6/43-7/43
The Bersaglieri and the Chetniks, June 1943
Belgrade was one of the most important Allied objectives on the Southern Front. As the capital of Yugoslavia, it had considerable political value, while it sat along a major German railroad line connecting Berlin to Istanbul, through which Germany transported the chromium that they obtained from western Turkey.
With pressure mounting on the Western Front, the Germans were forced to pull excess units from quieter fronts to contain the Allied offensives, and southern Europe, where the Chetnik resistance tied down hundreds of thousands of soldiers, proved to be just that sector. In the months following Longsword, Schorner’s Army Group D was stripped of nearly half its forces, leaving only the most essential areas truly occupied, while the countryside was taken over by the Chetniks.
Members of the Chetnik leadership were also in contact with the Italian Army, which now controlled approximately half of former Yugoslavia, and after Longsword’s success looked likely the two decided to work towards seizing Belgrade, retaking much of the rest of the country and liberating it from Axis control. Allied transport planes dropped in some heavy equipment to known bands of Chetniks (unfortunately, nearly 20% of this was found by German occupiers instead), while Graziani prepared his forces for another attack.
On June 1st, the people of Belgrade rose up against the Germans. Schorner rushed to put down the uprising, only to have his forces intercepted by Chetnik bands. Graziani launched an offensive along the entire length of the front, from as far north as Pecs to Sofia in the south. In the centre, his best units including nearly all of his armoured forces stormed forward to try to reach Belgrade before the Germans could crush the uprising. The Germans, disorganised and confused by the massive Chetnik assault, offered little resistance to the Italians. The lucky ones escaped to Hungary or Romania, where a new line eventually formed. The unlucky ended up in Italian prisoner of war camps, or dead at the end of a Chetnik’s knife.
Return to the Yalu, June 1943
Since their recapture of Seoul the previous year, the IJA had slowly pushed the Red Army out of Korea, where the difficult terrain on the peninsula had reduced the Red Army’s incredible advantages in heavy equipment to be virtually meaningless, while the Japanese could call on naval support at any time and had maintained a slight air superiority for much of the campaign.
In the year since the return to civilian government, much more had changed in Japan than just the liberation of Pyongyang and Hamhung. Prime Minister Saito had ensured that the entire senior leadership of both the Army and the Navy pledged loyalty, not only to the Emperor and the nation of Japan, but to its “elected leadership” as well, in a hope of reducing the likelihood of another incident caused by rogue leaders similar to Mukden or the Marco Polo Bridge. In addition, British officers had been invited to Japan to improve the Army’s logistic capabilities, the failure of which was considered by many analysts to be a significant reason for the failure to totally defeat China. The IJA’s limited motorisation continued to constrain efforts towards improving the supply networks, but even limited improvements made a difference to an army that had previously ignored them entirely.
In the summer of 1943, the reformed IJA was ready to begin reclaiming Manchukuo from the Red Army. The frontlines were now on the Yalu River, only now the Japanese were the ones who would have to cross. Without a massive artillery advantage that the Soviets had enjoyed during the First Battle of the Yalu, the Japanese commanders decided that a nighttime crossing would put them in the best position possible.
With the Red Army’s artillery spotters grounded, the Japanese managed to force their way across the river, heading for Mukden while Vatutin asked for reinforcements from Moscow. Stalin wavered, considering whether or not to send Vatutin to the gulags for his repeated poor performance against the Japanese, and it was only when Mukden fell several weeks later that Vatutin was given what he felt he needed. Forced back hundreds of kilometres, the Red Army in Manchukuo saw its position deteriorating by the day, while the Japanese sun began to rise once more.
Operation Broadsword, July 1943
The destruction of the Soissons-Reims pocket in early June 1943 left a weakened Army Group A attempting to defend the Franco-Belgian border from the combined armies of the Allies. Although trench lines had been dug along this new line, they were considerably less advanced than the massive works that had been used near Paris. But with Soviet deliveries of raw materials pouring into Germany, a follow-up operation to Longsword would be needed. Codenamed Broadsword, the new Allied plan was to smash through Manstein’s lines along the entire front west of the Maginot Line, hoping to crush the weakened Germans and push all the way to the Rhine, freeing the Low Countries and creating a starting point for an invasion of Germany.
