FALL BLAU 1942 - Examining the Disaster

blau is a complete disaster for the germans so much so that it brings the german army to the brink and ends the traditional german way of war the war of movement on the surface wow appears to be a success look at the territory that the germans take but when you dive into the details you find that this campaign the main summer offensive of 1942 ends in failure having not achieved its objectives so let's dive into the details and explain the failure that was case blue to fully understand blau we first need to look back at operation barbarossa what happens in barbarossa in 1941 directly dictates what happens in 1942 during operation blau and it really explains both why blau became a thing in the first place and also why blau failed germany invades the soviet union in 1941 and hitler says that the priority is in the south he wants to take the food and the minerals in the ukraine and he wants to take the oil of the caucasus this is because german occupied europe is suffering under a food crisis and a massive oil deficit which is bringing the german economy to a halt and would bring the army to a standstill in october of 1941 so hitler wants to prioritize the south in order to get the resources that germany desperately needs to continue the war but france halda does not want to go south halda is the chief of staff of the german army high command the okh and halda looks at the french campaign in 1940 sees that the reason they won that war was because they'd encircled the enemy forces and then marched to paris so he takes that to mean that the way to win a war is to encircle the enemy forces then take the capital he then applies this logic to the east and wants to wage the same style of war that had won in france but against the soviet union encircle the soviet troops first then take moscow and then win the problem is that the soviet union and russia previously was a completely different animal to france even a cursory glance had a map will show you now the distance well this is france and then this is the soviet union france versus the soviet union it it's just it's a huge difference now the population is not as dense as it was in western europe but the landmass itself and the distances and the space is massively different so much so that even the operational plan for barbarossa says well german panzers can't drive to the pacific and that the ultimate objective is a line from archangelisk to astrakhan this is just a made up line by the way having no real world terrain border the euro mountains are even further back from this so they won't even be affected if the germans got to this point which some other spoiler they don't actually do and unlike france the soviets and the russians previously knew that their strength lay in the great distances that their state had you see this in many campaigns the famous one being napoleon's conquest of moscow in 1812 which didn't bring about a collapse of the russian state but there are many more including world war one where the germans occupied vast tracts of russian territory and yet the russian and then soviet state well it's still fighting although in this case it was fighting itself effectively this is a completely different game with different rules what works on the european chess board does not work on the asiatic go board so taking the soviet capital and taking vast amounts of territory by itself probably won't bring about the collapse of the soviet state and you can see this in hitler's logic if he takes the food in the ukraine and the oil in the caucasus the soviet union would be deprived of the means to fight and germany would have all the resources she needs to continue the struggle this is very much a strategic mindset the type of logic needed on a go board but how does logic is let's defeat the armies in the field take moscow and then that will somehow result in a victory this is very much a chess player type of logic but the reality is taking moscow won't result in victory and won't deprive the soviets of the means to keep fighting unlike the southern route yet at the time prior to the war against the soviet union halda decides to apply what he learns of the french campaign on the barbarossa campaign regardless of what hitler wants so what halda does is he manipulates hitler's orders to change the priority from the south where hitler wants to go to the center moscow and he does this without telling hitler armor groups north centre and south are arranged with halder's logic in mind armor group center takes the priority in terms of units and supplies and so on and army group south doesn't receive as much as it really should have done now david stahill in his book operation barbarossa and jeremy's defeat in the east goes into this in a lot more detail and i highly recommend it if you haven't read it already but basically hitler doesn't learn of how does manipulation and reorientation of the priority of the campaign until after the campaign is well underway halda's plan is to make it easier for german armies to move towards moscow so that hitler will then conclude with halder that moscow should become the priority um the problem is that when hitler realizes that's what's happened it results in a conflict between halder and hitler and this is another good example of why hitler comes to the conclusion that he shouldn't have listened to his generals because in this case he was right halder had betrayed him and had disobeyed his orders to the detriment of the campaign and the war as a whole hitler was absolutely right to prioritize the south and halda was dead wrong in