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1943 - July to December - the European Front
1943 - July to December - the European Front
West Europe:
The “Chinese Disaster” or “Churchill’s Folly” as the broadsheets proclaim fatally weakens Churchill. A repeated string of would-be Prime Ministers successively fail to gain the confidence of the house: Eden, Halifax, Wood, Beaverbrook and desperately - Attlee. The King is forced to dissolve parliament and call for a new election on July 30.
The election results saw a polarized electorate with a collapsing center and increase in radicalism. The two parties which had gained the most: The British Union of Fascists and the British Workers Party had consistently opposed the war from the onset. Mosley’s British Union of Fascists because Mosley was an admirer of the German, Italian and Chinese systems and the British Worker’s Party because they were taking directions from Trotsky in Mexico City and genuinely saw the war as an Imperialist one and the Soviet Union as a deformed workers state that was now just imperialist power.
During the confusion, the British-army naturally ceased offensive operations. After reclaiming much of Belgium and a portion of the Netherlands, she sat with her French allies in an uneasy cold war against the Germans who stared at them from across the West Wall.
After months of indecision and paralysis the troops received news on Christmas Day - Lord Anthony Eden had successfully formed a government and they would continue the war.
Soviet troops counter-attacking Axis troops in the Operation Summer Awakening. Marshall Tukhachevsky's counter-attacks and skillful fighting retreat saved the bulk of the Soviet Hungarian Army Front
East Europe:
The combination of temporary reprieve Germany received on her Western Front as well as the withdrawal of several Soviet Armies to the Sino-Soviet and Sino-Manchurian borders allowed Germany to salvage the strategic situation. Armies transferred from the west allowed Operation Summer Awakening to begin in earnest on July 15. This was a massive operation with two combined Axis armies of Italian, Hungarian, Romanian, Slovakian, Yugoslavian and Polish troops spearheaded by German armor. There were two army groups - Army Group Center (Rundstedt) driving east from Ostrava would be tasked with capturing Katowice, Krakow and Rzezow before turning south to Kosice. The other driving north - Army Group South (Manstein) from Timasora would be tasked with capturing Arad, Oradea and Satu Mare before swinging north to Kosice and then linking hands with the Army Group Center. The combined total of the two fronts were around 3 million men.
While some Soviet troops had been transferred further East, there was still a large number of battle-hardened and effective troops led by Marshal Mikail Tukhachevsky ready to oppose with around 2.5 million men. However, Axis air superiority was enabled by the relative quiet on the western front and there was a lack of Soviet intelligence about Axis plans - forcing the soviets to disperse the troops across the front. Furthermore, a large portion of Soviet troops were also busy continuing the siege of budapest so many of his best troops were being ground up in the conflict. Furthermore, his disfavour by Stalin also meant that many of the best reinforcements and supplies were being directed north to Marshall Zhukov.
Nonetheless, Tukhachevsky fought skillfully - he successfully saw the trap that the Germans were attempting to lay before him and launched several counter-offensives to delay the Germans and began retreating his troops from Hungary. He defied Stalin’s orders to defend and conducted an exemplary fighting retreat from Hungary. Although he suffered 500,000 casualties compared to the 200,000 Axis troops - the bulk of his army front had escaped intact.
After being hauled to the capital along with Marshall Zhukov (Polish Army Front) and Marshall Budonny (Romanian Army Front) - he endured a telling off and a denunciation by Stalin. To Stalin and his surprise - Marshall Zhukov and then Marshall Budonny stuck up for him. While the three men were rivals - they had all experienced the fear and terror of the purges and did not want political considerations to override common sense. Zhukov said he would have done the same thing and asked Budonny if he would’ve done any different. Choosing his words more carefully than Zhukov had, commander Budonny said that Stalin was always right, but that he did not see if he would’ve made a different decision than Zhukov.
Fuming with rage, Stalin had ordered them all out. Finally the three men got their orders - the Hungarian Front would be dissolved and split up between Zhukov and Budonny and the Polish Front and the Romanian Front. Marshall Tukhachevsky would be demoted for insubordination and sent to command command the Soviet and Mongolian troops in the Sino-Mongolian border.
