Battle of the Caucasus

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Operation Edelweiss
)

Battle of the Caucasus
Part of the Eastern Front of World War II

German tanks in formation in a Caucasus valley with infantry in the foreground, September 1942
Date25 July 1942 – 12 May 1944 (1942-07-25 – 1944-05-12)
Location
Result

Soviet victory

  • Axis evacuation of the area in 1943
Belligerents
 Soviet Union
Commanders and leaders
Nazi Germany Wilhelm List
Nazi Germany Ewald von Kleist
Nazi Germany Richard Ruoff
Kingdom of Romania Petre Dumitrescu
Hasan Israilov 
Mairbek Sheripov 
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

The Battle of the Caucasus was a series of Axis and Soviet operations in the Caucasus as part of the Eastern Front of World War II. On 25 July 1942, German troops captured Rostov-on-Don, opening the Caucasus region of the southern Soviet Union to the Germans and threatening the oil fields beyond at Maikop, Grozny, and ultimately Baku. Two days prior, Adolf Hitler had issued a directive to launch an operation into the Caucasus named Operation Edelweiß. German forces were compelled to withdraw from the area that winter as Operation Little Saturn threatened to cut them off.

Order of battle

Red Army

Wehrmacht

General Field Marshal (Generalfeldmarschall) Wilhelm List

German operations

Operation Edelweiss, named after

3rd Romanian Army (General Petre Dumitrescu). Army Group A was supported to the east by Army Group B commanded by Fedor von Bock
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.

Preparations

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 of

local fifth column
.

Events

German soldiers in the Caucasus (1942)
The front from July to November 1942

After neutralizing the Soviet counter-attack in the Izyum-Barvenkovsk direction the German Army Group A rapidly attacked towards the Caucasus. When

Kuban 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 reach

Elbrus, 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 Khurzuk aul
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 the Krasnodar-Pyatigorsk-Maikop 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 the 1st Mountain Division planted the flag of Nazi Germany on the summit of Mount Elbrus, the highest peak in both the Caucasus and Europe.

  • 3 August 1942 – Wehrmacht takes Stavropol
  • 10 August 1942 – Wehrmacht takes Maykop
  • 12 August 1942 – Wehrmacht takes Krasnodar
  • 23 August 1942 – Wehrmacht takes
    Mozdok
  • 11 September 1942 - Wehrmacht and Romanian Army take Novorossiysk[1]
  • End of September 1942 – Wehrmacht stopped at
    North Ossetia city of Vladikavkaz

Soviet operations

The front from December 1942 to February 1943
Some 870,000 Soviet personnel were awarded this Medal "For the Defence of the Caucasus" from 1 May 1944.

1941

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, Soviet

Krasnovodsk in Turkmenistan
.

1942

In 1942, the

German Army launched Operation Edelweiss which was aimed at advancing to the oil 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 around Stalingrad
, the German forces in the Caucasus were put on the defensive.

Soviet military operations included

Tikhoretsk-Stavropol Defensive Operation (25 July – 5 August 1942)
Armavir-Maikop Defensive Operation (6–17 August 1942)
Novorossiysk Defensive Operation (19 August – 26 September 1942)
Mozdok-Malgobek Defensive Operation (1–28 September 1942)
Tuapse Defensive Operation (25 September – 20 December 1942)
Nalchik-Ordzhonikidze Defensive Operation (25 October – 12 November 1942)

1943

Red Army units enter the reconquered city of Mozdok (January 1943).

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 the Taman 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)

Salsk-Rostov Offensive (1 January – 4 February 1943)
Mozdok-Stavropol Offensive (1 January – 24 January 1943)
Novorossiysk-Maikop Offensive (11 January – 4 February 1943)
Tikhoretsk-Eisk Offensive (24 January – 4 February 1943)
Rostov Offensive (5–18 February 1943)
Krasnodar Offensive (9 February – 24 May 1943)
Novorossiysk-Taman Operation (10 September – 9 October 1943)

The key military base of Novorossiysk was retaken in September, 1943.

  • 3 January 1943 – Red Army retakes Mozdok
  • 21 January 1943 – Red Army retakes Stavropol
  • 23 January 1943 – Red Army retakes Armavir
  • 29 January 1943 – Red Army retakes Maykop
  • 4 February 1943 – Soviet marines repel a German attempt to land at Malaya Zemlya, an island fort that controlled access to the port at Novorossiysk. Soviets hold this island until relieved in September, denying the use of the port to the Germans.
  • 12 February 1943 – Red Army retakes Krasnodar
  • 16 February 1943 – Red Army retakes Rostov
  • 9 September 1943 – the Germans begin to retreat from the Blue Line defensive positions
  • 16 September 1943 – Red Army occupies Novorossiysk, relieving the sailors and marines at Malaya Zemlya.
  • 9 October 1943 – Red Army controls the whole of the Taman Peninsula

1944

During the

Winter Spring Campaign of 1944 (1 January – 31 May), the Soviet army was able to launch an invasion of the Crimea
from the Caucasus, which was fully recaptured by 12 May 1944.

Operations included:

Kerch-Eltigen Amphibious Offensive Operation
(31 October 1943 – 11 December 1944)
Perekop–Sevastopol Offensive (8 April – 12 May 1944)
Kerch–Sevastopol Offensive (11 April – 12 May 1944)

Anti-Soviet insurgency (1940–1944)

See also

References

  • Alexander Werth, The Battle of Stalingrad, Chapter 7, "Caucasus, there and back", pp. 648–651
  • Ivan Tyulenev, "Cherez Tri Voyny" (Through Three Wars), Moscow, 1960, p. 176.
  1. ^ Robert Forczyk, The Caucasus 1942–43: Kleist's race for oil

Bibliography

  • (in Russian) Иван Тюленев. Крах операции "Эдельвейс". Орджоникидзе, 1975.
  • (in Russian) К.-М. Алиев. В зоне "Эдельвейса". М.-Ставрополь, 2005.
  • Javrishvili K. Battle of Caucasus: Case for Georgian Alpinists, Translated by Michael P. Willis, 2017.

External links