prioritizing moscow and interestingly stalin in 1941 correctly guesses that hitler wanted to attack on the southern front this is why there are so many units in the ukraine in 1941 and partly why they were caught off guard when the german attack came because while some soviet units were still redeploying to the south when barbarossa began when the german attack goes towards moscow the center axis the soviets in that area are overwhelmed by the concentration of german forces there they go two or three months into the campaign and the germans run out of fuel and then get bogged down in fighting outside moscow fast forward to 1942 and stalin concludes okay i was wrong about hitler wanting to go south in 1941 and clearly he's aiming for moscow therefore we need to prioritize the moscow area in 1942 because this is where the main german summer offensive will attack and to take the germans off guard a little bit we'll launch a diversionary attack in the south at kharkov in fact marshall timochenko actually proposed this attack in order to divert german attention and reinforcements from the upcoming attack on moscow attempting a pincer movement against the germans at kharkov their attacks are halted and well they went almost nowhere why because they'd gone straight into the teeth of the german forces preparing for the summer offensive foul blau hitler once again instructed howler to make the plan this time for fall blau and i'm going to emphasize that haldad does the majority of the work for this plan so many of the faults with this plan are actually holders and we'll come back to them later but unlike the barbarossa plan hitler and yodel made alterations probably to ensure that hitler's wishes were adhered to this time and this fact annoys halder who later complains about both hitler and google even though he was at fault the first time the objective now was absolutely set in the south and the remainder of the ukraine was to be taken the caucuses would be captured as well along with her vital oil fields after encircling and destroying soviet forces in the eastern ukraine the germans would move along the dawn and eventually reach astrakhan at this point the plan was to turn south and go into the caucasus proper taking makop and grozny these were two major oil producing sites north of the caucasus mountains now a lot of people say that the germans were trying to get to baku but that doesn't seem to actually be the case in fact this is why going to astrakhan was important if they take makeup and grozny and get them up and running the germans would have substantially more oil and if they take astracan not only would this prevent soviet reinforcements from going south which may actually ultimately help them reach baku but they could block oil shipments from the caucasus going to the rest of the soviet union blocking the oil would then [ __ ] the soviet economy completely in 1943 leading to her collapse and if not would certainly hinder her mechanized forces therefore baku wasn't necessary for blau and the astrakhan path strategy was to block oil shipments going north along the volga this then explains why the decision was later made to go into stalingrad and this is important to note stalingrad wasn't the ultimate objective of blau and in fact it's barely mentioned in the initial plan when it is mentioned it says going into the city isn't a priority here's the stalingrad quote from the plan in any event every effort will be made to reach stalingrad itself or at least to bring the city under fire from heavy artillery so that it may no longer be of any use as an industrial or communications center they didn't have to go into stalingrad it wasn't seen as that important what was more important was the northern guard line along the dawn and the vulgar in order to prevent the soviets from breaking through which would disrupt german efforts in the caucasus and blau can be summed up by saying first we'll break through the soviet lines encircle and destroy them then race off towards astrakhan forming the northern flank and then we'll head into the caucasus that in a nutshell is operation blau however there are several problems with the blau plan problem number one is the distances involved remember when we said that the soviet union and russia previously had the advantage of vast distances which was one of the state's natural strengths well blau would send the germans another 800 kilometers into soviet territory and if we bear in mind that the german armies were already at the limit of their logistical capabilities this would put further strain on german supply in fact in november of 1940 the army quartermaster general major general wagner predicted that german logistics could only take them about 500 to 800 kilometers into the soviet union before it broke down he did in fact tell haldo who ignored him and wagner's predictions turned out to be very accurate the the point is that the germans had already gone this distance in 1940 and had broken down now they were planning on going another 800 kilometers in 1942 it's simply madness uh auto lunacy but it seems they had no choice problem number two they didn't have enough troops 72 german divisions will be allocated to blau however because the germans were stretched thin across a front extending from the crimea to leningrad which is a front of around 2 700 kilometers at this point they couldn't concentrate enough forces in the south to complete their objectives for blau now a lot of people will say that the germans hadn't had already lost so many men in 1940 that they couldn't replenish their losses for 1942. this is