Up next: 1943 The Asian Fronts
West Europe:
The “Chinese Disaster” or “Churchill’s Folly” as the broadsheets proclaim fatally weakens Churchill. A repeated string of would-be Prime Ministers successively fail to gain the confidence of the house: Eden, Halifax, Wood, Beaverbrook and desperately - Attlee. The King is forced to dissolve parliament and call for a new election on July 30.
The election results saw a polarized electorate with a collapsing center and increase in radicalism. The two parties which had gained the most: The British Union of Fascists and the British Workers Party had consistently opposed the war from the onset. Mosley’s British Union of Fascists because Mosley was an admirer of the German, Italian and Chinese systems and the British Worker’s Party because they were taking directions from Trotsky in Mexico City and genuinely saw the war as an Imperialist one and the Soviet Union as a deformed workers state that was now just imperialist power.
During the confusion, the British-army naturally ceased offensive operations. After reclaiming much of Belgium and a portion of the Netherlands, she sat with her French allies in an uneasy cold war against the Germans who stared at them from across the West Wall.
After months of indecision and paralysis the troops received news on Christmas Day - Lord Anthony Eden had successfully formed a government and they would continue the war.
Soviet troops counter-attacking Axis troops in the Operation Summer Awakening. Marshall Tukhachevsky's counter-attacks and skillful fighting retreat saved the bulk of the Soviet Hungarian Army Front
East Europe:
The combination of temporary reprieve Germany received on her Western Front as well as the withdrawal of several Soviet Armies to the Sino-Soviet and Sino-Manchurian borders allowed Germany to salvage the strategic situation. Armies transferred from the west allowed Operation Summer Awakening to begin in earnest on July 15. This was a massive operation with two combined Axis armies of Italian, Hungarian, Romanian, Slovakian, Yugoslavian and Polish troops spearheaded by German armor. There were two army groups - Army Group Center (Rundstedt) driving east from Ostrava would be tasked with capturing Katowice, Krakow and Rzezow before turning south to Kosice. The other driving north - Army Group South (Manstein) from Timasora would be tasked with capturing Arad, Oradea and Satu Mare before swinging north to Kosice and then linking hands with the Army Group Center. The combined total of the two fronts were around 3 million men.
While some Soviet troops had been transferred further East, there was still a large number of battle-hardened and effective troops led by Marshal Mikail Tukhachevsky ready to oppose with around 2.5 million men. However, Axis air superiority was enabled by the relative quiet on the western front and there was a lack of Soviet intelligence about Axis plans - forcing the soviets to disperse the troops across the front. Furthermore, a large portion of Soviet troops were also busy continuing the siege of budapest so many of his best troops were being ground up in the conflict. Furthermore, his disfavour by Stalin also meant that many of the best reinforcements and supplies were being directed north to Marshall Zhukov.
Nonetheless, Tukhachevsky fought skillfully - he successfully saw the trap that the Germans were attempting to lay before him and launched several counter-offensives to delay the Germans and began retreating his troops from Hungary. He defied Stalin’s orders to defend and conducted an exemplary fighting retreat from Hungary. Although he suffered 500,000 casualties compared to the 200,000 Axis troops - the bulk of his army front had escaped intact.
After being hauled to the capital along with Marshall Zhukov (Polish Army Front) and Marshall Budonny (Romanian Army Front) - he endured a telling off and a denunciation by Stalin. To Stalin and his surprise - Marshall Zhukov and then Marshall Budonny stuck up for him. While the three men were rivals - they had all experienced the fear and terror of the purges and did not want political considerations to override common sense. Zhukov said he would have done the same thing and asked Budonny if he would’ve done any different. Choosing his words more carefully than Zhukov had, commander Budonny said that Stalin was always right, but that he did not see if he would’ve made a different decision than Zhukov.
Fuming with rage, Stalin had ordered them all out. Finally the three men got their orders - the Hungarian Front would be dissolved and split up between Zhukov and Budonny and the Polish Front and the Romanian Front. Marshall Tukhachevsky would be demoted for insubordination and sent to command command the Soviet and Mongolian troops in the Sino-Mongolian border.
Up next: 1943 The Asian Fronts
- CCA
- Word Count: 790