After many a delay, here we are! Enjoy, if you can. 
Figure 37: A Soviet propaganda poster proclaiming “Let’s Defend Moscow!”
The assaults on Murmansk, Leningrad and Kiev marked the beginning of the final phase of the Great Patriotic War, comprised mainly of the assaults on Crimea, Rostov and the gradual advance on Moscow titled Operation Zyklon (Cyclone), and would mark the ultimate test of Weber’s principles of warfare. Perhaps even more so than in France, Weber’s strategy in dictating terms to Moscow by threatening a cataclysmic siege to end all sieges was an enormous gamble: total victory if the Soviets caved, with the danger of a long, protracted war which the Axis could not hope to win in the long run given the massive hinterland and strategic depth the Soviets could command in response.
The success of his gambit did not mask these weaknesses of German strategy, especially as marked by the debacle in Leningrad, the reversals at Rostov and the slowness in advancing on Moscow, revealing the ineffectiveness of the overstretched and exhausted Axis forces, the failure of the Luftwaffe to match its ambitious goals of bringing aerial siege forward with each army advance, and the sheer magnitude of the Soviet reserve, which seemed like an endless resource pool which the Axis were unable to match. These weaknesses in the strategic aims of Barbarossa would be internalised by the OKW, following its radical reshuffle (termed a purge by some historians), formulating an entirely new strategic outlook for the Wehrmacht, come the return to arms between the Axis Powers and the Soviet Union.
Figure 38: A Heinkel He111 drops an anti-ship bomb. Black Sea, October 1941.
The Crimean peninsula was a major strategic aim of the Wehrmacht as well as a key ideological goal of the NSDAP regime, being both an vital hub for control of the Black Sea (and an airbase which the Soviets had used to harass Romania) as well as the ancestral home of the Gothic tribes.While Weber did not generally indulge in such volkisch notions of race, instead using definitions of “Aryanism” to concentrate economic power in the ethnic German middle class, the propaganda potential of recapturing the ancestral Gothia (not to be confused with the post-Barbarossa protectorate of Gothica in Poland) was irresistible, especially to Goebbels, who wished to incorporate it into claims of Ukrainian “Aryan roots” to win over their new allies/clients in the form of Bandera’s OUN-B.
However, due to the protracted Siege of Odessa which Antonescu had initiated rashly in the aims of adding territory to Romania beyond reclaiming Bessarabia and Bukovina, the Axis forces, especially the Romanian Navy and the small number of vessels Germany had managed to ship overland into the Black Sea were drawn into a “meat grinder” near Odessa which decimated both them and the Soviet Black Sea fleet, severely hampering naval operations at the fortress of Sevastopol, which held out until peace was declared.
Forces permitting the drive to Crimea were only freed up in early September when Odessa finally fell and was declared the regional capital of the Romanian Transnistra Governate and its surrounding district renamed Great Antonescu. Thus, on the 5th of September, the joint German-Romanian force, aided by Ukrainian volunteer brigades, initiated its advance through Ukraine to the Isthmus of Perekop connecting Crimea to the Ukrainian mainland.
Opposing this detachment of Army Group South consisting of the German 11th Army and the Romanian 4th Army, overall led by General Eugen Ritter von Schobert, was the Crimean Front (augmented by four irregular divisions drafted from the Crimean inhabitants) commanded by Colonel-General Kuznetsov, having been reassigned from the North-western Front. The battle for the Isthmus of Perekop was brief, lasting less than a week, and the Axis forces rapidly swept through the peninsula, dominating the whole of Crimea by the end of October with the exception of the fortress of Sevastopol.
Here the similar methodology of encirclement and neutralisation which would be employed further north in Leningrad was adopted. Considering that the primary aims of seizing Crimea were to prevent naval action from the Soviet Black Sea fleet, a policy of interdiction was initially favoured over attempts to break through the city’s defences, which, as seen from Leningrad, would prove needlessly bloody. However, the evacuation of Odessa had meant that the Sevastopol defenders were now stronger, but not strong enough to break out into the rest of the peninsula. The gutted Axis naval forces also prevented any meaningful assault from the sea, which would likely have failed at any rate.
Thus, it fell to the Luftwaffe to conduct strategic bombing and for the two branches to interdict shipping and resupply. On all accounts their performance was indifferent, with a sustained stalemate being the status quo until peace was declared [1].
Figure 39: Horse-drawn artillery and armoured vehicles of the 1st SS Armoured Division Waffen-Leibgarde passing by a devastated Ukrainian village. October, 1941.
Rostov, the easternmost manifestation of Weber’s objectives as demarcated by the “Leningrad-Rostov Line”, has always marked a key counterfactual in military history, partly due to the known facts of the Soviet counterattack being the first major reversal of Operation Barbarossa as well as counterattack’s sudden termination due to the end of the war. Fergusson notes that Red Army General-Major Lopatin wavered over whether to pursue the offensive to its logical conclusion, ultimately complying with orders from higher command to cease for fear that Germany would retract its terms.