actually incorrect the germans did in fact replenish their losses from 1941 their divisions may not be 100 replenished at the start of the campaign but the manpower certainly was around now the problem is that they were at the height of their logistical capabilities facing an enemy which knew they were coming and were about to stretch themselves even thinner by riding off towards astrakhan and grozny at the height of this advance the front would be a massive 4 100 kilometers long and once they'd got to astrakhan they were then going to guard the northern flank with several armies while they also went south into the caucasus this in itself was a major problem german military cannon up to this point said that one army group could take one strategic axis this way forces will be concentrated and thrust towards one objective which would give them several operational and tactical advantages the problem with wow is that they were going for three objectives foreign then the caucasus now technically they don't advance on all three at the same time but army group south would be torn between those three objectives no matter which order they actually do them in or if they do them all or if they do them all at the same time or what not therefore even before bar was underway the plan required at least two if not three full armor groups and the germans didn't have the forces to create two or three full armor groups in the south they had one and as we know from what happened in operation barbarossa this armor group armor group south didn't even have priority in terms of number of units so they had to make them the priority in 1942 even though they had 72 german divisions for blau this simply wasn't going to be enough for this campaign and they couldn't really spare more from the other two army groups there was a siege going on at leningrad in armed group north's zone and massive battles at regenev going on in army group center's area of operations the soviets are constantly counter-attacking at rejev because they don't want the germans to get to moscow so unable to pull more german divisions to the south the germans needed help in addition to the 72 german divisions allocated to blau 22 divisions will be hungarian italian and romanian plus more of these axis allied forces would arrive as the campaign progressed for blau the germans had one million soldiers plus 300 000 axis allied troops and to ensure that these forces could operate over two if not three strategic axes army group south would be split into two army groups these would be army group a which would go riding off into the caucasus and army group b which would guard the northern don volga flank in terms of strength this split of armor group south was a fiction these were not full armor groups in fact by august army group a and the caucasus would have just two armies while armor group b had six three of which were non-german armies so at a time when they needed two if not three four army groups the germans had two half army groups and they weren't entirely german army groups either and of the 72 german divisions allocated to wow only nine were armored and five were motorized the rest were basically infantry or similar this would have a massive impact on what was clearly not a flawless plan especially when you consider problem number three the red army this was no longer the first 14 days of operation barbarossa when halda had announced that the war was won the red army had survived 1941 and was busy making its recovery in 1942 the factories that had been packed up and shipped off to the euros were now rebuilt and going back online the troops in the field were beginning to get more than just rifles and outdated tanks unlike the previous year when most of the soviet tanks had been light or bad tanks roughly a quarter of the tanks were now with t-34s the red army was in the midst of a major reorganization and reconstruction program designed to enable it to engage their marked forces successfully in both the summer and the winter and it would do so the red army would put up a strong resistance to the german summer offensive which would hinder the german advance and stretch the german army to breaking point but the german commanders weren't stupid they actually expected the soviets to put up a fight unlike what they'd done the previous year when barbarossa had achieved complete strategic surprise now in 1942 without strategic surprise the germans expected the initial period of blau to be more of a static battle and had planned accordingly but when the great second german summer offensive begins on the 28th of june 1942 this turned out to not be the case beating the soviet forces immediately ahead of them the german second army and fourth panzer army race off towards their objective for an edge by the fourth of july hoth's fourth panzer army had reached the dawn in several places on its left second army came up as well and six army to the south only began to move on the 30th of the dune but also broke through the soviet units with ease take note though this position that powers his army had broken through with ease was a position that the soviets have been constructing for around about six months and powerless had broken through it without breaking a sweat and now columns of soviet forces were just fleeing to the east almost as quickly sixth army and fourth panzer armies trapped the soviet 40th army on the 2nd of july which was then devoured over the course of the next few days up to this point things had gone relatively well although the germans were now surprised how quickly soviet resistance had subsided