Broadsword began in early July with an artillery bombardment only matched by Longsword’s in sheer ferocity. After two hours, the French 5th, 3rd and 7th Armies went over the top, engaging a demoralised enemy who had only just recovered from the shocks of the previous months. It rapidly became apparent that the new line would not hold, and Manstein ordered a general retreat into Belgium, with many of his forces moving into the forests in the east of the country. Hitler, upon hearing of the German retreat, telephoned Manstein’s headquarters demanding a reversal of the order. According to reporters present at the headquarters, Manstein could not hear what his commander-in-chief was saying and continued fighting the war how he believed it should be conducted.
In the early days of Broadsword, Army Group B’s commander Gerd von Rundstedt wanted to hold the line on the Scheldt River, where he had faced the British Army in trenches since the second week of the invasion of France. As the Allies crashed into Belgium, he knew that allowing the British to join the battle in full force would only add to Germany’s difficulties, and turned to Manstein’s Army Group A for support, urging the need for an immediate armoured counterattack.
“Erich, where are the panzers? Where are Guderian and Hoth? Stalin is sending every barrel of oil, every cart of metal he has to us and we can’t find four hundred panzers?”
- Rundstedt telephoning Manstein, 10th July 1943
Manstein informed Rundstedt that most of the available panzers were in dire need of a refit after the counterattack that broke Longsword, and that Army Group A was itself in hardly better shape. When French guns began bombarding Brussels, Rundstedt finally decided to pull Army Group B off the Scheldt before the Allies could capture Antwerp and cut the force off from Berlin.
For much of Army Group B, it was too late. General Giraud ordered the 7th French Army to ignore Brussels and instead swing to the west, while General Alexander led the 2nd British Army and the armies of the Free Forces in a bold crossing of the Scheldt. More than a third of Army Group B was isolated in a pocket centred on Tournai, while the rest scrambled to form a new line behind the Albert Canal.
- BNC
Belgrade was one of the most important Allied objectives on the Southern Front. As the capital of Yugoslavia, it had considerable political value, while it sat along a major German railroad line connecting Berlin to Istanbul, through which Germany transported the chromium that they obtained from western Turkey.
With pressure mounting on the Western Front, the Germans were forced to pull excess units from quieter fronts to contain the Allied offensives, and southern Europe, where the Chetnik resistance tied down hundreds of thousands of soldiers, proved to be just that sector. In the months following Longsword, Schorner’s Army Group D was stripped of nearly half its forces, leaving only the most essential areas truly occupied, while the countryside was taken over by the Chetniks.
Members of the Chetnik leadership were also in contact with the Italian Army, which now controlled approximately half of former Yugoslavia, and after Longsword’s success looked likely the two decided to work towards seizing Belgrade, retaking much of the rest of the country and liberating it from Axis control. Allied transport planes dropped in some heavy equipment to known bands of Chetniks (unfortunately, nearly 20% of this was found by German occupiers instead), while Graziani prepared his forces for another attack.
On June 1st, the people of Belgrade rose up against the Germans. Schorner rushed to put down the uprising, only to have his forces intercepted by Chetnik bands. Graziani launched an offensive along the entire length of the front, from as far north as Pecs to Sofia in the south. In the centre, his best units including nearly all of his armoured forces stormed forward to try to reach Belgrade before the Germans could crush the uprising. The Germans, disorganised and confused by the massive Chetnik assault, offered little resistance to the Italians. The lucky ones escaped to Hungary or Romania, where a new line eventually formed. The unlucky ended up in Italian prisoner of war camps, or dead at the end of a Chetnik’s knife.
Return to the Yalu, June 1943
Since their recapture of Seoul the previous year, the IJA had slowly pushed the Red Army out of Korea, where the difficult terrain on the peninsula had reduced the Red Army’s incredible advantages in heavy equipment to be virtually meaningless, while the Japanese could call on naval support at any time and had maintained a slight air superiority for much of the campaign.