If Lopatin had continued on to success, Rostov would have been the sole exception to the narrative of Russia standing on the edge of collapse, as demonstrated in the fall of Murmansk, the bloody breakthrough at Leningrad and the encirclement of Sevastopol. Such a propaganda victory might have been enough to convince Stalin that refusing Weber’s terms would not be as devastating as imagined, although all such considerations are now strictly in the realm of speculation.
Be that as it may, as stated above, the Rostov offensive was while not quite doomed to failure per se, on incredibly shaky ground (as would also be literally proven afterwards) due to the physical fact that it represented the furthest stretch the Axis logistics would have to sustain, while also lacking many of the rail connections from which Operation Zyklon would benefit. The end of the Battle of Kiev meant that the 2nd Panzer Group, which had been sapped from Army Group Centre, commanded by Guderian, was freed up to link up with General Paul Ewald von Kliest’s 1st Panzer Group and the 1st SS Armoured Brigade, comprising “elite” (read: fanatical) troops recruited from the NSDAP Leibgarde and commanded by Josef “Sepp” Dietrich, Weber’s contemporary in the Freikorps Oberland and a fervent NSDAP ideologue [2].
This detachment of Army Group South was joined by the Romanian 3rd Army, which had finally pacified Odessa, and pressed on along the coast of the Sea of Azov (between Crimea and Rostov), rapidly mopping up Red Army resistance, crossing the Mius River in early October. Counterattacks by the Soviet 9th and 18th armies were repelled by the actions of the 1st SS Armoured Brigade, for which Weber promoted it to division-level strength. The assault on Rostov, however, stalled; the Axis forces were barely able to reach the city’s outskirts until November due to the torrential autumn rains, meaning that much of the armour and other vehicles were unable to advance more than “metre-by-metre” through the mud, as observers stated. Unlike the previous halts, these delays were even worse as they did not permit effective resupply, considering that the same mud hindered trucks and horse-drawn carriages just as much as they did the tanks [3].
Figure 40: A Heer armoured vehicle navigating muddy streams generated by autumn rains. November, 1941.
Thus, the force which broke through into Rostov in mid-November was overstretched, undersupplied and difficult to reinforce, although the advent of winter meant that the ground had already begun to freeze over. However, these exact same weather conditions also meant that the Panzers were less effective than they had been in spring and autumn, not to mention the personnel manning them – in general, what little winter clothing which had been provided was inadequate, and exposure would almost certainly have been a lethal hazard to the Wehrmacht had the campaign dragged on.
It is unsurprising, then, that the Soviet counterattack, commencing in the third week of November, was incredibly effective, displacing the 1st and 2nd Panzer Groups from the Rostov city-centre and threatening to oust them from the entire municipality by the end of the month. When Rundstedt informed Weber that a reversal was imminent, Weber countermanded the retreat order and threatened to have him replaced, initially furiously stating that any troops which crossed the Mius westwards would be considered traitors before. Halder’s dismissal meant that the objections raised by Blomberg and Brauchitsch were weak, but nonetheless convinced Weber to accept a compromise of the 1st SS Armoured Division acting as a rearguard in Myasnikovsky District while the bulk prepared to move to Taganrog [4].
This third clash of ideas between Weber and his generals (the first being the general halt following the opening moves and the second to divert forces from Moscow to Kiev) was built wholly on the gambit which Weber had carefully cultivated – he did not wish for news of Rostov’s recapture to spread too quickly lest Stalin be emboldened to reopen offensives, and thus was incredibly reluctant to order a retreat of any kind. Nonetheless, the clearance of the central Rostov district had been achieved even as potentiates rushed to the negotiating-table.
Figure 41: Citizens of Moscow dig defensive trenches in front of the city. November, 1941.
While Operation Zyklon – the push towards Moscow preceding its terror-bombing – was intended to be the final offensive of Barbarossa, this proved to be far from the case, as can be clearly seen from Leningrad, Sevastopol and Rostov, and even Murmansk to a certain extent, where street-fighting and sieges persisted until the ink had dried on the armistice preceding the end of the war. Despite closing to less than ten miles of Moscow, the Axis logistics situation was so poor that an offensive into the city would in all probability fail, even as relentless Luftwaffe sorties consisting of Heinkel He111 and Ju188 [5] bombing runs did not succeed in breaking the morale of the defenders of Moscow.
What the Moscow offensive did achieve was in convincing Stalin and the upper echelons that even though the German attack would most likely break against Muscovite defences, the cost of ousting the Axis Powers from Russia proper, let alone the Baltic states, Byelorussia and Ukraine would be so enormous that the Soviet Union would be at a massive disadvantage compared to the western powers, which had this time to reconstruct their militaries and infrastructure, no matter how reduced by the Treaty of Gutenberg, which was at risk of expiring in 1945.
