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Operation Bagration
Part of Eastern front of World War II

The Eastern Front at the time of Operation Bagration, which is shown in purple. (click to enlarge)
Date June 22, 1944 - August 29, 1944
Location Belorussian SSR, USSR
Result Decisive Soviet victory
Belligerents
Axis Soviet Union
Commanders
Ernst Busch Konstantin Rokossovski
Georgy Zhukov
Aleksandr Vasilevsky
Strength
800,000 men[1]
553 tanks[2]
9,500 guns[3]
839 planes[3]		 1,700,000 men[4]
4070 tanks & SPGs[5]
28,613 artillery[6]
6,334 planes[7]
(excluding the southern wing of 1st Belorussian Front, not committed to the operation)
Casualties and losses
(est.) 200,000 killed
150,000 captured[8]		 180,040 killed and missing
590,848 wounded and sick[9]
v • d • e
Eastern Front

The Operation Bagration (Russian: "Операция Багратион", Operatziya Bagration), also known as Belorussian offensive operation, was the name given to a general counteroffensive staged by Soviet Armed Forces to chase Nazi Germany's forces from Belorussian SSR during World War II.

Contents

[edit] Context of the offensive

During 1943, the Wehrmacht's strategic superiority was decisively broken. Despite some tactical victories, German forces could only retreat under Soviet blows. However, during all the previous year, all major offensives, with the notable exception of the Smolensk offensive operation, were launched in the South. Only by early 1944 did the Soviet forces launch a massive counteroffensive in northern Russia, lifting the siege of Leningrad, while at the same time, a decisive counteroffensive started to clear the right-shore Ukraine, pushing the Army Group South westwards. In Belorussia however, the front was not moving and as Soviet forces drove west, a big salient, nicknamed the "Belarussian balcony", was created. By March 1944, following the successful relief of Leningrad and operations on the right shore of Dnieper, the Soviet high command had to decide what strategy should be adopted for the summer offensive. Several options were possible.

The first option would be to restart the offensive in the Ukraine,[10] as the open steppe provided a good terrain for fast mechanical operations,[11] following the Soviet "deep operations" theory. Furthermore, moving into southern Poland and the Balkans would neutralize some Germany's satellites, in particular the Romanian oil fields that were absolutely necessary for the German forces.[11] However, this option had several drawbacks. First of all, this option would stretch Soviet forces to an inacceptable point, exposing them to flanking attacks from the Army Group Center holding the "Belorussian balcon". Second, the Balkans were a dangerous terrain and the success of the operation was less than certain.[11] Third, it would leave Belorussia and Baltic states under German control for an indetermined time.[10] Finally, the Soviet target was Germany, and an indirect way through the Balkans was not the best solution to get there.[11]

A second possibility would be to launch a large-scale offensive northwest, moving through Poland to cut the Army Groups North and Center from Germany. However, Soviet logistics were not up to such an operation, and the Army Group Center would still a strong opponent even if encircled, as the battles of Rzhev, leading to bloody stalemates with little to no visible result, showed in 1942. A third option would be an attack on the Group Army North, garrisoned in the Baltic states. However, the terrain would immensely favor the defenders, resulting in much higher casualties. And in any case, the strategic utility would be almost nonexistent, since the attackers would eventually arrive to the Baltic sea.[10][11]

Finally, the last option would be a direct offensive on Army Group Center in Belorussia. However, this solution carried a number of drawbacks as well. The Army Group Center proved to be a very powerful opponent. In 1943, the Battles of Rzhev only led to a stalemate. During the Smolensk offensive operation, the Soviets were able to advance in the region only a few kilometers per day because of heavy German defenses, a difficult terrain combining woods, swamps and hills and a determined Wehrmacht resistance, while constantly stopping to regroup their forces and to commit new reserves to battle. In Belorussia, the terrain was quite the same, and while a majority of German defenses constructed the previous year were now overrun, the Army Group Center was still strong. Furthermore, the poor road network would handicap the Red Army even more in its offensive.