the soviets had lost control and command of many of their sub units and the outlook for the soviets in a hall did not look good with this the second phase of blau began or sort of see von box forces at voronezh were being counter attacked by a soviet tank force so vombock was reluctant to send forth panzer army south as was part of the original blau plan hitler became enraged later going on to complain about how his panzer force had wasted 48 hours sat at varanesh thanks to von bark and this is an issue especially when you consider that the germans only had nine armored and five motorized divisions for this campaign and that three armored and two motorized of these divisions were now tied up at the city of varanesh at stake here though is a much bigger picture than just a simple little argument the traditional german way of war said that an army commander could make his own decisions and act on his own initiative if von bach wanted fourth panzer army for a couple of extra days then he was entitled to it right no the objective is to take the oil fields in the caucasus not fight a tactical battle at varanesh and von bark is preventing that from happening hitler who has not been schooled in the traditional german juncker officer way of war does not care about the tactical situation at varinesh he has a strategic mindset unlike von bark and he wants forth panzer army to go south on the second and third of july hitler and bach need to discuss the situation and bach conceded to the pressure from above to release fourth panzer army you hear often how hitler should have listened to his generals well on the strategic level his generals were squandering what little time they had to win the war another crack in the traditional german way of war on the 6th of july voronesh fell but on the 8th of july von bokh sent a message to halder and his outlook for the campaign was not good bach said that the german pincers would probably close around nothing and that in my opinion operation blau 2 is dead to explain this basically blau was designed as a series of operations rather than just one plan it was more of a set piece battle with timings and various thrusts which was more like a british battle plan rather than a traditional german okay go figure it all out as it goes plan the reason it was planned like this was for two reasons the first was because the traditional german way of war had failed in barbarossa having your generals ride off into the sunrise on their own initiative is great but only if you don't leave millions of enemy troops on your flanks or rear cadarian so instead of racing off to create massive encirclements which they couldn't keep a tight ring around allowing the red army to simply walk out of the trap the panzer forces now had to create little encirclements so the infantry could do their work this meant that the generals really couldn't have operational freedom like they'd had before the two styles simply don't complement each other and so they were reigned in to fight a more classic style of battle rather than a war of movement the second reason was because they expected the soviets to fight harder than they'd done the year before since they no longer had the strategic surprise the soviets knew they were at war and knew that the enemy ahead of them could attack them so they were better prepared than they had been the year before they'd also been digging defenses for several months now and seemed to be better prepared also worth noting is that the year before during barbarossa the soviets had struck back into the jaws of the german pincers uh they'd effectively counter-attack themselves straight into the prisoner of war camps but that was in 1941 in 1942 during case blue something else was happening now what i'm about to describe is is still up for debate but i want to provide some clarity to it and not just make some sweeping remarks that others have made so please bear in mind that the picture is not clear on the 7th of july timochenko ordered a general retreat to prevent his forces from getting encircled by the german pincers so on the operational level at least the soviets ordered a purposeful retreat but even as early as the 30th of june 1942 soviet forces from mostly divisional level downwards were already retreating and this retreat at divisional level downwards was not the calm collected retreat of an organized army no the soviets lost command and control of their units there was large-scale desertions and the loss of much equipment it was a route as cetino points out in his book death of the bear marked the soviet troops weren't stupid they knew that especially in the summer the german panzer attacks would encircle and destroy them and they had no intention of becoming prisoners of war so they just began to flee on the one hand then we have a purposeful retreat on the other hand a route and while many argue it was one of the other the reality is it was probably both it just depends on what level of the command structure you're talking about either way though this retreat or route would have dire consequences for the plan for blue and the german chances of success during the summer offensive were also impacted by this this is because if the soviets retreat then the german pincers won't encircle them if they don't encircle them then the soviets will live to fight another day they will effectively slip the noose this is bad because the traditional german way of war said they had to destroy the enemy forces before riding off to victory and in this case the soviets were retreating so hitler reacts quickly launching bio2 on the 9th of july this was actually a full two weeks earlier than planned such is the desperation to keep blau alive army group south is now split into two lists army group a and von box army group b and christ's first panzer army is let loose across the donets river what's happened over the course of the next few days in any other context but war could be described as a comedy christ is ordered to go left then right then over here then over there then over there and it was a very frustrating time to kleist whose army finally met milorovo with sixth army and fourth panzer army the bag of soviet prisoners they took was just 40 000. that was practically nothing in fact in the previous two weeks the germans had only taken 100 000 soviet prisoners of war this was tiny compared to what they'd hoped to have taken you see because of the desperation in trying to salvage something from the bowel plan the mobile elements had gone ahead to try encircle the fleeing soviet soldiers and they had to do this rapidly otherwise the soviets would slip their grasp so the panzers had actually shot off ahead of the infantry much like the year before and the infantry simply couldn't keep up with them most of the soviet troops they had encircled had actually been driving alongside the german panzer columns or had dispersed before them or hadn't actually been encircled because the german infantry couldn't keep up it was a repeat of the same problems that had happened during operation barbarossa the chess game does not work on a go board it had all gone wrong and a scapegoat was found von bokh was sacked on the 17th of july and replaced by vikes the charge against bach was that he tied up the panzer forces of varanesh for too long although vikes had also wanted the panzers for voronos too so anyway the wild plan was in tatters and the soviets were now responding in the wake of the german attack and for his failings here and in the previous year timochenko was dismissed and in his place the staff got created two new fronts the first was the variness front on the 7th of july which would be commanded by fortune on the 14th of july and the stalingrad front created on the 12th of july this will be commanded by gordov from the 21st of july the stalingrad front consisted of three reserve armies the 62nd under kolpachi 63rd under and 64th on the chirikov two of these reserve armies would become famous in the battle of stalingrad now the soviet high command still thought the voroness front was the most important because the germans were clearly aiming towards moscow and so the voronese front engages with salmon's second army but the stalingrad fronts forces are miles away they're at the don bend and really there's nothing between them and germans the germans then continue what can only be described as a disaster of their blitzkrieg or the vegans greek warfare an intelligence report indicated that the soviets had withdrawn to the east of rostov so the germans untangled their armored forces massing at millerovo which itself wasn't a slick affair and first panzer army was sent back across the donuts river which it had already crossed in the first stage of blue to thrust then towards rostov fourth panzer army was sent southeast towards the dawn northeast of rostov trying to encircle soviet forces south of the river 17th army and third romanian army would march from the west as well the only exception was palace's sixth army which was heading towards the don bend all these armies except for the sixth fell upon rostov which was captured on the 23rd of july interestingly the forces that initially took rostov in 1941 but the same forces that had taken it in 1941 at 42 as well but just like at millerovo the pincers at rostov came up empty barely 33 000 prisoners were taken and it turns out the intelligence report had been faulty much like the rest of the plan for blau despite taking territory the german army had not gobbled up the soviet forces in front of it and it had only got this far by consuming large quantities of its own fuel its logistics were getting stretched further and further the more miles it went and there was nothing immediately ahead of the pincers to destroy so now we come to possibly one of the big decisions of the war one which scholars have pondered over for years and which nobody seems to have made a clear answer to we're talking about fiora directive number 45 this order is the catalyst for the disaster at stalingrad and has been seen as the ultimate failure of the german summer offensive in 1942. if you think stalingrad and the events of 1942 are the turning point of world war ii or just one of the big turning points then this is the order that you absolutely have to understand now much like the soviet retreat or route debate before scholars are still debating the reasons for the decisions made in fiora order number 45 so as not to get ahead of ourselves first i'm going to give you the reasons for the decisions made in the context of blau and the wider war and then once you understand why this decision was made then i'll explain the consequences of the decisions the german economy and the war effort is suffering under a massive oil crisis even with romanian oil the deficit is crippling germany needs the oil of the caucasus in order to continue the wider war germany is also at war with britain and the united states and while they only have three divisions tied down in north africa at this point there is a constant threat of an attack in the west britain had raided the french coast at bruneville in february 1942 and would also read again in mid august the famous the upgrade in addition there was a larger threat of invasion thanks to the united states and the only way germany could hope to win a fight against the usa was to gain the oil her economy and mechanized forces needed hitler was aware of the soviet press and propaganda talking about a coming second front in the west as promised by the western allies hitler was also aware that the success of the western allies is dependent on the soviet union surviving in the east the more he wins in the east the more likely an invasion of the west becomes because the allies have to attack germany while her armies in the east are tied up hitler may have been an evil man but he was also the leader of a nation and he was not insane he understood the strategic picture very well unlike many of his generals who were trained to look at things tactically and operationally he understood that this war was a war for resources as to brony says this was the first war for oil and he understood that time was running out for germany the window for success a hard time limit was closing and if germany didn't get oil soon she would no longer be able to wage a war of movement and she would ultimately lose the static attritional war that would follow but in addition to the strategic situation and the need for oil so far the blau operation had been an operational mess it hadn't achieved anything except for take some ground it may have been a tactical success maybe an operational success i guess you could say but so far none of this is translated into a strategic success and it really needed to turn into want soon the good news was that the soviet red army was no longer in the field she had disintegrated hitler and the army high command had believed prior to blah that the red army was on the verge of collapse and they had just witnessed this collapse or at least they thought so regardless of whether it was an intentional retreat or a route or both that event that collapse leads hitler to the conclusion that the soviet will to fight is dead in his mind the only thing stopping the germans from getting to astrakhan was the terrain and the fuel gauge he concludes that the soviets will not be able to create a viable defensive position west of the volga river but he also knew what was happening elsewhere leningrad was still under siege and perhaps more importantly fighting was going on in the regime area near moscow the germans had kept approximately one-third of all its divisions on the eastern front at the regev miasma salient which from the words of at least one historian shows its desire to retain a suitable bridgehead as a staging area for a later offensive operation sidelits had just come to an end on the 22nd of july this was the clearing up operation of two large bodies of soviet troops in the rear of the german forces at rajev and while casualty figures for the germans are unknown because of poor german record-keeping it is known that the german divisions taking part in this clearing up operation were bled white they were therefore in desperate need of replacements or reinforcements plus with more soviet fences in this area incoming which they were and with a possibility of launching their own offensive to take moscow in 1942 it makes sense to shift priority away from the south to the center bearing all this in mind especially the time limit and the need for oil hitler decides to roll the dice once more he makes the decision to strike towards the caucasus and the oil fields now in the original plan of blau armor group south now split into two would strike east to astrakhan first form a northern blocking line then strike south to the caucasus oil fields so east first then south but now the plan is to try to strike towards astrakhan and into the caucasus simultaneously east and south together including the warren edge area this was basically splitting the german forces over three strategic axis with two half army groups at the same time it is a big gamble but hitler feels that there's no alternative to this time is running out he needs to get the oil now as part of this order he sends four army south in army group a first and fourth panzer army 17th army and romanian third army army group b will consist of german second army hungarian second army eighth italian army and german sixth army manstein's eleventh army was initially committed to go south as well but was withdrawn which will come back too and finally sixth army was also ordered to take stalingrad for an eventual thrust on astrakhan now sixth army is a big army it has six core at this time and may have been the biggest german army on the eastern front as well that said he was given objectives that were far beyond its capabilities but hitler does not see this because hitler thinks the soviets have been defeated in the south at least but this is a false belief and by diluting his forces what happens is axis units along the dawn are facing undefeated and quite powerful red army forces in fact the red army had a front facing each of the three axis armies of army group b at this time brian's front with more than three armies against salmon's second army variness front with two armies facing johnny's hungarian second army and the stalingrad front with five mostly reserve armies and two tank armies although these haven't actually formed yet facing palace's sixth army so this is optimism at best and overconfidence at the least the route of soviet forces in the early part of blau convinced hitler that manchester's 11th army wasn't even needed and it began moving to the leningrad area to influence that siege as i said last time 11 of the german divisions taking part in blau were withdrawn by mid-august 24th 132nd and 170th infantry plus the 28th jaeger divisions were sent to army group north the grotesque land motorized infantry division ninth and 11th panzer divisions and the 72nd infantry division were sent to army group center and the first motorized ss leap standard adolf hitler division and the 22nd and 257th infantry divisions were also sent to the west this was 15 of the german divisions deployed for blau and 25 of blau's mobile formations on top of the fact that reinforcements had already been de-prioritized for the southern front and sent to the central front as shown in last monday's video this effectively stripped and diluted the german forces in the south they no longer had the strength they needed to complete their objectives worse the supply situation is completely messed up priority goes to army group a racing off to the caucasus and that's fine but sixth army is starved of supplies powerless engages soviet forces at the don bend on the 24th of july and by the 26th of july as a combination of stiff soviet resistance but also a lack of fuel and ammunition powers his army comes to a halt at the dawn bend coupled with the people's commissaries of defense ordered number 227 the infamous not a step back order which was issued on the 28th of july 1942 sixth army becomes embroiled against four soviet armies and suffers heavy casualties now i'm not going to go into detail with this part of the battle today because i'll be covering this in much greater detail in my main battle storm styling by documentary which is coming but effectively from the 24th of july onwards the battle of stalingrad is on and palace's forces are suffering heavily and they haven't even reached the city yet hitler having stripped army group b down far too much realizes that he's made a mistake he sees that he needs to reinforce powers quickly in order to get the offensive going again so he orders hoths fourth panzer army from army group a to turn about once more and come back to palace's rescue it wasn't until the 7th of august that palace could get going again and hoff's forces spotted into action from the 31st onwards since fuel was also lacking for him as well the logistics strain on the whole southern front was having a massive impact which would plague both powerless and hoth all the way up and into the thick of the fighting inside stalingrad city meanwhile this stripping of fourth panzer army from army group a plus the fact that manchester's 11th army had gone on a picnic to leningrad meant that liszt had just three armies first panzer army 17th army and romanian third army these would have to drive the 650 kilometers to grozny getting stretched thinner and thinner over a front that was 300 kilometers wide while they drive further and further away from their supply base oh and list only had one german infantry division the 46th the rest were mobile units meaning his force on a whole lacked infantry nonetheless liszt crashed through the soviet front lines on the 26th of july and just kept on driving the romanians were subordinated to ruoff's 17th army which was now renamed armor group ruoff or although this was more of a kant group style unit rather than a separate armor group since it was on the armor group a the romanians and the 17th army marched sort of along the coast while kleist's army raced off towards mayor cop initially they made great success the soviets just fled before them and mayor cop fell on the 11th of august stalin was no fool though prior to the fall of makeup he warned deputy oil commissar nikolai berbikov that if he doesn't destroy the oil fields before the germans captured them he would be shot this was a good incentive the germans found the oil fields completely destroyed and well they were actually impressed by the effort that soviets went to in order to prevent the germans from using the oil fields the germans would get the oil fields up and running again slightly but they only got in the region of 750 tons of crude oil from mayokop which was a drop in the ocean compared to what they actually needed therefore the destruction of the oil fields was a success so well done berbickoff now while makeup may have fallen soviet general boudini commander of the north caucasus front was beginning to slowly regain control of the routed forces beneath him and the thing is while most of the troops were fleeing at this moment in time if he could steady them he'd have in the region of 600 000 men although 87 000 of these would be sailors from the black sea fleet this will be more than enough to halt the diluted forces of army group a and indeed it was by late august list's forces had ground to a halt in the caucasus mountains and had been unable to get to grozny reinforcements could not be sent because fourth panzer and sixth armies were embattled at stalingrad there were soviet attacks going on uh boring and demian zhukov and then kanyev's attacks at rajev from the 30th of july until september which kept army group center tied down so it was obvious to all blau had failed and its conduct was a complete disaster this had not been a smooth operation it hadn't captured nearly as many soviet prisoners as hoped and it stretched the german elastic band to breaking point the armies in the caucasus and stalingrad were now starved of fuel and ammunition reinforcements were being sent to the center rather than the south which would have massive consequences in the battle of stalingrad and the red army had not actually been destroyed they had been routed but now they regained their composure they hadn't suffered ridiculous casualties certainly not as bad as the year before and now with the ural factories online they were getting more and better tanks artillery mortars aircraft they were getting the communications equipment needed to conduct offensive operations they were reorganizing their units and husbanding their resources for a future attack blau had spread the german forces out thin across a wide front of 4100 kilometers their logistics were struggling to keep up and they had due to either poor staff work or logistics failed to reinforce army group b sufficiently so when the soviets mass for their operazier uran operation uranus there is nothing beyond the thin crust of axis frontline troops that can stop them blau is a failure in and of itself but it gives the soviets a golden opportunity to strike back and when they do they wipe out several axis armies and drive them back to plows starting point both hitler and stalin instinctively seem to grasp this even before the conclusion of the blau campaign hitler's anger boils over and he no longer listens to his generals who have failed him box already gone liszt is sacked on the 9th of september for failing to keep the offensive going several others like general heim are sacked as well halder the guy who failed in barbarossa failed again at plow and who constantly argued and lied to his fiora is sacked on the 24th of september he is replaced with zeitzler who would follow hitler's orders somewhat more loyally than the scheming halda did this replacement of howler can be seen as the end of the traditional german general staff way of war and the transition into a new style of warfare one with hitler in charge for a change hitler no longer trusts his generals who have betrayed him and disobeyed his orders time and time again and wants them to do as he says and interestingly stalin at the same time transforms from a person unwilling to listen to his generals and continually ordering them to stand or counter-attack against ridiculous odds to someone willing to take his general's advice and allow them time to prepare their offensives the end of blau with the germans stretched thin and without the oil and supplies needed to attack everywhere or even anywhere gives stalin that time for the first real time in the war he can say to his generals sure take one or two months to plan operation uranus and get it organized oh and you want to make a delay of a couple of days or even a couple of weeks well sure you can do that and the failure of wow really allows this to happen stalin and hitler trade places almost trade roles and it is directly because of this turning point in the war the initiative has gone over to the soviets hitler knows he's failed and stalin knows he's won effectively we can sum up the outcome of blau with this quote from centino by this point the war with the soviet union had placed burdens on the wear marked that were far heavier than the traditional german way of war could bear blitzkrieg had failed in barbarossa and had failed in blau and this was the last gasp for victory by hitler and his regime failure to take the oil meant germany did not have the fuel and lost the resources to continue the war the way it wanted to blitzkrieg no longer worked from now on it had to fight a static war in november 1942 at the height of german conquest and just a few kilometers from grozny you have el alamein operation uranus and then the torch landings which was the entry of the united states latin troops into the war the traditional german way of war was over blau came to an end not because of vast hordes of soviet troops or masses of len lee's trucks it was because the german army just wasn't capable of going the distance it was a sprinter not a marathon runner and it was not designed to fight the type of war going on on the eastern front it was playing a different game with different rules this is why even though i'm making a battle storm styling red documentary will be going down to the divisional level and below for the entire stalingrad campaign between the 24th of july 1942 to the 2nd of february 1943 i will happily stand here and tell you that blau failed before that battle had even begun i will also say that the battle of stalingrad was lost outside the city before the germans had entered the city and the conditions for that loss were set up during the blau campaign while i love going into details and i intend to drown you in as much detail as possible in the uh stalingrad documentary itself success on the tactical level at stalingrad would not have resulted in a strategic victory but that doesn't mean it wasn't important all that it's not interesting of course the battle starting ground is interesting we just need to realize that the war wasn't won or lost on the tactical level and hopefully this video has put everything into perspective speaking of perspective if you haven't seen my video on the oil crisis going on in germany and why it is the most you know important reason why germany lost the war and why germany he needed to take the caucuses in 1942 go watch it link on the screen and in the pin comment in the comment section below thanks to my patrons for supporting me and thank you to all of you for watching bye for now

Channel: TIKhistory

Views: 1,364,020

Keywords: fall blau, fall blau 1942, case blue, ww2, 1942, eastern front ww2, eastern front, soviet-german front, operation blue, operation blau, blau, turning point ww2, axis allies, tik, tikhistory, stalingrad, battle of stalingrad

Id: hzr6dD8fvVY

Length: 56min 13sec (3373 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 23 2018