That this course of action only led to further suffering for the Soviet Union is a consequence which can only be understood with hindsight; given the circumstances of December 1941, the Soviet response can well be interpreted as a canny move of diplomacy, albeit at a painful price, as opposed to the image of a humiliating capitulation espoused only by those with the most superficial of understandings of the Great Patriotic War [6].
Following the successes of Army Group Centre in rapidly achieving encirclements and destruction of entire armies in Soviet-occupied Poland and Byelorussia and the two-week halt ordered by Weber, citing concerns over the spirited Soviet defences of their South-western Front, over the objections of his generals who wished to push directly onwards to Moscow, as they felt that the fall of the capital would prompt a collapse in Soviet morale (see above, “Opening Moves – Centre”.)
Ultimately, Weber was convinced that following such suggestions would lead to the same mistakes of Napoleon, and it is difficult to justify Blomberg’s and Brauchitsch’s strategy given the bloody debacle of Leningrad, which is almost certainly what a German breakthrough would have led to. Nonetheless, with supply trains finally catching up by rail, the order to proceed eastwards was finally given on the 16th of September.
The Wehrmacht’s advance following the halt was rapid, albeit at heavy cost due to fierce Red Army resistance. Hasty defences were engaged and destroyed in turn, although once again at heavy attrition to the Wehrmacht as they trapped 19th, 20th, 24th and 32nd Soviet armies at Vyazama and eliminated resistance and Bryansk before September was up, claiming nearly 700,000 prisoners of war. However, two surprises lay in store for the advancing Heer, the first being the infamous Rasputitsa (распу́тица) – the first snows of winter melting rapidly and converting unpaved tracks into mud [3].
German advances ground to a halt by the second week of October, even as the news of the Soviet collapse along the Vyazma-Bryansk Front caused German morale to spike, with talk of the war being over by Christmas. Armour and supply trucks were unable to push further, although the gauge-convertible trains were somewhat less affected (although repairs to Soviet sabotage now were also slowed down), strengthening the German forces, especially with the long-delayed winter uniforms, before their inevitable thrust towards Moscow [7].
The second blow to Operation Zyklon was the latest in Soviet innovations – the T-34 tank. The Wehrmacht’s first encounter with T-34s at Mtsensk had ended so devastatingly for the Panzer IVs that a special investigation was launched, with its confirmation bringing despair to the OKW and the OKH as the T-34 proved to be impervious to Panzer IV attacks barring a direct hit at the rear of the vehicle, exploding its fuel tank. The Panzer V “Panther” tank, developed as a countermeasure to the fearsome T-34, only came into service years later, and anti-tank weapons were slow in coming to the front thanks to the mud.
These combinations of factors meant that an offensive was impossible until the ground froze over, meaning that all further operations had to be halted until mid-November. The rapid capture of Tula, while tactically significant, ultimately was rendered minimally useful overall due to these difficulties in proceeding forwards. Although the upper echelons of the Soviet Union, including Stalin and his inner circle had been evacuated in October, he returned to Moscow on the 7th of November (Revolution Day) to oversee a massive patriotic parade, even as Luftflotte 2 bombarded the outer districts of the capital and Goebbels busily broadcast the impending fall of Leningrad to the world.
Figure 43: The legendary T-34 tank, a watershed development in armoured fighting vehicle development, being sent to the front.
Although winter clothing had begun to arrive in bulk, the armour and vehicles themselves were still ill-equipped to operate in the punishing winter temperatures, which reached lows of -36 to -38 °C (-37 to -38 °F) during the final phases of Operation Zyklon. Furthermore, the reports of the incredibly bloody struggle in Leningrad had also begun to arrive, dampening enthusiasm for a breakthrough into the city. For this reasons, it was decided to proceed slowly and encircle Moscow, attempting to break their morale through sustained terror bombing despite the limited success of this exact strategy in Leningrad. \\\
At this stage, three possibilities emerged: first: a German breakthrough into Soviet lines, to which Weber was not willing to commit manpower and which was not planned as part of either Barbarossa or Zyklon, a stalemate, which would eventually destroy the Wehrmacht through attrition if the supply situation did not improve, and worst of all, a Soviet breakthrough into the German lines, which would spell disaster for Weber’s gambit. The former was quickly scrapped, although offensives closing in on Moscow would be scheduled to coincide with an intensification of aerial bombardment, after which peace terms would be offered, as had been done in France. If Stalin did not capitulate, bombing would continue to intensify along with propaganda broadcasts concerning the collapse of Soviet defences along the other fronts.
