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| Battle of the Caucasus | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of theEastern Front ofWorld War II | |||||||||
.jpg) German tanks in formation in a Caucasus valley with infantry in the foreground, September 1942 | |||||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||||
 Chechen-Ingush ASSR |  Soviet Union | ||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
 Wilhelm ListEwald von KleistEberhard von MackensenRichard Ruoff Petre Dumitrescu | Semyon BudyonnyIvan TyulenevIvan PetrovIvan MaslennikovRodion Malinovsky Filipp OktyabrskyLev Vladimirsky | ||||||||
| Strength | |||||||||
| July 1942: 170,000 men 1,130 tanks 4,500 guns and mortars ~1,000 aircraft January 1943: 764,000 men 700 tanks 5,290 guns and mortars 530 aircraft | July 1942: 112,000 men 121 tanks 2,160 guns and mortars 230 aircraft January 1943: 1,000,000+ men ~1,300 tanks 11,300+ guns and mortars 900 aircraft | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| 281,000 casualties | 344,000 casualties | ||||||||
TheBattle of the Caucasus was a series ofAxis andSoviet operations in theCaucasus as part of theEastern Front ofWorld War II. On 25 July 1942, German troops capturedRostov-on-Don, opening the Caucasus region of the southern Soviet Union to the Germans and threatening the oil fields beyond atMaykop,Grozny, and ultimatelyBaku. Two days prior,Adolf Hitler had issued a directive to launch an operation into the Caucasus named Operation Edelweiß. German units would reach their high water mark in the Caucasus in early November 1942, getting as far as the town ofAlagir and city ofOrdzhonikidze, some 610 km from their starting positions. Axis forces were compelled to withdraw from the area later that winter asOperation Little Saturn threatened to cut them off.
Army Group A –GeneralfeldmarschallWilhelm List
Operation Edelweiß, named afterthe mountain flower, was a German plan to gain control over theCaucasus and capture theoil fields of Baku on theEastern Front of World War 2. The operation was authorised byAdolf Hitler on 23 July 1942. The main forces includedArmy Group A commanded byWilhelm List,1st Panzer Army (Ewald von Kleist),4th Panzer Army (Colonel-GeneralHermann Hoth),17th Army (Colonel-GeneralRichard Ruoff), part of theLuftflotte 4 (GeneralfeldmarschallWolfram Freiherr von Richthofen) and the3rd Romanian Army (GeneralPetre Dumitrescu). Army Group A was supported to the east byArmy Group B commanded byMaximilian von Weichs and by the remaining 4th Air Fleet aircraft (1,000 aircraft in all). The land forces, accompanied by 15,000 oil industry workers, included 167,000 troopers, 4,540 guns and 1,130 tanks.
Several oil firms such as "German Oil on the Caucasus", "Ost-Öl" and "Karpaten-Öl" had been established in Germany. They were awarded an exclusive 99-year lease to exploit the Caucasian oil fields. For this purpose, a large number of pipes—which later proved useful to Soviet oil industry workers—were delivered. A special economic inspection "A", headed by Lieutenant-General Nidenfuhr was created. Bombing the oil fields was forbidden. To defend them from destruction by Soviet units under the command ofNikolai Baibakov andSemyon Budyonny, anSS guard regiment and aCossack regiment were formed. The head of theAbwehr developed OperationSchamil, which called for landing in theGrozny,Malgobek andMaikop regions. They would be supported by thelocal fifth column.
After neutralizing the Soviet counter-attack in the Izyum-Barvenkovsk direction the German Army Group A rapidly attacked towards the Caucasus. WhenRostov-on-Don, nicknamed "The Gates of Caucasus," were reached on 23 July 1942 (falling on the 27th), the tank units of Ewald von Kleist moved towards theCaucasian Mountain Range. The "Edelweiß" division commander,Hubert Lanz, decided to advance through the gorges of rivers of theKuban River basin and by crossing the Marukhskiy Pass (Maly Zelenchuk River), Teberda, Uchkulan reach the Klukhorskiy Pass, and simultaneously through the Khotyu-tau Pass block the upper reaches of the Baksan River and the Donguz-Orun and Becho passes.