In the year since the return to civilian government, much more had changed in Japan than just the liberation of Pyongyang and Hamhung. Prime Minister Saito had ensured that the entire senior leadership of both the Army and the Navy pledged loyalty, not only to the Emperor and the nation of Japan, but to its “elected leadership” as well, in a hope of reducing the likelihood of another incident caused by rogue leaders similar to Mukden or the Marco Polo Bridge. In addition, British officers had been invited to Japan to improve the Army’s logistic capabilities, the failure of which was considered by many analysts to be a significant reason for the failure to totally defeat China. The IJA’s limited motorisation continued to constrain efforts towards improving the supply networks, but even limited improvements made a difference to an army that had previously ignored them entirely.
In the summer of 1943, the reformed IJA was ready to begin reclaiming Manchukuo from the Red Army. The frontlines were now on the Yalu River, only now the Japanese were the ones who would have to cross. Without a massive artillery advantage that the Soviets had enjoyed during the First Battle of the Yalu, the Japanese commanders decided that a nighttime crossing would put them in the best position possible.
With the Red Army’s artillery spotters grounded, the Japanese managed to force their way across the river, heading for Mukden while Vatutin asked for reinforcements from Moscow. Stalin wavered, considering whether or not to send Vatutin to the gulags for his repeated poor performance against the Japanese, and it was only when Mukden fell several weeks later that Vatutin was given what he felt he needed. Forced back hundreds of kilometres, the Red Army in Manchukuo saw its position deteriorating by the day, while the Japanese sun began to rise once more.
Operation Broadsword, July 1943
The destruction of the Soissons-Reims pocket in early June 1943 left a weakened Army Group A attempting to defend the Franco-Belgian border from the combined armies of the Allies. Although trench lines had been dug along this new line, they were considerably less advanced than the massive works that had been used near Paris. But with Soviet deliveries of raw materials pouring into Germany, a follow-up operation to Longsword would be needed. Codenamed Broadsword, the new Allied plan was to smash through Manstein’s lines along the entire front west of the Maginot Line, hoping to crush the weakened Germans and push all the way to the Rhine, freeing the Low Countries and creating a starting point for an invasion of Germany.
Broadsword began in early July with an artillery bombardment only matched by Longsword’s in sheer ferocity. After two hours, the French 5th, 3rd and 7th Armies went over the top, engaging a demoralised enemy who had only just recovered from the shocks of the previous months. It rapidly became apparent that the new line would not hold, and Manstein ordered a general retreat into Belgium, with many of his forces moving into the forests in the east of the country. Hitler, upon hearing of the German retreat, telephoned Manstein’s headquarters demanding a reversal of the order. According to reporters present at the headquarters, Manstein could not hear what his commander-in-chief was saying and continued fighting the war how he believed it should be conducted.
In the early days of Broadsword, Army Group B’s commander Gerd von Rundstedt wanted to hold the line on the Scheldt River, where he had faced the British Army in trenches since the second week of the invasion of France. As the Allies crashed into Belgium, he knew that allowing the British to join the battle in full force would only add to Germany’s difficulties, and turned to Manstein’s Army Group A for support, urging the need for an immediate armoured counterattack.
“Erich, where are the panzers? Where are Guderian and Hoth? Stalin is sending every barrel of oil, every cart of metal he has to us and we can’t find four hundred panzers?”
- Rundstedt telephoning Manstein, 10th July 1943
Manstein informed Rundstedt that most of the available panzers were in dire need of a refit after the counterattack that broke Longsword, and that Army Group A was itself in hardly better shape. When French guns began bombarding Brussels, Rundstedt finally decided to pull Army Group B off the Scheldt before the Allies could capture Antwerp and cut the force off from Berlin.
For much of Army Group B, it was too late. General Giraud ordered the 7th French Army to ignore Brussels and instead swing to the west, while General Alexander led the 2nd British Army and the armies of the Free Forces in a bold crossing of the Scheldt. More than a third of Army Group B was isolated in a pocket centred on Tournai, while the rest scrambled to form a new line behind the Albert Canal.
- BNC
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