When the snow set on the 16th, ending the Rasputitsa, the German assault finally resumed in earnest (on the six-month anniversary of Barbarossa’s commencement), having utilised the delays to continue (slowly) resupplying their front-line forces. The consolidated Soviet defence, organised by Lieutenant General Andrey Vlasov and the overall commander-in-chief, Zhukov, meant that Wehrmacht losses were high, with the 3rd Panzer Group being severely worn down as it advanced through Klin and Solnechnogorsk. A fierce Soviet counterattack placed Tula, which had been captured by the 2nd Panzer Group before the general halt, under severe risk, although the Wehrmacht prevailed in the end, advancing even further, taking Kashira, a key rail hub, on the 22nd.
Throughout this period, nearly-continuous bombing runs were conducted on Moscow and its surrounding area, although the strong air defences meant that the cost bore by the Luftwaffe was nearly as heavy as that of the Heer. The final meaningful assault on Moscow was at the outlying municipalities of Naro-Fominsk and Khimki, the latter of which was barely 8 kilometres (5 miles) from the city centre, were concentrated bombardment comparable to that of Sedan preceded the German thrusts. Upon learning that Khimki had fallen on the 2nd, Weber decided that now was the time to present his demands, concurring with the OKW that storming Moscow itself would be impossible given the ever-dropping temperature and the exhaustion of the Wehrmacht, doing so the next day after one final sortie over the Moscow night sky, which managed (among other carnage) to destroy one tower of St. Basil’s Cathedral, prompting NKVD functionary (and later chief) Lazar Kaganovich to grimly joke that Weber had saved him some trouble [8].
Figure 45: A Red Army anti-aircraft gun in Moscow. December, 1941.
According to Zhukov’s account, Beria entered the planning room in an “agitated state”, bearing a telegram sent from one of the outposts. There, he took Stalin to one side, and immediately headed out again. When he returned with another telegram, Stalin took Zhukov into another room and asked him if a breakout from Moscow would be possible and to respond “honestly, like a communist.” When Zhukov replied that a counterattack would require large numbers of reserves to be mobilised, Stalin revealed to him the telegram stating that Field Marshal Bock had been empowered by Weber himself to offers terms for an armistice, preceding formal talks.
Zhukov suggested to Stalin that Vlasov make plans for a counterattack beginning on the 6th of December while he discussed terms with Bock. Stalin agreed, and Zhukov was sent under armed guard to Khimki, where Bock and his aide-de-camp Colonel Günther Blumentritt were waiting for him. There, Bock greeted him in German, offering him a seat. On the table were the terms, written in German and Russian. Zhukov’s memoirs noted that he was momentarily “struck dumb” by them.
The suggested terms were a total withdrawal of Axis forces from Russia proper, including Leningrad, and even Byelorussia, which seemed remarkably lenient given the amount of bloodshed for these in the last few months. Zhukov requested permission to send a missive to Stalin, which Bock granted, and Zhukov spent the remaining time pacing around the captured town, noting the conditions of the German defences, before Stalin’s reply came. While frequently quoted as a single word – “Accept” – Zhukov’s memoirs simply refer to it as permission to accept the terms, which he did. Upon his acceptance, Bock informed him that Bulgaria, which had remained neutral, was offering to host peace talks.
Much of the decision-making process on Stalin’s end remains mysterious, but it is known that it was mostly Stalin in conference with Beria who made the final decisions concerning the armistice. Vlasov did not offer any objections once informed by Stalin that he intended to accept the terms – it is apparent that the understanding of a Soviet victory only being possible in the long term, at massive cost to its industry and the Red Army, was shared by all. As such, the stage was set in Sofia for the final theatre of the Great Patriotic War – the negotiating-table.
[1] Mostly like OTL, given how heavily defended Sevastopol was and the effects of the Siege of Odessa on Axis capability in the Black Sea.
[2] See Part 2 as to why it's called the Leibgarde. SS units are more integrated with the OKH, and are also seen by the military as a simple way of siphoning off the NSDAP sycophants.
[3] This cannot be butterflied either by luck or skill, and hampers Axis efforts so much that the schedules eventually line up with OTL's.
[4] I find it difficult to improve German performance at Rostov given all the factors mentioned in the text, so I haven't.
[5] I realise the Ju188 wasn't actually put into service until later, but I've mentioned it several times already so all I can say is that strategic bombing was given a bit of a kickstart as a doctrine after the Fall of France, bringing forward its deployment just enough for it still not to count a lot.
[6] I hope these are cogent enough reasons for Stalin to accept peace terms, especially given what the terms are.
[7] See "Opening Moves". This finally pays off big time, and butterflies better performance at Tula, making the German encirclement just that bit more tight.
[8] Kaganovich had quite the hate-boner for St. Basil's Cathedral, and nobody's too sure why he was so fanatical about it.
Next update (first week of June): The Treaty of Sofia.
=======
CHECK AND RESIGNATION
Figure 37: A Soviet propaganda poster proclaiming “Let’s Defend Moscow!”
