harsh airbattles had been waged over the Ukrainian sky, the combat was especially vicious over Kiev and Brovary.
On August 17th, it seemed as if the Soviet airforce would gain control over the skies: 33 enemy airplanes were shot down as opposed to 16 Red planes lost. But a day later the tide turned. German squadrons intercepted a Russian bombing raid and slaughtered their enemies en masse. 34 airplanes with the Red star on their tail went down that day whereas the Central Powers lost only 6 planes. On August 25th, the Soviet pilots redeemed themselves by shooting down 12 enemy airplanes while losing 8 of their own. Nevertheless, Germany started to get ahead.
In the next months, the losses became more and more devastating: September 8th saw the most ferocious airbattle to date: 31 Soviet and 30 German planes went down. It was to be the last time that the Soviet airforce was able to hold its own. With its last reserves exhausted, it became an easy prey for their enemy. On September 29th and October 25th, 26 Soviet pilots were shot down by their German opponents. The only German plane to share that fate was later attributed to engine failure. At that point the Soviet leadership had already decided to abandon the fight for the sky over Kiev. The remaining Red squadrons were pulled out of the Ukraine.
On the ground, the Red Army was more successful: another attempt to regain control of the railway to the Dniepr was launched. This time Ordzhonikidze was to lead the attack with his fresh troops and Budyenny was ordered to provide support. Yet when the Soviets arrived at Nossivka, von Bojna had already abandonned the area. Both, he and Brecht, had retreated towards the Dniepr. Apparently, the bloody Soviet counter-offensive had scared the Austrian commanders enough to abandon their plan to sack Frunze's army. Besides, with Chervanin's unopposed breakthrough, the pocket had already been cracked. Thus there was little point to risk von Bojna's army being cut-off or even destroyed.
During the next weeks, the Austrians abandonned their remaining position on the Eastern Dniepr bank and occupied secure positions on the Western side of the river. Soviet forces, followed them in careful moves until they occupied the entire Eastern bank by November 1921.
1: Ordzhonikidze - 2201 pw
2: Budyenny - 2564 pw
3: Blucher - 695 pw
4: Mironov - 141 pw
5: von Burgneustetten - 1800 pw
Now a continous frontline of mutually supporting corps had been established from the Prypiat Marshes all the way to Ekaterinoslav. The Dniepr Line that had been the objective of the Soviet warplan had finally become a reality. With both armies well entrenched on their side of the river, the Ukrainian front was locked in stalemate.******
However not every German was prepared to settle down. General von König was in charge of almost 9.000 cavalrymen. He proposed to break through the Soviet trenches in a glorious cavalry charge and "scatter those Russian peasants like rabbits". Von Hindenburg send furious orders prohibiting a frontal attack and demanded that von König outflank the Soviet position. But the cavalry commander chose to ignore such cowardly advice in his pursuit of glory. On October 19th, von König's cavalry division charged head-on towards the Russian trenches. Trotzky and Avtonomov couldn't believe their eyes when they saw such medieval tactics. Nevertheless, they quickly ordered their artillerists and machine-gunners to take care of these fools. No German horseman came even close to the Russian trenches; von Königs entire division was wiped out within minutes. Trotzky called the event "the charge of the dumb brigade". A term that became the headline of the Pravda article announcing this great victory to the Soviet public.******* Von König's folly robbed Germany of some of its most mobile units and was to be the last German attack in this sector.
But as the war died down in the Ukraine it heated up further north as a new front opened. On August 30th, 1921 the Baltic nations had entered the war ...
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* In this scenario the Anarchists are at war with the Soviets. Luckily, the AI isn't able to conduct effective guerilla operations; otherwise these highly mobile troops could become a real nuisance.
** There is no option to get additional generals in this scenario and I was already desperately short because of the massive expansion the army had undergone during the peacetime months.
*** See chapter 4.
**** I put him on offensive posture so that he would attack as soon as he had marched to the sound of guns. Frunze was inactive and thus wouldn't assist. I wanted Budyenny to land the first punch with his stronger force. Since he was in command of an army hq, his troops might disengage once Ordzhonikidze's corps reached the battlefield. This was fine by me since it would have meant that fresh troops would have taken over the fighting.
***** This is a result of the low strategic values Soviet generals tend to have. With his 3 point rating Ordzhonikidze's chances to join the battle during its 2nd round were considerably lower than that of the German general Brecht who has a strategic value of 6.
****** The biggest battle of this campaign may have been a defeat (although not a bad one), but on a strategic level it was a major win. The Red Army had secured an excellent defensive position.
Heavily behind in VP (at this point the Germans had over a 1.000 points less than the Reds and their VP income per turn was lower as well), Highlandcharge needed to attack in order to win. The focus of the Red player must thus be to lock entire fronts in stalemate. I had achieved this in the Minsk sector earlier and now the Ukraine (ideal for German attacks due to its wide and open territory) was out of the game as well.
The southern most part of the Ukraine remained unguarded but strangely Highlandcharge didn't tried to launch another attack there (it would have been reminiscent of the race to the Channel in WW I). I believe he didn't because he lacked a direct railway connection to that area. Moreover, I had already secured most of it with Zhloba's cavalry army.
******* Obviously this wasn't something Highlandcharge had planned. I think he changed to rail movement after he had mapped out his intended flanking move which screwed up the movement path of this division. rather than flanking my troops it tried to go through them. In a scenario as big as the Drang scenario, it is very hard to avoid mistakes. Unfortunately for Highlandcharge this was a costly one.