Battle of Moscow

It was October 7, 1941. Elements of the German 4th Panzer Division pressed forward to Incensk, eager to seize the city as they chased down mauled remnants of the Red Army. Suddenly, armored units of the Soviet 4th Tank Brigade unleashed a salvo of fire from a nearby treeline, with some even striking out at the Germans. After the fighting, six panzers were destroyed, three others damaged, and dozens of German troops were killed. Over the next several days, both the Germans and Soviets came to blows outside the town, earning little except for casualties and withdrawals. Eventually, Incensk fell to Wehrmacht troops in the coming days, but the skirmish foreshadowed a level of resistance that would challenge the very core of Hitler's ambitions in the East. The Battle of Moscow is considered by many to be the first turning point of the Second World War on the Western Front. 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Operation Barbarossa, Nazi Germany's June 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union, started as a smashing success. The Red Army melted in the face of the surprise Wehrmacht onslaught. The war against the USSR was a war of annihilation of the hated so-called Bolshevik Jewish State and its people. Its land and resources were to be seized for the benefit of the German people to create Lebensraum, or living space. Success, however, muddied the strategic picture. Hitler and his High Command, the Oberkommando, disagreed about further objectives. Oberkommando and Army Group Center Command wanted to capture Moscow. It was the political capital, and its seizure would represent a significant morale shock, perhaps speeding up the end of hostilities. Further, Moscow housed the Red Army's HQ. USSR communication and transportation network hubs originated and spread from the city. Without it, Stalin and the Stavka would struggle to coordinate the Soviet war effort. Hitler, however, retorted that Moscow was just a blot on the map. Instead, he diverted units from Army Group Center to support Army Group South's efforts to capture Ukraine and secure its food and fuel. The Fuhrer proved to be right, as Army Group Center's reinforcements were critical to Ukraine's capture. However, time and resources were not on the Wehrmacht's side. Operation Barbarossa began in late June, meaning the campaign was rapidly approaching the fall and winter seasons in Eastern Europe. German forces were underdressed for the rain, mud, and snow. Battle damage was compounded by wear and tear on mechanized and armored formations, which significantly strained logistics. A lack of repair facilities ensured that few vehicles returned to the front. The further east the Wehrmacht penetrated, the longer their logistical train became, and thus it was harder to keep up with the demands of continued lightning-fast combat. After Army Group South's victory at the Battle of Kiev, Hitler needed Army Group Center to deliver Moscow. He had promised the German people ultimate victory was soon at hand. In a fiery speech on October 3, 1941, Hitler proclaimed, "...the enemy is already broken down, and will never rise again," promising a swift, decisive victory. Leningrad, however, held out against Army Group North's onslaught. While successfully holding Ukraine, Army Group South failed to reach the oil-rich Caucasus. Army Group Center became the great hope to deliver triumphant news to the German people and knock the Soviet Union out of the war. The battle began by the end of September, with German forces holding the advantage in total manpower and the number of artillery, technical skill, and morale. Field Marshal Fedor von Foch's Army Group Center stood 200 miles west of Moscow after two months of hard fighting. It marshaled nearly 2 million personnel, more than 2,000 tanks and assault guns, more than 1,000 aircraft and 14,000 artillery pieces by the last week of September. However, due to disrepair, more than half of the Luftwaffe's airframes and some of the Wehrmacht's armored units were unavailable. In comparison, Marshal Semyon Timoshenko's Western Theater defended the region with some 1.25 million men, 1,000 tanks, 7,600 artillery pieces, and 300 ready aircraft. The Soviet plan for defense was aggressive. Stalin ordered all armies in the Western Theater to attack. As a consequence of the inept and rigid command structure that emphasized political loyalty to Stalin over anything else, commanders eager to please leadership committed reckless assaults on well-prepared German defenses. The disorganized and demoralized Soviet forces took heavy casualties and weakened their position just as Army Group Center prepared for Moscow's capture. The Nazi plan, called Operation Typhoon, was based on proven blitzkrieg operations, deploying infantry and aircraft-supported armored columns in two significant thrusts to encircle Moscow. The strategy played to the Wehrmacht's strengths as a skilled maneuver and combined arms force. The Red Army showed no indication of learning how to counter German maneuver warfare. Army Group Center's morale soared with past victories. Much like the Führer, German troops were sure of victory and of their Soviet counterparts' supposed inferiority. On September 30th, Army Group Center leapt eastward. To clear the southern approach, the southern wing of the German forces encircled three Soviet field armies around Bryansk by October 3rd. The northern wing of German armies and panzer groups surrounded four Soviet field armies near Vyazma on October 7th. The Soviet field generals' response was sluggish. Under the cover of fog, German columns surprised the city of Airol and rapidly cut off the major groups of Soviet armies in front of Moscow and formed two massive pockets. It would take nearly three weeks of hard fighting to liquidate the pocket. By October 21st, the encircled