Concurrently with the outflanking maneuvers, the Caucasian Mountain Range was supposed to be crossed through such passes as Sancharo, Klukhorskiy and Marukhskiy to reachKutaisi,Zugdidi,Sukhumi and theSoviet Georgian capital city ofTbilisi. The units of the4th German Mountain Division, manned withTyroleans, were active in this thrust. They succeeded in advancing 30 km toward Sukhumi. To attack from the Kuban region, capture the passes that led toElbrus, and cover the "Edelweiß" flank, a vanguard detachment of 150 men commanded by Captain (Hauptmann) Heinz Groth, was formed. From the Old Karachay through the Khurzukaul and the Ullu-kam Gorge the detachment reached the Khotyu-tau Pass, which had not been defended by the Soviet troops. Khotyu-tau gained a new name – "The Pass of General Konrad".
The starting point of the operation on theKrasnodar-Pyatigorsk-Maykop line was reached on 10 August 1942. On 16 August, the battalion commanded by von Hirschfeld made a feint and reached the Kadar Gorge. On 21 August, troops from the1st Mountain Division planted the flag of Nazi Germany on the summit ofMount Elbrus, the highest peak in both the Caucasus and Europe. On 9 September, Hitler sacked List from command of Army Group A and sent him into retirement, for perceived sluggish leadership. Hitler then took personal charge of Army Group A, a highly impractical arrangement.
By 1 November 1942, the German23rd Panzer Division had reachedAlagir and the 13th Panzer Division had reachedOrdzhonikidze, approximately 610 km from their starting positions, the high water mark of the Axis invasion of the Caucasus. The13th Panzer Division was encircled by Red Army counterattacks shortly after however, but was able to break out with assistance fromSS Division Wiking. These events led Ewald von Kleist to halt further offensive operations.[1][2] On November 22nd, Hitler gave command of Army Group A to von Kleist, andEberhard von Mackensen replaced von Kleist as commander of 1st Panzer Army.
There were no military operations in the region in 1941. But the region was affected by warfare elsewhere in the Soviet Union.
In his memoirs, SovietTranscaucasian Front commanderIvan Tiulenev recounts how thousands of civilians attempted to flee fromUkraine to the comparatively safe Caspian ports, such asMakhachkala andBaku.[citation needed] The Caucasus area became a new area of industry when 226 factories were evacuated there during the industrial evacuations undertaken by the Soviet Union in 1941. After the Grozny toKiev line was captured during Axis advances, a new link betweenMoscow andTranscaucasia was established with the construction of the newrailway line running fromBaku toOrsk (viaAstrakhan), bypassing the front line atGrozny, while a shipping line was maintained over theCaspian Sea through the town ofKrasnovodsk inTurkmenistan.
In 1942, theGerman Army launched Operation Edelweiß which was aimed at advancing to theoil fields of Azerbaijan. The German offensive slowed as it entered the mountains in the southern Caucasus and did not reach all of its 1942 objectives. After the Soviet breakthroughs in the region aroundStalingrad, the German forces in the Caucasus were put on the defensive.
Soviet military operations included
In early 1943, the Germans began to withdraw and consolidate their positions in the region due to setbacks elsewhere. They established a defensive line (Kuban bridgehead) in theTaman Peninsula from which they hoped to eventually launch new operations in the Caucasus. The fighting remained reasonably static until September 1943 when the Germans ordered fresh withdrawals which effectively ended the period of fighting in the Caucasus.
Soviet Operations in 1943 consisted of the following.
North Caucasus Strategic Offensive (Operation Don)
The key military base ofNovorossiysk was retaken in September, 1943.
During theWinter Spring Campaign of 1944 (1 January – 31 May), the Soviet army was able to launch aninvasion of the Crimea from the Caucasus, which was fully recaptured by 12 May 1944.
Operations included:
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