The assaults on Murmansk, Leningrad and Kiev marked the beginning of the final phase of the Great Patriotic War, comprised mainly of the assaults on Crimea, Rostov and the gradual advance on Moscow titled Operation Zyklon (Cyclone), and would mark the ultimate test of Weber’s principles of warfare. Perhaps even more so than in France, Weber’s strategy in dictating terms to Moscow by threatening a cataclysmic siege to end all sieges was an enormous gamble: total victory if the Soviets caved, with the danger of a long, protracted war which the Axis could not hope to win in the long run given the massive hinterland and strategic depth the Soviets could command in response.
The success of his gambit did not mask these weaknesses of German strategy, especially as marked by the debacle in Leningrad, the reversals at Rostov and the slowness in advancing on Moscow, revealing the ineffectiveness of the overstretched and exhausted Axis forces, the failure of the Luftwaffe to match its ambitious goals of bringing aerial siege forward with each army advance, and the sheer magnitude of the Soviet reserve, which seemed like an endless resource pool which the Axis were unable to match. These weaknesses in the strategic aims of Barbarossa would be internalised by the OKW, following its radical reshuffle (termed a purge by some historians), formulating an entirely new strategic outlook for the Wehrmacht, come the return to arms between the Axis Powers and the Soviet Union.
===
CRIMEA AND SEVASTOPOL
Figure 38: A Heinkel He111 drops an anti-ship bomb. Black Sea, October 1941.
The Crimean peninsula was a major strategic aim of the Wehrmacht as well as a key ideological goal of the NSDAP regime, being both an vital hub for control of the Black Sea (and an airbase which the Soviets had used to harass Romania) as well as the ancestral home of the Gothic tribes.While Weber did not generally indulge in such volkisch notions of race, instead using definitions of “Aryanism” to concentrate economic power in the ethnic German middle class, the propaganda potential of recapturing the ancestral Gothia (not to be confused with the post-Barbarossa protectorate of Gothica in Poland) was irresistible, especially to Goebbels, who wished to incorporate it into claims of Ukrainian “Aryan roots” to win over their new allies/clients in the form of Bandera’s OUN-B.
However, due to the protracted Siege of Odessa which Antonescu had initiated rashly in the aims of adding territory to Romania beyond reclaiming Bessarabia and Bukovina, the Axis forces, especially the Romanian Navy and the small number of vessels Germany had managed to ship overland into the Black Sea were drawn into a “meat grinder” near Odessa which decimated both them and the Soviet Black Sea fleet, severely hampering naval operations at the fortress of Sevastopol, which held out until peace was declared.
Forces permitting the drive to Crimea were only freed up in early September when Odessa finally fell and was declared the regional capital of the Romanian Transnistra Governate and its surrounding district renamed Great Antonescu. Thus, on the 5th of September, the joint German-Romanian force, aided by Ukrainian volunteer brigades, initiated its advance through Ukraine to the Isthmus of Perekop connecting Crimea to the Ukrainian mainland.
Opposing this detachment of Army Group South consisting of the German 11th Army and the Romanian 4th Army, overall led by General Eugen Ritter von Schobert, was the Crimean Front (augmented by four irregular divisions drafted from the Crimean inhabitants) commanded by Colonel-General Kuznetsov, having been reassigned from the North-western Front. The battle for the Isthmus of Perekop was brief, lasting less than a week, and the Axis forces rapidly swept through the peninsula, dominating the whole of Crimea by the end of October with the exception of the fortress of Sevastopol.
Here the similar methodology of encirclement and neutralisation which would be employed further north in Leningrad was adopted. Considering that the primary aims of seizing Crimea were to prevent naval action from the Soviet Black Sea fleet, a policy of interdiction was initially favoured over attempts to break through the city’s defences, which, as seen from Leningrad, would prove needlessly bloody. However, the evacuation of Odessa had meant that the Sevastopol defenders were now stronger, but not strong enough to break out into the rest of the peninsula. The gutted Axis naval forces also prevented any meaningful assault from the sea, which would likely have failed at any rate.
Thus, it fell to the Luftwaffe to conduct strategic bombing and for the two branches to interdict shipping and resupply. On all accounts their performance was indifferent, with a sustained stalemate being the status quo until peace was declared [1].
===
ROSTOV
Figure 39: Horse-drawn artillery and armoured vehicles of the 1st SS Armoured Division Waffen-Leibgarde passing by a devastated Ukrainian village. October, 1941.
Rostov, the easternmost manifestation of Weber’s objectives as demarcated by the “Leningrad-Rostov Line”, has always marked a key counterfactual in military history, partly due to the known facts of the Soviet counterattack being the first major reversal of Operation Barbarossa as well as counterattack’s sudden termination due to the end of the war. Fergusson notes that Red Army General-Major Lopatin wavered over whether to pursue the offensive to its logical conclusion, ultimately complying with orders from higher command to cease for fear that Germany would retract its terms.