Hitler and the OKH considered the offensive in Ukraine as more probable, because of terrain considerations, but also because of a purely subconscious feeling that an Soviet attack in the South would allow the Army Group Center to perform a flanking strike from the "Belorussian balcony" towards the advancing Red Army forces, scoring a large-scale victory. Therefore, the possibility of an offensive in Belorussia was dismissed and the majority of German forces concentrated in the south. This estimation proved spectacularly wrong and led to a stinging defeat for the Army Group Center.[12]

[edit] Preparing the offensive

[edit] Choosing the strategy

The final attack plan was elaborated during a conference involving most of the commanders facing German Army Group Center forces and held in Moscow on 22-23 May 1944.[10] Its design was fundamentally contrary to traditional Soviet operational doctrines which called for a massive attack along a single axis. In an uncensored version of his memoirs published in 1988, Rokossovsky wrote that while defending his idea of double-pincer attacks, he was asked twice to leave and "think it over", but eventually managed to defend the strategy.[13]

The plan called for a complex set of double-pincers, far more difficult to coordinate than all operations staged previously. The whole operation relied on a deep double-pincer mouvement executed around Minsk, with four additional pincers closer to the front line. The 1st Baltic and 3rd Belorussian Fronts would cooperate to encircle Vitebsk, the 3rd Belorussian Front alone would take Orsha, the 2nd Belorussian would encircle Mogilev and Rokossovsky's 1st Belorussian Front would encircle Bobruisk. From that point on, the drive on Minsk could begin, encircling the armies stationed east of it.[10][14] The global idea of the operation was to cut the Army Group Center in several groups that would be eliminated separately, while not letting it escape. In this respect, the attack plan was reminiscent of the Soviet "deep operations" theory, elaborated in the early 1930s by Soviet commanders like Tukhachevsky and Triandafillov.[15]

An extensive maskirovka (deception) plan was set up to trick the Wehrmacht into thinking that the summer offensive would indeed take place in Ukraine and not in Belorussia. Troops were faking massive movements and troop concentrations, making the German intelligence think attacks would take place in the south.[16] So successful were these measures that, up to the day of the Soviet attack in Belorussia, German intelligence believed that 2d Tank and 5th Guards Tank Armies and 5th and 8th Guards Armies were opposite Army Group South Ukraine and not in Belarus where they actually were.[17] At the same time, heavy scouting operations were conducted in Belorussia, often with help from partisan groups.[18] Moreover, prior to the operation Bagration, the Soviet Army started its offensive in Karelia, attempting to clear its northern flank of Finnish presence. Despite a limited initial success, this operation gave the illusion that no attacks at all would be attempted against Army Group center.[16]

On 31 May 1944, the directive defining objectives for the Operation Bagration was released. However, the initial attack schedule could not be held because of supply problems and of the fact that all transports had to be done in total secret. Consequently, the offensive date slipped to June 22, 1944, a very symbolic date since it marked the third anniversary of the German invasion of the USSR.[17]

[edit] Forces in presence

Once the offensive decided and approved, the Soviet logistics machine started to resupply the northern part of the front, neglected during the previous months,[19] with men and materiel. By May 1944, the Soviet forces comitted to the operation totalled 118 rifle divisions, 8 tank and mechanized corps, 6 cavalry, 13 artillery and 14 air defense divisions, supported by 5 Air fleets (1st, 3rd, 4th, 6th and 16th).[20] Even if a typical Soviet division was only composed of 2,500 to 4,000 men as opposed to standard 9,600 strength, the Red Army still totalled 1,700,000 men,[4] more than double of the Wehrmacht's strength.[21] Equipment-wise, the Soviet superiority was even more important, with 4070 tanks and self-propelled guns,[5] 28,613 artillery pieces[6] and 6,334 planes,[7] outnumbering the Wehrmacht by up to seven times.[4][5][7]

Facing the Red Army, the Army Group Center were ill-prepared to the offensive and started to show signs of weakness. Even if it still numbered more than 800,000 men,[22] representing a considerable force of battle-hardened division, the Wehrmacht possessed several weaknesses that would ultimately prove to be fatal to them.

