War in the East
XVII: Operation Charax: Italy in the Soviet War
January - August 1943
For as long as the Germans had identified their main continental enemy as the Soviet Union, they expected the support of their stalwart ally, Italy, in its dismemberment. Mussolini, for his part, long dreamed of the resurgent Roman Empire; as part of this hope, included much of the Black Sea as part of the territory. Italy had for years conducted low-level talks with the Turks to bring them on-side, but by-and-large, the Turks did not seem to wish to join as a junior appendage of Mussolini’s efforts and certainly did not wish to hitch their trailer to that of Germany, regardless of the Great War-vintage German battlecruiser flying the Turkish flag. Ankara did, however, understand their predicament in the rising tensions as the Axis and Soviet Union came closer to exchanging blows. With the Allies thoroughly bludgeoned, the Turks had no support to call upon: the Soviets would be just as bad as the Italians or Germans in their turns. Thus, when the Italian Ambassador Raffaele Guariglia called upon the Turkish Foreign Minister Ali Fethi Okyar, the Turks begrudgingly permitted the Italians virtually unlimited passage through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles, in direct contradiction of the Treaty of Montreux. This was counterbalanced by the Soviets repeatedly forcing submarines through the straits, often in the company of merchant marine vessels to “cover” them.
Italian plans for the Black Sea were nebulous. No planning discussions between the two major European Axis powers occurred, with the attendant issues in providing mutual support. Bulgaria had offered a launching pad for the Italians to vault into Soviet territory, and the Japanese had transferred eight flotillas of transport ships for the operation, as the Italian merchant marine was overwhelmed by the level of sealift that the Comando Supremo expected to require to bring forces into theater. It was this lack of planning that left the Italian invasion’s foundation on so much sand. Overall, the Regio Esercito wanted to gain the Crimea to use as a defensible springboard from which further attacks could be launched. On the other side of the Black Sea, the objective would be Batumi and the ports there to strike into the Caucasus. This was largely agreeable to the Regia Marina, who were dealing with a significant Soviet submarine threat, and wanted to target all of the harbors as soon as possible to deny them to the enemy.
The first target was Crimea. Capturing a deep water port which would form the foundation (and defensible redoubt) for further expansion along the Black Sea coast. The sudden declaration of war from Moscow moved the timeline forward rapidly, but it still took the Italians nearly a month to stage their forces. German intelligence indicated that the peninsula was only held by a single low-quality garrison division; from the first landings on the isthmus of Krasnoperekop, until the peninsula was secured, occupied two infantry divisions and cost over 160 Italian soldiers their lives. German intelligence was also relied upon regarding the second port of Odessa: this was tasked to the Italian 1AB, staging out of Varna, Bulgaria, and was taken by coup de main given that no official Soviet forces were available in the region, this was rapidly followed up by the introduction of the IX Corps and its constituent divisions soon afterwards. A corps-level push from VII Corps–later earning their sobriquet, “Kerch’s Stalwarts” or “The Abandoned Corps” for reasons that will become clear later--attempted to force the Kerch strait, but the Soviet 22nd Tank Division appeared and the crossing was abandoned with the loss of 70 troops in mere hours.
Another landing to secure a port turned into the most disastrous loss suffered by the Regio Esercito to date in the war. VIII Corps had been tasked with securing Mariupol, and conducted their landing there virtually unopposed on 20 March. The Soviets had significant forces already in the area and rushed more to seal off the city. After a few days organizing, the Soviets initiated the assault to drive the invaders out. Over the course of eleven days, VIII Corps, originally consisting of the 20th, 27th and 28th Infantry Divisions and eventually reinforced by the 23rd Infantry and 1st Airborne Divisions fought against seven Soviet divisions including the 24th, 74th, 99th, 38th, 60th Mountain, 1st Mechanized and 3rd Garrison Divisions. When the Soviets called their assaults off, over 25,000 Italians and Russians lay dead on the field–fourteen thousand of them caused by the efforts of the Regia Aeronautica–three Italian infantry divisions had surrendered and the Italian corps commander, Berti, had shot himself on a “suggestion” from Mussolini.
Freezing Italian troops manning a machine gun near Mariupol, which acquired the name
“Graveyard of the Army” (Cimitero dell'esercito) for the thousands who died there from both
combat and non-combat related maladies.
In what some would call a “typically Italian” move, a corps headquarters, designated IX Corps and not to be confused with the other IX Corps holding Odessa, along with its attendant divisions (25th, 26th, 29th, 31st and 32nd Infantry Divisions) were landed in Mykolaiv around 22 March. With much of the Soviet forces available for the Ukrainian theater deposed in assaulting Mariupol and rushing more to the defense of the Caucasus, only two Soviet Rifle and a lone Cavalry division were available to contest this latest invasion. This battle lasted nearly three days, cost 1400 lives amongst the Italian and Russian soldiers and brought such anxiety into the Commando Supremo as to order the rapid launch of II Corps’ “mushroom attack” or breakout from Krasnoperekop. Each of the five divisions (3rd to 7th Infantry) were given their own objectives to solidify the Italian hold on southern Ukraine. The first phase of the assault opened before dawn on 27 March as the corps moved out of their assault positions against three Soviet garrison divisions holding in Chaplynka. The Soviet defenses rapidly crumbled under the onslaught, despite no available heavy artillery being available to the Italian forces. The next day saw the four divisions of the second IX Corps launch out of their own revetments into Nova Odesa and Dobre to widen the bridgehead between the Pivdennyi Buh (the Southern Bug) and Dnipro Rivers.