If Lopatin had continued on to success, Rostov would have been the sole exception to the narrative of Russia standing on the edge of collapse, as demonstrated in the fall of Murmansk, the bloody breakthrough at Leningrad and the encirclement of Sevastopol. Such a propaganda victory might have been enough to convince Stalin that refusing Weber’s terms would not be as devastating as imagined, although all such considerations are now strictly in the realm of speculation.
Be that as it may, as stated above, the Rostov offensive was while not quite doomed to failure per se, on incredibly shaky ground (as would also be literally proven afterwards) due to the physical fact that it represented the furthest stretch the Axis logistics would have to sustain, while also lacking many of the rail connections from which Operation Zyklon would benefit. The end of the Battle of Kiev meant that the 2nd Panzer Group, which had been sapped from Army Group Centre, commanded by Guderian, was freed up to link up with General Paul Ewald von Kliest’s 1st Panzer Group and the 1st SS Armoured Brigade, comprising “elite” (read: fanatical) troops recruited from the NSDAP Leibgarde and commanded by Josef “Sepp” Dietrich, Weber’s contemporary in the Freikorps Oberland and a fervent NSDAP ideologue [2].
This detachment of Army Group South was joined by the Romanian 3rd Army, which had finally pacified Odessa, and pressed on along the coast of the Sea of Azov (between Crimea and Rostov), rapidly mopping up Red Army resistance, crossing the Mius River in early October. Counterattacks by the Soviet 9th and 18th armies were repelled by the actions of the 1st SS Armoured Brigade, for which Weber promoted it to division-level strength. The assault on Rostov, however, stalled; the Axis forces were barely able to reach the city’s outskirts until November due to the torrential autumn rains, meaning that much of the armour and other vehicles were unable to advance more than “metre-by-metre” through the mud, as observers stated. Unlike the previous halts, these delays were even worse as they did not permit effective resupply, considering that the same mud hindered trucks and horse-drawn carriages just as much as they did the tanks [3].
Figure 40: A Heer armoured vehicle navigating muddy streams generated by autumn rains. November, 1941.
Thus, the force which broke through into Rostov in mid-November was overstretched, undersupplied and difficult to reinforce, although the advent of winter meant that the ground had already begun to freeze over. However, these exact same weather conditions also meant that the Panzers were less effective than they had been in spring and autumn, not to mention the personnel manning them – in general, what little winter clothing which had been provided was inadequate, and exposure would almost certainly have been a lethal hazard to the Wehrmacht had the campaign dragged on.
It is unsurprising, then, that the Soviet counterattack, commencing in the third week of November, was incredibly effective, displacing the 1st and 2nd Panzer Groups from the Rostov city-centre and threatening to oust them from the entire municipality by the end of the month. When Rundstedt informed Weber that a reversal was imminent, Weber countermanded the retreat order and threatened to have him replaced, initially furiously stating that any troops which crossed the Mius westwards would be considered traitors before. Halder’s dismissal meant that the objections raised by Blomberg and Brauchitsch were weak, but nonetheless convinced Weber to accept a compromise of the 1st SS Armoured Division acting as a rearguard in Myasnikovsky District while the bulk prepared to move to Taganrog [4].
This third clash of ideas between Weber and his generals (the first being the general halt following the opening moves and the second to divert forces from Moscow to Kiev) was built wholly on the gambit which Weber had carefully cultivated – he did not wish for news of Rostov’s recapture to spread too quickly lest Stalin be emboldened to reopen offensives, and thus was incredibly reluctant to order a retreat of any kind. Nonetheless, the clearance of the central Rostov district had been achieved even as potentiates rushed to the negotiating-table.
======
MOSCOW
Figure 41: Citizens of Moscow dig defensive trenches in front of the city. November, 1941.
While Operation Zyklon – the push towards Moscow preceding its terror-bombing – was intended to be the final offensive of Barbarossa, this proved to be far from the case, as can be clearly seen from Leningrad, Sevastopol and Rostov, and even Murmansk to a certain extent, where street-fighting and sieges persisted until the ink had dried on the armistice preceding the end of the war. Despite closing to less than ten miles of Moscow, the Axis logistics situation was so poor that an offensive into the city would in all probability fail, even as relentless Luftwaffe sorties consisting of Heinkel He111 and Ju188 [5] bombing runs did not succeed in breaking the morale of the defenders of Moscow.
What the Moscow offensive did achieve was in convincing Stalin and the upper echelons that even though the German attack would most likely break against Muscovite defences, the cost of ousting the Axis Powers from Russia proper, let alone the Baltic states, Byelorussia and Ukraine would be so enormous that the Soviet Union would be at a massive disadvantage compared to the western powers, which had this time to reconstruct their militaries and infrastructure, no matter how reduced by the Treaty of Gutenberg, which was at risk of expiring in 1945.