First and foremost, even such a force was still barely sufficient to defend the whole front, with a division typicall defending 24 to 32 km line,[17] which meant an average density of troops of only 80 men per kilometer. Furthermore, the Wehrmacht hardly had any strategic reserves left. Consequently, all division were located directly on the front line, with no defense in depth, a mistake that the Red Army committed itself several times and which cost them dearly at the Battle of Moscow for instance. However, German forces were quite well entrenched, with an at least triple line of defense 5 to 6 km deep.[citation needed] Additionnally, the quality of the troops gradually declined as most of them died in the previous three years.[22] Finally, the Army Group Center had only a few hundred tanks left, because most of them were relocated south in Ukraine. Generally speaking, all German shock troops such as remaining Panzer formations were constantly shuffled from one part of the front to another,[15] exhausting soldiers more than actual combat. Finally, the Allies' landing in Normandy forced the Oberkommando des Heeres to move several divisions to the West, further depleting the Army Group Center.[23]

[edit] Breakthrough

Three days before the actual breakthrough, an intense campaign of "rail war" was conducted by partisan forces who disabled more than a thousand transportation nodes or bridges and several thousand locomotives,[23] despite a resistance put up by German defenders. The Army Group Center lost any ability to quickly retreat its troops, to shuffle them from one portion of the front to another or to resupply them efficiently.[24] Furthermore, on June 22, 1941, an intense strategic bombing campaign was conducted by Soviet Air forces to soften the German rear positions. The Soviet long-range bombers conducted about 1,000 sorties against artillery positions and major troop concentrations, trying to soften the defenders even more.[25]

Finally, on June 23, 1944, the actualy breakthrough began with an intense artillery shelling, across the whole front. The Soviet forces concentrated more than 28,000 guns on the front, borrowing some from the strategic reserves. This allowed the Red Army to shell the German forces during two hours in average, sometimes using a "double rolling barrage" tactic, when artillery pieces are split in two groups, with one group shelling successively the main and the intermediate defense line, and the second one concentrating only on the main line, eliminating any possibility for the German infantry to escape the barrage. By all German accounts, such a concentration of artillery was never before seen during the war.[26]

[edit] Vitebsk pincer

In the Vitebsk sector, the attack caught the Wehrmacht completely by surprise. At 4 a.m., after an artillery preparation lasting 20 minutes, Soviet rifle divisions moved forward. Six hours later, leading Soviet batallions broke through the main German defense line and quickly moved forward.[27] Late on June 24, 1944, small mobile Soviet task forces of bypassed the German forces and seized crossings over the Western Dvina River west of the city. In front of such an advance, General Reinhardt, the commander of the Third Panzer Army committed to the defense of the city, sought Busch's permission to evacuate the city of Vitebsk immediately to avoid encirclement. However, Hitler refused and ordered the city to be held at all costs.[23]

By 25 June, the forces of the 3rd Belorussian Front had linked up with the forward detachments of the 1st Baltic Front, cutting off roads leading to the city and trapping Wehrmacht units stationed there. Virtually without a pause, the Soviet forces, spearheaded by the 1st Tank Corps, turned west and engaged a pursuit of the remnants of the Third Panzer Army.[24][28] Of 35,000 German troops left to defend the city, only 10,000 survived and capitulated, further depleting that direction of German forces. In the north of the front, the Soviet advance was equally fast, with the forces of the First Baltic Front pressing Army Group North. When its commander, Colonel-General asked permission for withdrawal, Hitler dismissed him and replaced him with General Friessner.[23]

