Chapter 852: Advance on the Caucasus

Just how vast is the Caucasus? Perhaps many have no real sense of it. But when the German soldiers set foot on this land, they discovered it was truly vast beyond imagination. They would take a city, only to find more cities ahead. They would capture a high ground, only to discover it was just one of thousands.

As the Soviet soldiers looked up, watching German planes dive one after another, dropping bombs somewhere in the distance, a German Tiger tank, at the very edge of their vision, crashed through a tree as thick as a wrist and roared out of the forest.

The Soviet soldiers leaned in their trenches. They watched as another German tank burst out of the woods behind the Tiger. No one was surprised or shouted out; they just silently worked the bolts of their rifles, chambering a round.

Without the blast of a horn, without a reminder or an order, everyone knew the battle had begun. Their fates were no longer their own. On the battlefield, the only thing to do was to survive as long as possible, to pray to the heavens to let them live.

A shell landed on the Soviet army’s position, causing a wave of panic. Then more shells landed around the trenches, kicking up clods of earth. The panic, however, was suppressed. Everyone clutched their weapons and huddled in the corners of their trenches, praying for this terrible shelling to pass quickly.

“Damn it, the Germans’ infantry-artillery coordination is getting better and better. They only start shelling when their attack begins. The cover is perfect,” a Soviet commander cursed, clutching his helmet as he squatted in a trench. His voice was quickly drowned out by the roar of the exploding shells; from a short distance away, it was inaudible.

Having barely survived this intense barrage, the Soviet troops, judging by the power of the explosions and the trajectories, identified German 150mm howitzers, Soviet 122mm pieces, and 105mm and 75mm guns. It was a grand assembly of all the artillery Germany had.

When the Soviet soldiers shook the loose dirt from their bodies and poked their heads out of the trenches to observe the Germans, they saw dozens of tanks, under the cover of a dense mass of German grenadiers, already less than two hundred meters away.

Rat-tat! Rat-tat! The German machine gunners lay prone on the ground, the assistant gunners holding the ammunition belts. The two of them set up a simple firing position and poured a curtain of fire onto the positions opposite them. Several German machine gun nests opened fire at the same time, and for a moment, the Soviets on their positions were pinned down, unable to raise their heads.

Crack! After a long preparation, the first shot finally came from the Soviet position. A Soviet soldier, holding his rifle, fired the first shot of the Soviet counter-attack at the enemy. With this shot, the Soviets had finally opened fire, but the thin sound of their rifles was completely out of proportion to the fierce firepower of the German army opposite them.

A German commander standing at the edge of the woods lowered his binoculars, pointed to the troops in front, and said to the several officers beside him, “Air reconnaissance said that the first Soviet defense line is only to delay our offensive. Now it seems that is indeed the case.”

As if to prove the commander’s words, the German grenadiers, accompanied by the tanks, had already advanced to the Soviet trenches. A large number of grenadiers entered the Soviet trenches behind the tanks. The sound of gunfire became denser, and the Soviet army quickly collapsed, as if they had no intention of defending this position at all.

One position changed hands, and the German army had established a firm foothold on its path of advance. As the tanks continued to advance, more German grenadiers stormed the Soviet positions. The sound of Soviet soldiers surrendering in rout was everywhere. The combat effectiveness of the two sides was simply not on the same level.

“Cutting into this kind of position is not too difficult a matter. Because of the air support, the Soviet artillery support can’t be brought to bear…” a German officer said, looking at the battlefield in the distance, where the outcome was no longer in doubt. He spoke with a lack of enthusiasm, “What is certain is that the elite of the Caucasus are not here.”

“They don’t even have any decent artillery support. It seems the Soviets have really given up on Surovikino,” another German officer said, shaking his head. “The Soviets are becoming more and more cautious. This is not a good sign. They are not putting their troops in the open but are fighting a street battle with us in one city after another.”

With the German attack, the positions here had been completely captured. A small number of German troops were escorting the Soviet prisoners to the rear. There seemed to be several thousand of them, listlessly following one another. They looked dejectedly at the German armored command vehicles parked on the side of the road, as well as some motorcycles and bicycles.

The leading German commander walked to the front of his armored command vehicle, spread a map on the engine cover, and studied it for a while. He then pointed to the area around Surovikino with his finger and said to a second lieutenant who was following beside him, “Have your reconnaissance units search forward in a fan shape. If you meet resistance, return immediately. I want to see just how many of the positions west of the Don the Soviets have abandoned.”