As the forces continued their assaults, the real IX Corps–still holding in Odessa and not subjected to any attacks–was awaiting relief from the Heer: III Panzerkorps was making rapid progress in driving down the Pivdenni Buh river. By the end of March, leading elements from 14 Panzer-division would make contact with the left flank of the second IX Corps, which trapped three Rifle divisions against Odessa; it was only through the inertia of the IX Corps’ commander that they did not take advantage of this situation and simply allowed the Germans to take that territory. This did not stop a breakout from forces on the shoulders of the German advance, but that release was temporary: bridges became ideal territory over the Pivdennyi Buh. As Germany continued to reduce the Soviet forces south of the Pivdennyi Buh and around Odessa, Italian forces continued to pursue rapid gains throughout Ukraine. One of II Corps’ prongs was directed to attempt to relieve VIII Corps by land, reaching Melitopol before a Soviet unit managed to cut off their line around Ivanivka. As confused orders and directives continued to emanate from Sevastopol, April began with an attempt by the Italian’s “Task Force Crimea” to occupy as much territory between the Buh and Dnipro rivers. In this, their strategic eyes were far larger than their stomachs: by late January 1944, much of the territory secured by Italy had been turned over to German control, aside from the Crimea, in exchange for the Germans’ assistance when the reemergence of the Allies brought the threat of the Little Entente to the fore in Rome.
German troops from III Panzerkorps share a photo with the troops of the IX Corps in Odessa.
Until then, a grand “left hook” maneuver was planned by IX Corps in early-to-mid April: striking out with its five divisions, the Italians would assume the northern portion of the line with an ending objective of Dnipro. At first, good progress was made against the Soviet defenders, despite grievous losses. After thirteen days of assaults, a multi-pronged Soviet counterattack caught the Italians by surprise. A local corps-sized attack in Polohy, led II Corps to desperately order attacks from both the Regia Aeronautica and the divisions in Mariupol and Zaporizhzhia to attempt to spoil the Soviet advance; meanwhile, a brave Soviet 107. Rifle Division managed to cross the Dniepr and cut off the logistics tail of II Corps in Vesele (the Italians having bypassed Ivanivka). The Italian 5th and 7th Infantry Divisions went into the attack, but the river crossing hampered their efforts. A Soviet Cavalry division, supported by a Mountain Infantry division had managed to force the Italian’s 31st Infantry Division back out of Dolynska, and then turned the Italian 32nd Infantry Division’s flank as they attempted to assault into Oleksandriia. This assault was joined by the Soviet 8th Guards Rifle division in Oleksandrivka. With so much of the Regia Esercito spread across the Ukrainian steppe, the German X Armeecorps came to the relief of the Italians again, the sheer weight of the German force driving the Soviets into flight. As the Soviet counterattack turned back some of the Italian gains, it was the Germans efforts which turned the tide for the “left hook.” Hitler, infuriated with the Italian’s unannounced efforts into Ukraine, ordered the Heer to ensure that the Italians realized no further gains; indeed, Hitler was downright apoplectic when on 19 May the Soviets conducted an air assault with their 1st Airborne Division into an unoccupied Odessa.
Italian Alpini conducting a review prior to deployment into the Caucasus. The fact that–despite nearly
three years of warfare–this was the first use of these premier troops by the Italians shows just how inarticulate
the Comando Supremo was at war.
If the Italians thought their eyes were too wide for their stomachs, they absolutely had a pie-in-the-sky opinion about the prospects for the invasion of the Caucasus. The first landings led by the five divisions of the I Corps (which consisted of all of the Alpini divisions), fittingly organized to execute on 1 March, landed in the territory around Batumi, to no initial opposition. These divisions rapidly fanned out across the Georgian landscape. I Corps was soon joined by IV Corps (1st, 2nd, and 14th Infantry Divisions) and VI Corps (12th, 18th, 19th, 21st, and 22nd Infantry Divisions). Only four heavy artillery brigades were in support; no other supporting arms aside from those intrinsic to the infantry, Alpini and mountain regiments were available. The heady drive out into the Caucasus, punctuated only briefly with battles against the few Soviet divisions rushed into the area, faltered when the logistics tail of the Caucasus task force could not keep up with the forces in the area. By June, losses from Soviet attacks over the mountains into the Georgian SSR had intensified, which combined with the inability to properly supply the forces at the front led the Regio Esercito to order what they called
il Caucaso retrogrado, or the “Caucasian Retrograde.” While a bald-faced attempt to preserve what little dignity the Esercito had remaining, the forces began to collapse back to Batumi. Originally planned to simply minimize the defensive perimeter and to provide a springboard back into relevance, events elsewhere overtook the Italians, forcing a complete withdrawal, which fully ended on 30 August when the Soviet Army rolled into Batumi.
A group of Italian generals seemingly confused by the map handed to them.
As the rise of the threat in the West dawned on the Axis powers, the Italians desperately attempted to move forces back into the mainland. This led to several issues of oversight. The Regio Esercito, not wishing to give up entirely on the Eastern front, attached an Army Group command to the Heer’s forces in the Soviet Union. This deprecated force, while claiming to lead the Italian Army in Russia, held only VIII Corps–with a mere two infantry divisions in Kerch–which was active on the front. What the Esercito had failed to notice was that their premier Alpini corps (I Corps) was still receiving orders through Army Group Russia, a situation which due to the inefficiencies of the Commando Supremo required nearly a month an a half to “return” the forces to their appropriate Italian command despite being in the Po valley.
In the six months during which the Italians were officially involved in the East, they suffered 77,344 killed, captured or missing while inflicting 132,574 killed, captured and missing on the Red Army. These figures do not reflect the losses suffered by the Regia Aeronautica or Regia Marina, or those inflicted upon the VVS or the Red Banner Baltic Fleet.
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