Red Army forces surrendered, though some escaped. The Soviets took nearly a million casualties by some estimates, leaving 90,000 soldiers to oppose Army Group Center's juggernaut. But victory for German forces was fleeting. Subduing the pockets inflicted 50,000 German casualties and weeks of fighting delayed the capture of vital objectives, including the city of Tula, a major railway and transportation hub with its own airport. With the western theater forces disorganized, German commanders didn't capitalize. Units that could have supported the offensive columns instead were assigned to mop-up duty. The Germans advanced halfway to Moscow, but the change in weather hindered their progress, especially for the southern pincer forces. On October 7th, alternating autumn rains and early snowstorms turned the Russian countryside and unpaved roads into a layer of mud many feet deep. Tanks, trucks, animals, and men wore out, and the army's pace crawled to a halt. To adapt, Wehrmacht troops built corduroy roads to gain traction, but even then, the speed of the 2nd Army and 2nd Panzer Group all but petered out. The northern pincer had better weather, but encountered dense forests, rivers, and swamps. Geography and the thick layers of mud known to the Soviets as the Rasputitsa saved the reeling Red Army. They retreated and reorganized, outrunning German forces. As the weather and terrain became greater obstacles, Wehrmacht infantry and artillery spearheaded the offensive rather than armored flanking attacks. Without vital protection from armored units, German infantry suffered grievous casualties. Meanwhile, communication disruptions and incredulous Soviet leaders meant that the loss of the Seven Armies was not understood until after those forces were thoroughly defeated. Stalin recalled Georgy Zhukov from his duties in the Stavka as a response to the crisis. Under new leadership, the remaining, vastly outnumbered troops took up positions along the Mozhaisk defense line. Zhukov and Stalin prepared to engage in a desperate but brutal calculus to trade lives for Nazi casualties and time. Both men ordered hastily formed units to trade blows with better trained and organized German units. Though they often took heavy losses, they further hindered army group centers' advance. The USSR still held significant advantages and marshaled its people for a life or death struggle. Vast tracts of Soviet territory provided fuel and food for the armies. In Moscow, Stalin ordered 250,000 women and teenagers to fortify the city while the Red Army held the line. Civilians dug a complex network of trenches and anti-tank traps for a month. Factories that produced consumer goods switched to making weapons and ammunition for Soviet forces. The government declared martial law to keep order. Stalin directed the Reserve Theater to join the Western Theater, pulling newly formed units across the vast expanse of the USSR. The Red Army set up a new theater, known as the Kanalin, to guard the northern approach. The remaining forces were to contest every bit of ground between the front and the city while awaiting reinforcements. Stalin, perhaps making the most consequential choice of the campaign to date, remained in the city, while some parts of the government evacuated eastward. For those in the city, it appeared that Moscow was to be his last stand. All the Soviet efforts appeared to be made in vain when the northern wing of Army Group Center smashed into the Mozhaisk line in mid-October 1941. The Wehrmacht faced formidable obstacles. Trenches, bunkers, minefields, barbed wire, anti-tank traps, dense concentrations of artillery, and flamethrowers. German forces and armored vehicles, nonetheless, punctured the layered defense at great cost of men and materiel. German and Soviet forces, degraded and exhausted, engaged in a running battle for two mud-caked weeks at the end of October 1941. On the 22nd, Tashirova fell just 38 miles or 61 kilometers from Moscow itself. To the south, the 2nd Panzer Group and 2nd Army struggled to make progress due to a chronic lack of fuel and the harsh realities of Mother Nature. As the German offensive got stuck in the muck, the Soviets received new weapons and equipment that boosted morale. While no longer a surprise to Panzer crews, the capability of the Soviet T-34 still confounded German forces. In both firepower and armor, the T-34 outclassed the German Panzer III. Its 76mm gun could penetrate German armor at ranges where the Panzer III's guns were ineffective, and its thick, sloped armor was impervious to most German anti-tank weapons. As German forces advanced, the T-34's wide tracks enabled it to navigate the thick mud of the Russian autumn, where many German vehicles became stuck. Despite earlier losses in Operation Barbarossa, the increasing presence of these tanks in Soviet formations slowed the German advance. While the T-34 held its own in armored engagements, it was the devastating volleys of the Katyusha rocket launchers that spread panic and chaos among German troops, further crippling their advance. Despite enduring the onslaught of new Soviet weapons and reserves, the German 2nd Army and 2nd Panzer Group were able to force Soviet forces northward and even begin to surround Tula. Capturing quality paved roads and railroads assisted Nazi formations, but they soon made only incremental progress after that. By mid-November, the first push was over. German Army Group Center Command realized that the resupply issues and mud proved to be obstacles that could only be waded out. The offensive paused as Operation Typhoon's infantry and armored units rested, reconstituted, and prepared for the next push. At first, the Wehrmacht's units around Moscow looked forward to winter to solve their mud problem. The frost would freeze the ground and reduce the stress on the panzers and