That this course of action only led to further suffering for the Soviet Union is a consequence which can only be understood with hindsight; given the circumstances of December 1941, the Soviet response can well be interpreted as a canny move of diplomacy, albeit at a painful price, as opposed to the image of a humiliating capitulation espoused only by those with the most superficial of understandings of the Great Patriotic War [6].
Following the successes of Army Group Centre in rapidly achieving encirclements and destruction of entire armies in Soviet-occupied Poland and Byelorussia and the two-week halt ordered by Weber, citing concerns over the spirited Soviet defences of their South-western Front, over the objections of his generals who wished to push directly onwards to Moscow, as they felt that the fall of the capital would prompt a collapse in Soviet morale (see above, “Opening Moves – Centre”.)
Ultimately, Weber was convinced that following such suggestions would lead to the same mistakes of Napoleon, and it is difficult to justify Blomberg’s and Brauchitsch’s strategy given the bloody debacle of Leningrad, which is almost certainly what a German breakthrough would have led to. Nonetheless, with supply trains finally catching up by rail, the order to proceed eastwards was finally given on the 16th of September.
The Wehrmacht’s advance following the halt was rapid, albeit at heavy cost due to fierce Red Army resistance. Hasty defences were engaged and destroyed in turn, although once again at heavy attrition to the Wehrmacht as they trapped 19th, 20th, 24th and 32nd Soviet armies at Vyazama and eliminated resistance and Bryansk before September was up, claiming nearly 700,000 prisoners of war. However, two surprises lay in store for the advancing Heer, the first being the infamous Rasputitsa (распу́тица) – the first snows of winter melting rapidly and converting unpaved tracks into mud [3].
German advances ground to a halt by the second week of October, even as the news of the Soviet collapse along the Vyazma-Bryansk Front caused German morale to spike, with talk of the war being over by Christmas. Armour and supply trucks were unable to push further, although the gauge-convertible trains were somewhat less affected (although repairs to Soviet sabotage now were also slowed down), strengthening the German forces, especially with the long-delayed winter uniforms, before their inevitable thrust towards Moscow [7].
Figure 42: German soldiers pull a stuck vehicle through the mud. October, 1941.
The second blow to Operation Zyklon was the latest in Soviet innovations – the T-34 tank. The Wehrmacht’s first encounter with T-34s at Mtsensk had ended so devastatingly for the Panzer IVs that a special investigation was launched, with its confirmation bringing despair to the OKW and the OKH as the T-34 proved to be impervious to Panzer IV attacks barring a direct hit at the rear of the vehicle, exploding its fuel tank. The Panzer V “Panther” tank, developed as a countermeasure to the fearsome T-34, only came into service years later, and anti-tank weapons were slow in coming to the front thanks to the mud.
These combinations of factors meant that an offensive was impossible until the ground froze over, meaning that all further operations had to be halted until mid-November. The rapid capture of Tula, while tactically significant, ultimately was rendered minimally useful overall due to these difficulties in proceeding forwards. Although the upper echelons of the Soviet Union, including Stalin and his inner circle had been evacuated in October, he returned to Moscow on the 7th of November (Revolution Day) to oversee a massive patriotic parade, even as Luftflotte 2 bombarded the outer districts of the capital and Goebbels busily broadcast the impending fall of Leningrad to the world.
Figure 43: The legendary T-34 tank, a watershed development in armoured fighting vehicle development, being sent to the front.
Although winter clothing had begun to arrive in bulk, the armour and vehicles themselves were still ill-equipped to operate in the punishing winter temperatures, which reached lows of -36 to -38 °C (-37 to -38 °F) during the final phases of Operation Zyklon. Furthermore, the reports of the incredibly bloody struggle in Leningrad had also begun to arrive, dampening enthusiasm for a breakthrough into the city. For this reasons, it was decided to proceed slowly and encircle Moscow, attempting to break their morale through sustained terror bombing despite the limited success of this exact strategy in Leningrad. \\\
At this stage, three possibilities emerged: first: a German breakthrough into Soviet lines, to which Weber was not willing to commit manpower and which was not planned as part of either Barbarossa or Zyklon, a stalemate, which would eventually destroy the Wehrmacht through attrition if the supply situation did not improve, and worst of all, a Soviet breakthrough into the German lines, which would spell disaster for Weber’s gambit. The former was quickly scrapped, although offensives closing in on Moscow would be scheduled to coincide with an intensification of aerial bombardment, after which peace terms would be offered, as had been done in France. If Stalin did not capitulate, bombing would continue to intensify along with propaganda broadcasts concerning the collapse of Soviet defences along the other fronts.
Figure 44: Heer personnel in thick snow west of Moscow. December, 1941.
