"Remembered if Outlived": The Northern Balkans June 1944
With the fall of Beograd, the Soviet pressure on what was left of the Axis forces in the northen Balkans intensified. The elements that had been in action to the east of Beograd raced to reinforce Soviet positions in Western Hungary, Croatia, driving for the Adriatic or launched a new offensive aimed at Axis forces defending the line of the Sava and Drina to the west of Beograd.
(Soviet attack in North West Croatia)
Both sides were stretched and the result was a campaign of meeting engagements and movement rather than set piece assaults. The difference was the Soviet forces had massive numerical superiority and had effectively broken the axis forces into two separated blocks. One scattered across Central Yugoslavia and the other, in a more ordered front, defending Zagreb and Western Hungary.
In an attempt to complete the separation of the Axis forces, elements of 26 Army drove towards Split reaching town on 5 June. However, Soviet control of the roads behind the spearhead was weak and the Germans briefly restored their communications at Sinj on 12 June only for a Soviet force to retake the town from 12-13 June, linking back up with the beleagured force at Split.
With this, 26 Army held the narrow spearhead and tried to push westwards while 23 Army from the north and 5 Army from the east sought to breach the hurried German defense lines anchored on the Drina and Sava. Once 23 Army was over the Drina and 5 Army freed from the battle at Beograd, the German line fractured into a series of isolated engagements. The engagement at Doboj was the last chance for the bulk of the axis forces to break out.
Here they initially hit a weakly held sector and 9 days elements of 23 Army fought tenaciously to hold the line. By the time the Germans finally forced their way into the town, Soviet forces had driven further west and more units were deployed in the sector. A town they had taken with so much effort was retaken in less than an hour on 14 June.
(I've added the surrounding in-game map as it shows how far west I pushed while they were trying to break out ... and why the AI gave up such a hard won gain so easily)
Denied the chance to break out westward, the majority of Axis forces fell back into Southern Yugoslavia where the still powerful grouping in Albania and Northern Greece was fending off Soviet and Bulgarian forces. Here and there, isolated pockets formed such as at Konjic.
By the 24 June, the Yugoslav regime and army collapsed.
What was left of their armed forces in the Balkans simply deserted and the leadership fled to Wien. This was a signal for a general partisan revolt in Western Croatia and Slovenia.
(the ill-fated partisan uprising in Slovenia, the Soviet forces in the sector were too weak to intervene before the Germans crushed the revolt)
However, German and Italian resistance was effective enough to hold off 4 Army and by the end of the month most of the region was back in Axis hands.
(this shows the extent of the region I briefly gained with the fall of Yugoslavia, but was unable to retain most of it)
The main gain was the destruction of a sizeable grouping of Italian forces at Zadar by 2 July.
Although Zadar was easily defensible with the few access roads running through the karst region with its impenetrable limestone walls, they were cut off from resupply by a combination of Soviet submarines braving the shallow waters of the Northern Adriatic and the intervention of converted fishing vessels commandered by Yugoslav Partisans.
(Yugoslav partisans interdicting Italian resupply efforts at Zadar)
In the meantime, 26 Army and 23 Army in Hungary and Slovakia made some progress towards Bratislava. In reality, Stavka placed no importance on this sector, preferring to prioritise the destruction of Yugoslavia and the result was some minor German gains as Soviet forces ceded gound.
(July was to see even more of such scenes of celebration as the Red Army dealt a mortal blow to the European Axis powers)
Across this part of the front, Soviet losses amounted to 31,707, the Germans and their allies lost 56,755 and a further 32,596 prisoners (mostly at Zadar). In addition, the entire Yugoslav army effectively deserted, in total another 15 divisions had been removed from their order of battle and the remnants of the force that had held the Soviets so long in Rumania were trapped in isolated pockets in Albania or Northern Greece or grimly preparing to face a renewed Soviet offensive aimed at Austria and Northern Italy.
As the main elements of the Soviet forces redeployed yet again, this time to launch an offensive into Austria and Italy, Stavka dispatched more units to the Far East. The balance of 3 Tank Army was allocated to the Trans-Baikal Front, the independent 12 Mechanized Corps and 9 Army to the Vladivostock sector.
Faced with the reality of renewed Japanese gains, especially now that Siam had joined the war, in South East and Central Asia Stavka was starting to make plans for a war in the Far East even before the war in Europe was won.
Note: In this period my OOB was a complete mess as I was pushing units from the eastern to the western Balkans with no regard to their notional alignment. Thus at the start of June, 26 Army was in charge of all of the NW Croatian battles but by the end it was placed north of Lake Balaton, and bits of 2 and 4 Armies were on the Adriatic coast.