“Yes, sir. Advance 20 kilometers? Or 30?” the second lieutenant asked, looking at his superior, wanting to confirm the distance of his advance.

“Forward. Advance as many kilometers as you can!” the German commander said, climbing onto his armored car and looking at the dense mass of Soviet prisoners before him. “Set up accurate road signs. I want to have lunch in the city of Surovikino. My armored units will ensure we continue to head west. If your reconnaissance units run into any trouble, you can contact my tank commanders nearby.”

“Yes, sir! Heil Führer!” the second lieutenant saluted at attention and then, under the gaze of the Soviet prisoners behind him, walked towards his six-wheeled armored reconnaissance vehicle. With the start of this vehicle, several other armored cars of the same model, as well as some motorcycles and off-road vehicles, also began to move.

At this moment, a Kübelwagen drove over from the road not far away and stopped beside the German frontline commander’s armored car. A staff officer from the division jumped down, went up to this regimental commander, saluted at attention, and said, “I have been ordered by the division commander to come here to inspect the current progress of your unit’s advance. The situation has changed. It seems the Soviets are systematically abandoning their defensive positions west of the Don.”

“Yes, Chief of Staff. My unit has just confirmed the intelligence from the air reconnaissance planes through a short advance. Their resistance was very light. It can be said that these places were just given to us by the Soviets,” the regimental commander replied, jumping down from his armored car and walking to the front of the division’s chief of staff. He gave a casual military salute and then said, “I am ordering my troops to search and attack forward, with the area being all the regions on the west bank of the Don.”

The division’s chief of staff nodded and said, “The problem you’ve mentioned, the other armored division next door has also encountered. They found that the Soviets were routed at the first touch during their attack, so they sent a report to the corps headquarters. The report stated that they would occupy the west bank of the Don at the fastest possible speed and encircle the tens of thousands of Soviet troops here.”

It wasn’t just here that the attack felt like punching cotton. Further in the distance, the German army attacking Perelazovsky had actually charged directly into the city and had then caught up with the retreating Soviet infantry on the road behind Perelazovsky, directly capturing over 2,500 Soviet prisoners.

Along all the defense lines between Perelazovsky and Surovikino, the German army had broken through smoothly and had also accumulated over 15,000 Soviet prisoners of war. But these prisoners were all recently armed civilians. Many of them had not even been issued with ammunition.

These Soviet soldiers had been completely abandoned by Rokossovsky. They had been cut off from supplies for a day, and had been waiting on their positions with empty stomachs for news from the rear. But while they waited, they were subjected to a large-scale air raid by the German army, as well as a fierce ground attack. They were at a loss, not understanding why the main force east of the Don had not supported them, and not understanding why their weapons and equipment, such as cannons and anti-aircraft guns, had been rushed back to the east of the Don.

By the time they knew they had been abandoned, they were already being escorted by the German army to the concentration camps in Ukraine and Poland. The purpose of them being left behind to defend their positions to the death was only one: to be piled up in the middle of the road like garbage, to slow down the speed of the German attack, and to buy that little bit of insignificant time for the main Soviet forces east of the Don.

The Soviet army, which had no intention of holding the first line of positions, was routed for a thousand miles. The speed of Manstein’s troops’ offensive even surpassed that of Guderian’s G Army Group. An armored regiment he had used as a vanguard had, in its southward advance, fought all the way to the town of Oktyabrsky, and had only stopped its offensive to wait for fuel.

By comparison, Guderian’s troops were much more conservative. After advancing several dozen kilometers, they had stopped their offensive because they could not figure out what kind of tricks the Soviets were playing.

Subsequently, the German army had reached the banks of the Don River. The two sides had made contact on the Don defense line. The Soviet and German armies had exchanged a brief artillery fire. After the German bombers had paid another visit, the Soviets had on their own initiative stopped this provocative behavior. Guderian was not in a hurry to cross the Don but was waiting for his infantry to arrive, and then to begin building a pontoon bridge in preparation for the river crossing.

Within 48 hours of the opening of the Battle of the Caucasus and the German army’s full-scale offensive, all of the German army’s offensive plans had been completed, and most of them had even been exceeded. But no one was happy, because they knew that the Soviet army was deliberately contracting its forces.

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