[edit] Bobruisk pincer

[edit] Orsha pincer

[edit] Mogilev pincer

[edit] Fight for Minsk

On June 28, 1944, furious that German defense lines could not be held, Hitler dismissed Busch and replaced him with General Model.[23]

[edit] Driving West

[edit] North Ukraine offensive

[edit] Lvov-Sandomierz operation

Main article: Lvov-Sandomierz Offensive

[edit] Aftermath

On August 29, 1944 the Operation Bagration was officially stopped after 68 days of offensive. The Soviet troops had cleared almost all Belarussian SSR from German troops and entered the occupied Poland, advancing 550 to 600 km (340 to 375 mi) and completely destroying the "Belorussian Balcony".[29]

Although the Red Army sustained important casualties, the dead count was actually equal of even lower than the German one, with the most important part of casualties coming from wounded troops. This being said, the success was a costly one in materiel, since almost 3,000 tanks and more than 800 planes have been lost during the operation.

For the Army Group Center, however, the Operation Bagration was by far the toughest blow it ever received. Although the exact casualties count is unknown, the Wehrmacht lost the equivalent of 25 to 30 divisions, with 17 of them completely annihilated. The dead count is estimated between 150,000 and 200,000 and 150,000 troops were captured during the course of the operation. About 68,000 prisoners of war were taken by trains to Moscow where they marched in the streets with Muscovites looking at them.[8] Like most captured German soldiers, they would return from camps only in 1955.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Zaloga, p.24
  2. ^ Zaloga, p.26
  3. ^ a b Zaloga, p.27
  4. ^ a b c Zaloga, p.27-28
  5. ^ a b c Zaloga, p.29
  6. ^ a b Zaloga, p.32
  7. ^ a b c Zaloga, p.33
  8. ^ a b Zaloga, p.71
  9. ^ Glantz, table B
  10. ^ a b c d e Glantz, ch. 13, subch. "Strategic Planning"
  11. ^ a b c d e Zaloga, p.10
  12. ^ Zaloga, p.10-11
  13. ^ Rokossovsky, p.251
  14. ^ Dunn, p.23.
  15. ^ a b Chris Mann & Christer Jorgensen, Tank Warfare- Strategy and Tactics, Zenith, 2001, ISBN 0760310165
  16. ^ a b Jukes, p.56
  17. ^ a b c Glantz, ch. 13, subch. "Prelude"
  18. ^ Leonid D. Grenkevich, The Soviet Partisan Movement 1941-1945, Routledge UK, 1999, ISBN 0714648744
  19. ^ Rokossovsky, p. 246
  20. ^ Zaloga, p.27
  21. ^ Zaloga, p.27-28
  22. ^ a b Zaloga, p.24
  23. ^ a b c d e Jukes, p.57
  24. ^ a b Glantz, ch.13, subch. "Attack"
  25. ^ Zaloga, p.44
  26. ^ Zaloga, p.44
  27. ^ Dunn, p.95
  28. ^ Dunn, p.105
  29. ^ Jukes, p.59-60

[edit] References

  • David M. Glantz, Jonathan M. House, When Titans Clashed, 1995
  • Steven Zaloga, Bagration 1944 - The Destruction of Army Group Center, Osprey Publishing, 1996.
  • Geoffrey Jukes, The Second World War - The Eastern Front 1941-1945, Osprey, 2002, ISBN 1841763918
  • Marshal A.M. Vasilevsky, The matter of my whole life (memoirs), Moscow, Politizdat, 1978
  • Marshal K. Rokossovsky, Soldier's duty (memoirs), Moscow, Politizdat, 1988.
  • Walter S. Dunn, Soviet Blitzkrieg - The Battle for White Russia, 1944, Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2000, ISBN 1555878806
  • Lt-Col. William M. Connor, Analysis Of Deep Attack Operations Operation Bagration, Belorussia, 22 June - 29 August 1944, Combat Studies Institute, 1987.