trucks. Little did they know that it would be one of the coldest winters of the 20th century. The temperature dropped to minus 40 Fahrenheit and Celsius. And to make matters worse, Germany didn't manufacture or transport sufficient winter clothing, so the army suffered more than 100,000 casualties from frostbite. Confiscated uniforms from captured Red Army soldiers helped some Germans, but there weren't enough to go around. Cold temperatures forced the Wehrmacht to expend more fuel to keep engines from freezing. With the army stuck in the muck and now freezing, Hitler grew impatient and demanded that Army Group Center take the city. The slow pace of the operation made the Fuhrer look weak and indecisive. Though he fixated on Moscow, German troops there would not receive meaningful reinforcements or increased supplies. They were there on their own, so Wehrmacht commanders adapted. Airdropped deliveries from the Luftwaffe alleviated some supply problems, but Army Group Center needed a permanent solution. Instead of surrounding cities or forces leading up to Moscow, they focused on capturing railways to allow them to move heavy supplies. Stalin, sensing that Soviet morale was wavering, ordered that the usual military parade in Red Square be held on the date of the Russian Revolution's beginning, November 7. Stalin rallied Muscovites and Soviets everywhere, recalling how they had overcome great odds before. The spirit of the Great Lenin inspired us at that time for the war against the Interventionists, and what happened? We defeated the Interventionists, regained all our lost territories, and achieved victory. Thousands of troops marched through the city in open defiance of the Luftwaffe. While Stalin's leadership had not yet stopped the German onslaught, he instilled a dogged determination to resist the Nazi invasion. The Wehrmacht's pause gave hope and time to Moscow's beleaguered defenders. Newly formed divisions rushed to the city to bolster prepared defensive positions. In a crucial turn of events, Richard Sorge, a Soviet spy in Japan, alerted the Stavka that the Imperial Japanese Army would not pose a threat to invade Siberia. Stalin and Zhukov then transferred 30 divisions from east to west to defend Moscow. Some of these divisions were ski troops, which proved effective as the weather shifted into winter. By mid-November, Stalin once again ordered the Red Army to attack. Zhukov disagreed, but complied. But Red Army forces achieved little except taking casualties. After the operational pause in mid-November, Army Group Center renewed their offensive. The Southern Wing focused on Tula. The besieged city was surrounded on three sides, but the Southern Wing lost momentum and degraded. The Northern Wing and the Center fared better. Though they made progress, at some point, four miles or six kilometers a day, they were exhausted. Fewer of their tanks and trucks worked. Supplies reaching the front trickled to the bare minimum. The lack of fuel and spare parts robbed Army Group Center and its panzers' mobility. Troops struggled to push through the prepared defensive positions. German regiments took severe casualties and resembled companies of 100 or 200 men. Meanwhile, Soviet reserves filled the gaps or reacted to even modest enemy advances. German commanders continued to spur on their men. Believing their enemy was tired and weakened and would give way at any moment, the battle was to come to a test of wills. By the end of November, the Wehrmacht scouting units came within six miles or ten kilometers of the Soviet capital. Alarmed, Stalin and Zhukov used their growing reserves to stymie German forces so close to the city. Two field armies raced westward to man the defensive positions and attacked invading columns as they approached the city's defenses. Their quick action stopped the attacking forces in their tracks and saved Moscow. After 14 days of constant battle, German forces halted. They had no reserves, precious little supplies, and sustained heavy casualties. At the beginning of December 1941, Red Army troops counterattacked. Wehrmacht units, overextended, outflanked, and beaten down, retreated. The Luftwaffe, which had proved vital to the successful Blitzkrieg, was out of action most of the month due to the cold and inclement weather. Reinforced and rearmed Soviet armies surged westward. For three weeks, Western theater forces nearly encircled parts of Army Group Center. The Soviet Air Force harassed retreating columns, adding to Army Group Center's misery. Hitler, sensing a reversal, commanded all Army Groups to defend and hold conquered territory. Due to Army Group Center's failure to capture Moscow, many of the group's top commanders were dismissed. Hitler railed that his professional military leaders were incompetent. The Luftwaffe stemmed the tide of Soviet forces once the weather cleared. By January 7th, the Red Army ceased its offensives because it ran low on reserves and its men were exhausted. When the dust settled, both German and Soviet commands could admit that Moscow was no longer in danger of capture, and that the Red Army had the strategic initiative. The Battle of Moscow was a crucial turning point in the Second World War. Red Army losses were estimated from 600,000 to 1.3 million casualties. Stalin recovered after the initial shock of Operation Barbarossa. He proved that he was a capable organizer and war leader. The Red Army demonstrated that it could beat the Wehrmacht after months of defeat. The Wehrmacht suffered 250,000 to 400,000 casualties. And Hitler's dream of a quick, total victory over the USSR vanished. Rather, Nazi Germany engaged in a brutal war of attrition that they were ill-suited to conduct. This titanic struggle outside the Soviet capital laid the foundation for the eventual Nazi defeat. 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