When the snow set on the 16th, ending the Rasputitsa, the German assault finally resumed in earnest (on the six-month anniversary of Barbarossa’s commencement), having utilised the delays to continue (slowly) resupplying their front-line forces. The consolidated Soviet defence, organised by Lieutenant General Andrey Vlasov and the overall commander-in-chief, Zhukov, meant that Wehrmacht losses were high, with the 3rd Panzer Group being severely worn down as it advanced through Klin and Solnechnogorsk. A fierce Soviet counterattack placed Tula, which had been captured by the 2nd Panzer Group before the general halt, under severe risk, although the Wehrmacht prevailed in the end, advancing even further, taking Kashira, a key rail hub, on the 22nd.
Throughout this period, nearly-continuous bombing runs were conducted on Moscow and its surrounding area, although the strong air defences meant that the cost bore by the Luftwaffe was nearly as heavy as that of the Heer. The final meaningful assault on Moscow was at the outlying municipalities of Naro-Fominsk and Khimki, the latter of which was barely 8 kilometres (5 miles) from the city centre, were concentrated bombardment comparable to that of Sedan preceded the German thrusts. Upon learning that Khimki had fallen on the 2nd, Weber decided that now was the time to present his demands, concurring with the OKW that storming Moscow itself would be impossible given the ever-dropping temperature and the exhaustion of the Wehrmacht, doing so the next day after one final sortie over the Moscow night sky, which managed (among other carnage) to destroy one tower of St. Basil’s Cathedral, prompting NKVD functionary (and later chief) Lazar Kaganovich to grimly joke that Weber had saved him some trouble [8].
Figure 45: A Red Army anti-aircraft gun in Moscow. December, 1941.
According to Zhukov’s account, Beria entered the planning room in an “agitated state”, bearing a telegram sent from one of the outposts. There, he took Stalin to one side, and immediately headed out again. When he returned with another telegram, Stalin took Zhukov into another room and asked him if a breakout from Moscow would be possible and to respond “honestly, like a communist.” When Zhukov replied that a counterattack would require large numbers of reserves to be mobilised, Stalin revealed to him the telegram stating that Field Marshal Bock had been empowered by Weber himself to offers terms for an armistice, preceding formal talks.
Zhukov suggested to Stalin that Vlasov make plans for a counterattack beginning on the 6th of December while he discussed terms with Bock. Stalin agreed, and Zhukov was sent under armed guard to Khimki, where Bock and his aide-de-camp Colonel Günther Blumentritt were waiting for him. There, Bock greeted him in German, offering him a seat. On the table were the terms, written in German and Russian. Zhukov’s memoirs noted that he was momentarily “struck dumb” by them.
The suggested terms were a total withdrawal of Axis forces from Russia proper, including Leningrad, and even Byelorussia, which seemed remarkably lenient given the amount of bloodshed for these in the last few months. Zhukov requested permission to send a missive to Stalin, which Bock granted, and Zhukov spent the remaining time pacing around the captured town, noting the conditions of the German defences, before Stalin’s reply came. While frequently quoted as a single word – “Accept” – Zhukov’s memoirs simply refer to it as permission to accept the terms, which he did. Upon his acceptance, Bock informed him that Bulgaria, which had remained neutral, was offering to host peace talks.
Much of the decision-making process on Stalin’s end remains mysterious, but it is known that it was mostly Stalin in conference with Beria who made the final decisions concerning the armistice. Vlasov did not offer any objections once informed by Stalin that he intended to accept the terms – it is apparent that the understanding of a Soviet victory only being possible in the long term, at massive cost to its industry and the Red Army, was shared by all. As such, the stage was set in Sofia for the final theatre of the Great Patriotic War – the negotiating-table.
[1] Mostly like OTL, given how heavily defended Sevastopol was and the effects of the Siege of Odessa on Axis capability in the Black Sea.
[2] See Part 2 as to why it's called the Leibgarde. SS units are more integrated with the OKH, and are also seen by the military as a simple way of siphoning off the NSDAP sycophants.
[3] This cannot be butterflied either by luck or skill, and hampers Axis efforts so much that the schedules eventually line up with OTL's.
[4] I find it difficult to improve German performance at Rostov given all the factors mentioned in the text, so I haven't.
[5] I realise the Ju188 wasn't actually put into service until later, but I've mentioned it several times already so all I can say is that strategic bombing was given a bit of a kickstart as a doctrine after the Fall of France, bringing forward its deployment just enough for it still not to count a lot.
[6] I hope these are cogent enough reasons for Stalin to accept peace terms, especially given what the terms are.
[7] See "Opening Moves". This finally pays off big time, and butterflies better performance at Tula, making the German encirclement just that bit more tight.
[8] Kaganovich had quite the hate-boner for St. Basil's Cathedral, and nobody's too sure why he was so fanatical about it.
=======
Next update (first week of June): The Treaty of Sofia.
Last edited:
