After the publication of the book "Belarusian Chronicles, 1941" (1st edition - 2006, 2nd - 2011), I dropped out of the topic for a long time, but in 2023 I found time to update and refine my text. What could and should have been clarified and updated, I did; this primarily concerned the subsection "The Defense of Polotsk" of Chapter 2 and Chapter 3, "The Smolensk Battle".
Now I have an opportunity to describe in more detail the combat operations on the northern flank of the Western Front in July-early August 1941. When writing my book in 2006-11, I did not study them, because after all this went beyond Belarus (the main events took place in the area of Sebezh, Nevel, Velikiye Luki), I had little information, but now thanks to the efforts of historians and local historians information has become an order of magnitude greater.
However, one cannot say that the published materials greatly advanced us in understanding the logic of those events. After all, details are lacking, much is still unknown, this leaves room for fantasies, old errors already analyzed and corrected continue to be transferred from book to book. And also very much hindering is the pathos of "our Great Victory", which still does not allow us to see the real events.
Meanwhile, July 1941 was a very dynamic period of the war, where every day mattered. It was about the failure (I would not use the word "collapse") of the Barbarossa plan and the need to adjust it or even change the German strategy. The German high command did not see a big problem in changing strategy - it turned out that it was mistaken. But more important to me is the analysis of the actions of the Soviet side: why did everything turn out so hard and bloody?
In the process of writing this chapter, I quickly found out that the description of combat operations on the northern flank of the Western Front should begin with the defeat of Soviet troops in the Baltic. And the most important reason for the defeat of Soviet troops in the Baltic in books written on this topic in Russian is not mentioned, as if it does not exist (the problem of "the unnoticed elephant in the room"); the exception is perhaps the book of my late comrade D. Egorov ("1941. The Defeat of the Western Front", 2008). The generally accepted description of the Border Battle in the zone of the Northwestern Front is the surprise attack of the Wehrmacht and "preemption in deployment", these are the hasty (unsuccessful) Soviet tank counterattacks at Alytus and Raseiniai, these are battles for bridgeheads on the Western Dvina by the second echelon of the front, especially well described are the battles in the area of Dvinsk (Daugavpils)…
It seemed to me that such an approach distorts the answer to the main question: what was the reason for the defeat of the Northwestern Front and why did the Wehrmacht so quickly reach Leningrad?
It was! There was "preemption in deployment"! - I put this argument in quotation marks because even those who actively promote it do not fully understand what they are talking about. And they speak in favor of what they fiercely deny: that two totalitarian regimes independently of each other were preparing for an attack. - If you yourself are not going to attack, how can the enemy "preempt you in deployment"? And if you are not going to attack first, then the enemy will certainly preempt you in deployment, and how can you not have a plan for strategic defense?
It is now obvious that the military-political leadership of the USSR had no strategic planning for defense at all. The terms "Belarusian strategic defensive operation" and "Baltic strategic defensive operation", which are forcibly implanted into modern history of World War II, are precisely intended to camouflage this fact. And if you do not prepare for defense in advance, if you do not have a plan for strategic defense, it is impossible to win in a modern high-tech war!
There was also the factor of weak operational-tactical training of Soviet commanders, especially at the division, corps, army and front levels - the Red Army completely severed ties with the Russian Imperial Army, Soviet commanders and military leaders were a generation younger than their German counterparts, had an order of magnitude less command and staff experience, besides, they rose to the top as a result of mass repressions among the command staff of the Red Army, and their selection was not only on the principle of professionalism. The factor of weak operational-tactical training of Soviet commanders manifested itself already during the first "serious" war waged by Stalin's Red Army: the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-40. But only 1941 introduced "normal military" selection criteria, and far from all commanders of the beginning of the war passed this selection. - And this is all blood, blood, extra losses…
There was also the factor of mass repressions in the leadership of the Soviet Air Force right on the eve and in the first days of the war. Among those arrested shortly after the start of the war and later shot was the commander of the Air Force of the Northwestern Front, Major General A. P. Ionov. Colonel General A. D. Loktionov, the first commander of the troops of the Baltic Special Military District (in July-October 1940), and before that Deputy People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR for Aviation, was arrested on June 19, 1941 and shot in October, together with other military leaders-"enemies of the Motherland". - All this did not contribute to improving the organization of actions of Soviet aviation…
But the defeat of the Northwestern Front had another important reason, that very "elephant in the room" that they try not to notice and not describe.
What was the calculation based on that the forced soldiers and officers - citizens of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia occupied by the USSR in 1940 - herded into the Red Army would defend Soviet power? Now the repressions against senior officers of the armies of the Baltic states and the removal from command even of those considered loyal, a few days before June 22, are well known.
The modern historian A. Isaev cited in his book "The Other 1941. From the Border to Leningrad" the memoirs of the chief of staff of the 29th Lithuanian Territorial Corps: "Shortly before my arrival (he arrived at the corps headquarters on June 19, 1941 - A. Isaev) about 300 officers were arrested due to unreliability. In addition, according to information from the special department of the corps, lists had been prepared for more than two thousand sergeants and rank-and-file personnel who were subject to removal from the corps units…"
Similar repressions on the eve of the war took place in the 24th (Latvian) and 22nd (Estonian) corps. This greatly influenced the mood among the personnel, which was already not enthusiastic about the "socialist transformations" in their Motherland. Soldiers and officers gathered in Soviet "territorial" corps (22nd Estonian, 24th Latvian, 29th Lithuanian; 179th, 180th, 181st, 182nd, 183rd, 184th Rifle Divisions and corps units) were not at all going to be "cannon fodder". "Cannon fodder" can be effectively used in an offensive, but what will happen during a surprise attack by the enemy? - It is obvious that the beginning of the war turned out completely different from what the Soviet military-political leadership saw and planned. Unprepared for a surprise attack by the Wehrmacht, deprived of moral support in the occupied territories, having in their composition unreliable "territorial" formations and units, the troops of the Soviet Northwestern Front were doomed to defeat. All the more so because the first blow of the Wehrmacht was crushing: against the Northwestern Front were directed not one, but two tank groups, not only the 4th Tank Group of E. Hoepner, but also the 3rd Tank Group of H. Hoth. Only the fact that the 3rd Tank Group from Vilnius headed southeast, to Minsk, allowed the defeated units and formations of the left wing of the NWF to retreat to the east and northeast.
The Soviet troops defeated in the Baltic retreated in disorder: the 8th Army - to Riga, then to Estonia, the 11th and 27th Armies - to Belarus (to the Polotsk area) and northward, to the Sebezh, Opochka area, communication with them was lost by the front command.
On June 30, the front commander, Colonel General F. I. Kuznetsov, gave the order to withdraw, soon after that the front command was replaced: on July 1, the chief of staff of the front, Lieutenant General P. S. Klenov, was removed from his post (on July 11, 1941 arrested and on February 23, 1942 shot as a participant in the "right-Trotskyist organization" according to old testimony of previously repressed military leaders); the new chief of staff of the front was appointed Lieutenant General N. F. Vatutin from the General Staff.
On July 4, 1941, Major General P. P. Sobennikov was appointed the new front commander.
On June 22, the Soviet 11th Army of Lieutenant General V. I. Morozov had in its composition the 16th Rifle Corps (5th, 33rd and 188th Rifle Divisions, 270th and 448th Corps Artillery Regiments), the 29th (Lithuanian) Territorial Corps (179th and 184th Rifle Divisions1 , 615th Corps Artillery Regiment), three separate rifle divisions (23rd, 126th and 128th), as well as a full-fledged 3rd Mechanized Corps (2nd and 5th Tank Divisions, 84th Motorized Division).
Already in the evening of June 26 (on the 4th day of the war), the front commander, Colonel General F. I. Kuznetsov, reported to the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR, Marshal S. K. Timoshenko: "The 11th Army - the headquarters and the Military Council of the army, according to a number of data, have been captured or killed. The Germans captured a cipher document. The 5th, 33rd, 188th, 128th Rifle Divisions are in an unknown state and location. Many stragglers and fugitives, detained in the direction of Dvinsk. Many weapons abandoned. The 11th Army is not an organized combat-capable formation…"
The state of the 11th Army on June 30 is described in a telegram from the Chief of the General Staff of the Red Army, General of the Army G. K. Zhukov: "In the area of the stations Dovgilmishki, Koltynyany, forests west of Sventsyany, the 11th Army of the Northwestern Front has been found, retreating from the Kaunas area. The army has no fuel, no shells, no food or fodder. The army does not know the situation and what it should do. The Headquarters of the Main Command has ordered, under your personal responsibility, to immediately organize the withdrawal of this army from the Sventsyany area to the area north of the Dvina…"
In early July, "Morozov's group" (the remnants of the 11th Army that had retreated from Lithuania: the 5th, 33rd, 23rd, 126th and 188th Rifle Divisions, corps units) was moving into the zone of the 22nd Army of the Western Front, for which it had to cross to the northern bank of the Western Dvina; the headquarters of the 11th Army was assembling in Polotsk. As D. Egorov writes in his book, on July 1, while conducting reconnaissance in the area of Disna, the chief of air defense of the 11th Army, Colonel G. A. Konstantinov, and the chief of chemical service, Colonel I. Ya. Elenberger, went missing. And soon the German 57th Motorized Corps reached the area of Disna. As a result, the remnants of the 11th Army had to cross a little further west, in the area of Drissa (Verkhnedvinsk). From the combat journal of the 16th Rifle Corps (corps commander - Major General M. M. Ivanov), it is known that on July 4-5 it crossed to the northern bank of the Western Dvina in the area of Drissa and continued moving north-northeast in two columns: the 5th, 33rd, 23rd Rifle Divisions and corps units in the first column, the 188th and 126th Rifle Divisions in the second.
On July 7, the Soviet command managed to restore communication with "Morozov's group". On July 8, the headquarters of the 11th Army departed to Porkhov and transferred to the 16th Corps under its command ("at 20.00 by personal order") all its army units and formations, including the headquarters of the 29th "Lithuanian" Rifle Corps, which in turn was subordinated the 188th, 126th and 23rd Rifle Divisions.
On that day, July 8, the 170th Rifle Division of the 51st Corps on the northern flank of the 22nd Army of the Western Front, under pressure from the enemy, abandoned Sebezh and was forced into a disorderly retreat, opening the way to Idritsa. The units of the 16th Corps that had retreated from the Baltic to the Idritsa area turned out to be more than timely there. Thus, the 5th Rifle Division, which was withdrawn to the area of Maksyutino (northwest of Idritsa), was raised on alert, and it stood in the way of the German offensive in the area of Dubrovka (between Sebezh and Idritsa), while the 33rd Rifle Division, withdrawn to an area slightly south of Idritsa, took up positions west of Lake Beloye (on the line Zavaruyki, Zamostye, 10 km west of Idritsa).
At some point the 170th Rifle Division was even subordinated "on paper" to the headquarters of the 16th Corps - the headquarters of the Western Front was looking for a solution to strengthen the leadership of its northern flank. But in the end the formations that had retreated from the Baltic returned to the zone of the NWF. On July 10, the headquarters of the 16th Corps, which had withdrawn to Kudever, 50 km east of Opochka, transferred its divisions to the 65th Rifle Corps (see further) and departed to the area of Novgorod.
On July 6, in the combat operations summary of the 16th Corps, the absence of communication with the 126th Rifle Division (which was retreating from Lithuania in the right column) was recorded. It was precisely at this time that the 126th Division, having crossed to the northern bank of the Western Dvina, became involved in the battles for Borkovichi (in the area of the Disna bridgehead, captured by the enemy west of Polotsk) and by the decision of Lieutenant General A. I. Eremenko (deputy commander of the Western Front) was left in the composition of the 22nd Army (subordinated to the headquarters of the 62nd Corps). On July 8, the command of the 126th Rifle Division suffered heavy losses in battle (the division commander, Major General M. A. Kuznetsov, was mortally wounded, two regimental commanders, the division chief of staff and the chief of the 1st section of the staff were put out of action); Colonel E. V. Bedin was appointed acting (vrid) commander of the division.
The 128th Rifle Division of the 11th Army was defeated in Lithuania (its commander, Major General A. S. Zotov, having lost contact with the units of his division, retreated eastward with a small group of subordinates and was taken prisoner in late July while attempting to cross the Radoshkovichi-Minsk highway), some part of it was thrown back to Polotsk, then ended up in the area of Vitebsk, where the General Staff of the Red Army on July 3 even assigned it a defense zone, but another part of the division retreated to the area of Pushkinskiye Gory, that is, remained in the zone of the NWF, where it was actually re-formed. On July 8 it numbered 1,771 men, and Colonel F. I. Komarov became the new acting division commander. Soon the "128th Rifle Division in the Vitebsk area" disappeared from the summaries of the General Staff of the Red Army.
The 179th Rifle Division of the "Lithuanian Corps" (commander - Major General A. I. Ustinov) had retreated from Lithuania to the Polotsk area even earlier. Already on July 2 it found itself in the area of Borovukha near Polotsk, where, in order to restore its combat capability, 8,000 replacements from the Ural Military District were poured into it (thus it ceased to be "Lithuanian"), and on July 12 it was withdrawn to the area of Pustoshka. In subsequent events it was listed as part of the 22nd Army of the Western Front.
The 27th Army of Major General N. E. Berzarin (in 1945 - commandant of Berlin) at the beginning of the war had in its composition the 22nd (Estonian) Rifle Corps, the 24th (Latvian) Rifle Corps, the 67th Rifle Division in Liepaja, the 3rd Rifle Brigade on the islands in the Baltic Sea - and the only combat-capable formation that could have hindered the German offensive, the 16th Rifle Division, remained in Estonia (later it became part of the 8th Army). It is not surprising that during the new offensive of the German Army Group "North" in early July, the 27th Army was unable to offer worthy resistance and began a disorderly retreat to the east, to Opochka, Ostrov. In the combat journal of the Northwestern Front it is said that "due to the absence of communication <with the 27th Army - here and further in such brackets are the notes of VM> during 4-5.7 it was not possible to ascertain the exact position of the units".
On July 8, the army headquarters was withdrawn to Novorzhev, then to the area of Bezhannitsy.
The headquarters of the 65th Rifle Corps of front subordination (corps commander - Major General K. V. Komissarov) shortly before the war received an order to redeploy from Estonia to Lithuania to the area of Siauliai; on June 23 the corps headquarters with the 123rd Separate Communications Battalion and the staff battery of the corps artillery chief departed from Tallinn, on June 25 arrived in Jelgava and moved by march route to the Meitene station. In a special report of the 3rd Directorate of the People's Commissariat of Defense of the USSR No. 4/36833 of July 7, 1941, it was said: "On June 25, during the movement from Tallinn to Shavli [Siauliai] to direct the combat operations of the 11th Rifle Division and the 180th Territorial Rifle Division, the units and command of the 65th Rifle Corps met on the highway 18 km from Mitava [Jelgava] with a group of Red Army soldiers and commanders of the 11th and 90th Rifle Divisions, retreating in disorder from the forward positions. Instead of taking measures to stop the flow of retreating troops and organize defense, the command of the 65th Rifle Corps rushed to flee, introducing even more disorganization into the retreat.
On June 29, 1941, the corps column was fired upon by nationalists and the panic increased even more. As a result, the corps column split into two groups: one of them, in particular the headquarters, moved toward the town of Vaimut. The second group, in particular the 123rd Separate Communications Battalion, part of the sapper battalion, moved toward Riga and joined the 8th Army".
"Fired upon by nationalists" - one could joke about this, that the "nationalists" fired upon the "internationalists" who had come to their land to erase interethnic differences in accordance with the theory of Marxism-Leninism. But those events do not allow joking, they are too terrible and bloody.
By July 10, the corps headquarters had relocated to Kudever, received divisions from the 16th Rifle Corps and was subordinated to the headquarters of the 27th Army.
Soon after Germany's attack on the USSR, the Northwestern Front, which had quickly wasted its "own" mechanized corps (3rd and 12th) in the unsuccessful battles for Raseiniai (June 23-25) and Alytus (June 22-23), was given the 21st Mechanized Corps. The latter had arrived on the eve of the war from the Moscow Military District to the area of Idritsa, Opochka, belonged to the mechanized corps of the last priority and did not at all correspond to the formidable designation "mechanized corps of the Red Army of the 1941 model"; according to the modern researcher E. Drig, it was a "poorly armed rifle formation".
On June 25, the 21st Mechanized Corps received an order to advance to Dvinsk (Daugavpils), where, as a result of a deep tank raid, the German 56th Motorized Corps of E. von Manstein had reached. At the same time, for the defense of the crossings over the Western Dvina in the area of Kraslava, the 112th Rifle Division of the 51st Rifle Corps of the 22nd Army was advanced. But these "patches" could not change the overall unfavorable strategic situation on the Northwestern Front: German troops of Army Group "North" overcame the line of the Western Dvina River and continued the offensive toward Leningrad. The 21st Mechanized Corps suffered heavy losses in the battles in the area of Dvinsk / Daugavpils, by July 5 had retreated to Sebezh and was withdrawn to the reserve in the area northwest of Novorzhev; the 112th Division, in connection with the withdrawal of its neighbor on the right (the 21st Mechanized Corps) and also having suffered serious losses, on July 4 began its withdrawal to positions along the Saryanka River. And the Northwestern Front in the first ten days of July tried to organize a new continuous front.
Unlike the Western Front, which on July 2 was actually formed anew, the Northwestern Front did not get the armies of the Second Strategic Echelon. All that the Soviet command was able to allocate: to the area of Pskov from the reserve of the Main Command were transferred the 41st Rifle Corps (three rifle divisions from the Moscow Military District) and part of the 1st Mechanized Corps (Leningrad Military District). However, already on July 4 the German 56th Motorized Corps occupied Ostrov, on July 8 - Pskov. The swiftness of the advance of the German mobile troops was astounding!
As punishment, the command of the 41st Corps, which had failed to prevent the fall of Ostrov and Pskov, was brought before a military tribunal: the commander of the 118th Rifle Division, Major General N. M. Glovatsky, was appointed the main culprit of the next defeat and shot on August 3, the commander of the 41st Rifle Corps, Major General I. S. Kosobutsky, received a sentence of 10 years in camps, later returned to the army and ended the war as a corps commander and lieutenant general.
The headquarters of the 11th Army, which arrived in the area of Porkhov on July 9 (already after the surrender of Pskov), took under its command:
• the 41st Rifle Corps (111th, 118th and 235th Rifle Divisions) - after the abandonment of Pskov "retreated in disorder in three directions" (toward Gdov, Luga and Porkhov).
• the 22nd Rifle Corps ("Estonian", 180th and 182nd Rifle Divisions; headquarters - Porkhov).
• the 1st Mechanized Corps (3rd Tank Division and 5th Motorcycle Regiment; headquarters - Dno).
• the 183rd Rifle Division (restored, formerly of the "Latvian" Corps), the 202nd Motorized Division (formerly of the 12th Mechanized Corps) and the 21st Tank Division (transferred from Karelia).
• the 16th Rifle Corps (headquarters and corps units, including two corps artillery regiments, a communications battalion, a sapper battalion and a separate anti-aircraft artillery battalion) - arrived in the area of Novgorod only on July 17 and united under its command the 70th, 237th Rifle Divisions and the 1st Mountain Rifle Brigade.
On July 11, German troops occupied Porkhov (the army headquarters of the 11th Army moved to Dno), but already on July 14 the 11th Army near Soltsy inflicted a defeat on the German 56th Motorized Corps, which led to a suspension of the German offensive toward Leningrad for 3 weeks.
The 27th Army occupied a defense zone south of the 11th Army:
• the 24th Rifle Corps (formerly "Latvian", 181st and 128th Rifle Divisions) on July 8 entered battle in the area of Pushkinskiye Gory, on July 11 by a night attack captured the settlement and pushed the enemy back beyond the Velikaya River; corps headquarters - Zadolzhye (between Pushkinskiye Gory and Novorzhev).
• the 21st Mechanized Corps, having suffered a defeat in the area of Dvinsk / Daugavpils, became even less corresponding to the name "mechanized corps of the Red Army of the 1941 model". After an unsuccessful attempt to retake Ostrov on July 7, it was forced to retreat, on July 13 it fought for Opochka; corps headquarters - Krasnoye south of Kudever. Soon the corps received an order to withdraw from the front (its positions were to be taken over by units of the 65th Rifle Corps), however, in the end it could not disengage from the battle: as described on July 16 in the combat journal of the NWF, "it became embroiled in battle in the area of Novorzhev with enemy units that had broken through to Novorzhev and occupied it".
• the 65th Rifle Corps on July 10 received the divisions of the 16th Corps that had retreated from Lithuania (5th, 33rd and 188th Rifle Divisions, 429th Howitzer Artillery Regiment; headquarters - Kudever). The numerical strength of the divisions on July 14 is presented in the combat journal of the NWF: 5th Rifle Division - 2,460 men, 33rd Rifle Division - 800 men, 188th Rifle Division - 2,023 men. The divisions defeated in the Baltic and returned to the zone of the NWF were hastily receiving personnel; regarding the replenishment of losses of special units (communications, engineer units) and the arrival of new weapons, especially heavy ones, information is insufficient. To the area of Kudever, for restoration, the 84th Motorized Division (of the defeated 3rd Mechanized Corps in the Baltic) was also withdrawn.
• the 29th Rifle Corps (in its composition the 23rd and 126th Rifle Divisions are listed) was withdrawn to the second echelon in the area of Nasva (east of Kudever, 40 km northwest of Velikiye Luki). According to documents, the 126th Division should have "disappeared" from the area of Polotsk, where it operated against the German Disna bridgehead, and, like the 128th Division earlier, ended its "double existence" on paper. In the NWF summary for July 10, it is described that the 126th Rifle Division is "about 1,200 stragglers, arriving commands, etc." in the area of Sorokino, Krasnoye, Nikulchino, then, in the next summary - "the 126th Rifle Division concentrated in the area of Nasva", all - in the zone of the NWF. At the same time, on July 13, in the summaries of the Western Front, "the 174th Rifle Division with units of the 126th Rifle Division of the 11th Army" is mentioned in the area of Polotsk. Finally, on July 15, the 126th Division was officially, by order of the Main Command, transferred to the subordination of the 22nd Army of the Western Front, ending its "double" existence, but differently than in the case of the 128th Division: the "number" of the division remained with the Western Front.
The peculiarity of the German Barbarossa plan was that the axes of advance of Army Group "North" and Army Group "Center" diverged at almost a 90-degree angle: the goal of the offensive of Army Group "North" was Leningrad, and of Army Group "Center" - Moscow.
On July 2, after a pause following the Border Battle, the German 4th Tank Group of Army Group "North" resumed the offensive in the direction of Ostrov, Pskov. On July 3, the Chief of the German General Staff of the Ground Forces, Colonel General F. Halder, wrote:
"On the front of Army Group "North", the Hoepner tank group, due to very bad weather and the extremely unfavorable state of the roads, is only with difficulty advancing forward. Its left flank is nevertheless already halfway between the Western Dvina and Pskov. Yesterday evening orders were sent by telegraph to the headquarters of Army Group "North", according to which the Hoepner tank group must seize the area between Velikiye Luki, Lake Ilmen and Lake Pskov and secure itself with a screen from the east. And only upon receipt of a new order from the OKH is it to continue the offensive beyond the line of Lake Ilmen, Lake Pskov to the north with a twofold purpose: to close the passage between the Gulf of Finland and Lake Chudskoye and to cut off Leningrad in the area between the Gulf of Finland and Lake Ladoga.
The 16th and 18th Armies are moving in excellent order by forced march after the tank group to the Western Dvina, having a strong right flank. On the demarcation line between Army Groups "North" and "Center", close interaction is being carried out with the rapidly advancing left wing of the 9th Army".
And further: "Of the number of enemy divisions operating in front of the front of Army Group "North", 12-15 divisions should be considered completely destroyed".
To this, the Soviet commentators of F. Halder's War Diary pointed out that there were no grounds for such a statement. I am not sure about this.
On July 8, F. Halder wrote in his diary: "Army Group "North", which at the beginning of the campaign was equal in numbers to the opposing forces of the Russians, now, after the defeat of a large number of enemy formations, has a clear numerical superiority both in infantry and in motorized troops".
"Cutting through" the positions of the Soviet NWF, the 4th Tank Group (41st and 56th Motorized Corps) on the way to Leningrad threw aside Soviet units and formations and by the middle of July broke through to the positions of the new front (unexpectedly grown on the Luga line) - the Northern2 . Already on July 6, the Luga Operational Group (LOG) was formed as part of the Northern Front, its units entered battle on July 12 - first with the 41st Motorized Corps in the area of Sabsk and Ivanovskoye, later the German 56th Motorized Corps reached the positions of the LOG in the area of Shimsk. On July 14, the 8th Army, which had retreated to Estonia, was transferred to the Northern Front; at the same time, the 41st Rifle Corps from the 11th Army was transferred to the headquarters of the LOG. In the end, the Northwestern Front (11th and 27th Armies) remained responsible for the defense of the Staraya Russa and Kholm directions - the sector of the Soviet-German front south of Lake Ilmen.
To fill the gap that had formed between the strike formations of Army Group "North" (4th Tank Group) and Army Group "Center" (3rd Tank Group), the German 16th Army of Colonel General E. Busch advanced. The funnel-shaped expansion due to the divergence of the axes of advance of Army Groups "North" and "Center" was clear to the German command, it had in reserve entire army corps: the 2nd and 50th for Army Group "North" and the 23rd, transferred from the reserve of the Main Command to Army Group "Center" (the commander-in-chief of Army Group "North", Field Marshal W. von Leeb, insisted that the 23rd Corps also be transferred to him, but the Supreme High Command decided otherwise; "in compensation" Army Group "North" received the headquarters of the 42nd Army Corps, sent to Estonia).
However, the German infantry divisions advanced an order of magnitude slower than the mobile formations. And most importantly: the advance of infantry divisions is not at all blitzkrieg! Blitzkrieg is the skillful interaction of tank units, motorized infantry, motorized artillery, sapper subunits and ground-attack aviation, it is, as they said then, "the organization of battle", and as they would say now, "the sphere of high technologies". Without motorized corps, the war on the Soviet-German front turned into a "pushing match" in the style of World War I, in which the mass of German infantry pressed the mass of Soviet infantry, in many ways inferior to it, but could not achieve decisive victories.
Polotsk is an important fortress in the middle reaches of the Western Dvina River, both on the route from west to east and on the route from east to west. The battles for the Belostok and Minsk "cauldrons" were still ongoing, while the German command had already sent its 57th Motorized Corps (19th Tank and 18th Motorized Divisions) toward Polotsk. On July 2, both divisions of the corps "along good roads" through Postavy and Glubokoye, as the commander of the 3rd Tank Group, Colonel General H. Hoth, recalled, reached the area of Polotsk and came up to the Western Dvina.
Organized resistance was not expected: the defeated Soviet units from Lithuania were retreating toward Polotsk, and the enemy did not know that even before June 22 the 22nd Army from the Ural Military District had begun to be transferred here. By the beginning of the war, three rifle divisions of the 22nd Army (186th, 112th and 98th) had arrived, united by the headquarters of the 51st Rifle Corps. After the start of the war, the transfer of the second half of the 22nd Army, the 62nd Rifle Corps (170th, 174th and 153rd Rifle Divisions)3 , began. The 174th Rifle Division, arriving from June 27, occupied a zone in the area of Polotsk itself; soon the division commander, Brigade Commander A. I. Zygin, headed the Polotsk Combat Sector.
The purpose of transferring the 22nd Army of the Second Strategic Echelon of the Red Army to the area of Polotsk on the eve of the war, which the Soviet military-political leadership, as was said in my "Soviet past", did not expect and for which it was not preparing (for a defensive war), is unknown; the most important (and, it seems, the last) argument of historians - opponents of V. Suvorov's concept: "You will not prove anything". But after June 22 it turned out that the army found itself in the area of Polotsk very much on time.
The German 19th Tank Division prepared to force the Western Dvina, but the 18th Motorized Division ran into the positions of the Polotsk Fortified Region in the area of Vetrovo and soon abandoned the crossing. The German command learned with surprise from prisoners that Polotsk and the northern bank of the Western Dvina were being defended not by the remnants of the defeated formations of the NWF that had retreated from the border, but by fresh divisions of the Soviet Second Strategic Echelon.
On July 4, the 19th Tank Division forced the Western Dvina in the area of Disna and seized a bridgehead in the zone of the Soviet 98th Rifle Division; from that day bloody battles for the Disna bridgehead began. The 18th Motorized Division received the task of covering the positions of the 19th Tank Division from the attacks of the "Polotsk garrison"; on July 5, the transfer of the 14th Motorized Division from the northern face of the Minsk "cauldron" began to their aid. But further the German offensive in the area of Polotsk stalled: in the path of the German offensive in the area of Polotsk there was not just the Western Dvina, but the pillboxes of the Polotsk Fortified Region.
This is not the only case when the fortifications of the "Stalin Line" stood in the path of the German blitzkrieg, but for some reason neither the Slutsk Fortified Region, nor the Minsk Fortified Region, nor the Sebezh Fortified Region played a big role in stopping the blitzkrieg in the zone of the Western Front - in the memoirs of Soviet commanders who lived to the end of the war, there are many bitter words about the decommissioning of the fortified regions along the line of the old state border and about the fact that there could be no question of any systematic use of long-term fortifications.
In Chapter 1 (date: June 26) I cited the testimonies of Soviet commanders about the state of the Minsk Fortified Region:
As S. P. Ivanov later recalled (in 1941 - lieutenant colonel, chief of the operational department of the headquarters of the 13th Army), to his question about the use of the structures of the Minsk Fortified Region, the chief of staff of the 108th Division, Colonel Belyshev, replied: "It is not easy to use the pillboxes, and many are completely impossible, since the armament and instruments have been dismantled; communications, ventilation and lighting do not function; there is no documentation on the system of fire…"
The chief of staff of the 44th Rifle Corps, Colonel A. I. Vinogradov, also recalled after the war: "…The use of the already existing firing points of the Minsk fortified region was hampered by the circumstance that the Minsk Fortified Region had been mothballed since 1940, and the firing points were closed with special locks and it was simply impossible to penetrate inside. The commandant of the Fortified Region simply disappeared and could not be found. Communications in the fortified region also did not work, as they had been dismantled even before the war…"
On the eve of the war, on June 15, 1941, the 44th Rifle Corps (64th, 108th and 161st Rifle Divisions from Smolensk, Vyazma and Mogilev respectively, 49th Corps Artillery Regiment) received an order to arrive in the area of Minsk; by July 24 the corps with two divisions had occupied positions in the Minsk Fortified Region, but this delayed the enemy only briefly: the Soviet divisions were defeated, and units of the German 39th Motorized Corps already on June 28 broke into Minsk.
The Slutsk Fortified Region was generally left without filling by field troops: the 55th Rifle Division was stationed in Slutsk, but at the beginning of the war it advanced westward and entered battle with two detachments in the area of Slonim and on the Shchara River; there was also no artillery support. And the description of the situation in the Slutsk Fortified Region corresponded to other descriptions of fortified regions:
The chief of staff of the Soviet 4th Army, Colonel L. M. Sandalov, described that the report of the commandant of the Slutsk Fortified Region, Colonel P. P. Denisov, literally dumbfounded the army commander A. A. Korobkov: "Please bear in mind," the commandant said calmly, "that all the constructed long-term structures were dismantled at the beginning of spring and not one of them has any weapons. They have been sent to the Brest Fortified Region. Our garrison is only one battalion guarding the structures…"
As a result, the German 24th Motorized Corps passed through it without great effort, occupied Slutsk and continued the offensive toward Bobruisk.
The situation was no better with the Sebez Fortified Region. The commander of the 186th Rifle Division, Major General N. I. Biryukov, who first arrived in the area of Sebezh (later the 186th Division had to be transferred to positions along the northern bank of the Western Dvina east of Polotsk, and the 170th Rifle Division was redirected to the area of Sebezh), wrote in his memoirs: "The reconnaissance of the Sebezh fortified region showed that it had been dismantled. Some cannon firing points had been rebuilt as machine-gun ones. There was no inventory in the pillboxes, even the dishes for storing water supplies had to be collected from the local population…" Therefore, despite the presence of field troops (the 170th Rifle Division) and artillery, the enemy easily broke through the zone of the Sebezh Fortified Region.
Even if one makes allowance for exaggeration in the memoirs, the fact is that the "Stalin Line" (the line of fortified regions along the old state border) did not become a serious obstacle in the path of the German offensive: Minsk, Slutsk and Sebezh were captured by the enemy without great problems. Individual machine-gun battalions for the Sebezh Fortified Region, for example, were formed after the start of the war in Moscow - it is clear that the units arriving from afar had no idea of the theater of military operations where they had arrived, nor of the capabilities of the fortifications they had to defend.
However, in the situation with the Polotsk Fortified Region everything turned out differently. Despite the accumulation on the Disna bridgehead by July 8 of the 19th Tank Division (a tank regiment, 2 motorized infantry regiments plus an artillery regiment and special units), the 14th Motorized Division (2 motorized infantry regiments plus an artillery regiment) and one motorized infantry regiment of the 18th Motorized Division, it was not possible to break through the defense of the Polotsk Fortified Region (and the fortifications of the Fortified Region were located not only south of the Western Dvina, but also north of it, covering Polotsk from the west). I noted (in Chapter 2) that the main factors of the successful actions of the Soviet troops were the support of the garrison of the fortifications by field troops (the 174th Rifle Division) and artillery (besides the own artillery of the 174th Division, this was also the 390th Howitzer Artillery Regiment and the 56th Corps Artillery Regiment of the 17th Rifle Division and 21st Rifle Corps that had departed toward Lida). But, apparently, there was another important factor: after the defeat of the Soviet troops in Lithuania on June 27, Colonel N. S. Devi, the commandant of the Siauliai Fortified Region, returned to Polotsk, who from 1936 to the beginning of 1941 held the position of chief of staff of the Polotsk "Fortified Region" 50th Rifle Division, that is, he was precisely familiar with the fortified region as a system of defense. And he had several days (almost a week) to put the defense of the Fortified Region in order.
Be that as it may, the German blitzkrieg in the area of Polotsk got bogged down. The German command was forced to shift its main efforts to the zone of the 39th Motorized Corps: it not only repelled the Soviet offensive by two mechanized corps toward Lepel (July 6-9; all events took place south of the Western Dvina), but on July 8 with two divisions forced the Western Dvina in the area of Ulla and Porechye, inflicted a defeat on the 186th Rifle Division and broke through to Vitebsk and Gorodok (captured on July 9). The 18th Motorized Division was also redirected to the area of Ulla (it returned to itself its motorized regiment from the bridgehead in the area of Disna), which was subordinated to the headquarters of the 39th Motorized Corps.
By the 10th of July, on the Disna bridgehead there remained the 57th Motorized Corps in the composition of two divisions: the 19th Tank and the 14th Motorized. But by this time German infantry divisions had approached the area of the battles, which gave the battle a new quality.
By the beginning of the new offensive of the German 57th Motorized Corps from the Disna bridgehead on July 13, the Soviet 22nd Army was already in a semi-encirclement (the enemy occupied Sebezh, expanded the Disna bridgehead and broke through in the area of Ulla toward Vitebsk and Gorodok). Such a large water barrier as the Western Dvina was overcome by the enemy in many places (in the area of Dvinsk/Daugavpils, Kraslava, Druya, Drissa/Verkhnedvinsk, Disna, and further, east of Polotsk - in the area of Ulla and Porechye, and also already fully controlled Vitebsk).
The Soviet 22nd Army (commander - Lieutenant General F. A. Ershakov, chief of staff - Major General G. F. Zakharov; headquarters - near Nevel) had in its composition:
• the 51st Rifle Corps (Major General A. M. Markov; 170th, 112th and 98th Rifle Divisions, 545th Corps Artillery Regiment; the corps headquarters on July 4 relocated from Osveya to Klyastitsy);
• the 62nd Rifle Corps (Major General I. P. Karmanov; "126th", 174th and 186th Rifle Divisions, 336th Corps Artillery Regiment; the corps headquarters on July 5 was moved from the Losvido station to Gorodok, from July 9 - Trudy);
• the 214th, 179th and 50th Rifle Divisions, 390th Howitzer Artillery Regiment17th Rifle Division, 56th Corps Artillery Regiment21st Rifle Corps, 697th Anti-Tank Artillery Regiment.
The formations of the 22nd Army on July 12 (on the eve of the German offensive) are presented on the Soviet staff map (the numbers of enemy formations on this map should not be paid attention to). The defense zone assigned to the 22nd Army and the boundary with the 19th Army are marked, as well as the formations of the 19th Army in the area of Vitebsk.
Besides the formations of the 22nd Army, the formations of the 19th Army in the area of Vitebsk are shown: the 134th and 162nd Rifle Divisions of the 25th Corps, as well as the 220th Motorized and 153rd Rifle Divisions.
By July 12, the 170th Rifle Division had already abandoned the Sebezh Fortified Region, lost Sebezh and was fighting in the area of the Kuznetsovka station, Idritsa, while the 112th Rifle Division had been driven from its positions along the Saryanka River. And only the 98th Rifle Division continued to hold back the enemy in the area of the Disna bridgehead. The Soviet command made enormous efforts to reliably "seal off" the German bridgehead in the area of Disna. This succeeded (for a considerable period - nine days! = July 4-12); for this, besides the 98th Division (three rifle regiments), a rifle regiment from the 112th Division was brought in (the 385th, accordingly, on the positions of the 112th Division there remained two rifle regiments out of three); as well as a rifle regiment of the 174th Division (the 628th), first withdrawn to the reserve of the 22nd Army, and then transferred to the 51st Corps precisely for actions against the Disna bridgehead.
At especially critical moments, other units that happened to be at hand for the Soviet commanders in the area of Polotsk also operated against the Disna bridgehead - the units and formations of the NWF defeated in Lithuania retreated here. Thus, to fight against the Disna bridgehead, the remnants of the 126th Rifle Division were brought in, and it had to linger for a long time. The number "126th Rifle Division" on the map should be taken in quotation marks (as I did in my text, because on July 12 it still formally belonged to the Northwestern Front), and in the area of Nasva northwest of Velikiye Luki there should be a second symbol "126th Rifle Division" - a part of the 126th Division was withdrawn here, here it was being restored as part of the Northwestern Front. On July 15, it was precisely "this" 126th Division that was formally transferred to the Western Front, and it subsequently fought as part of the 22nd Army.
To the 174th Rifle Division in the area of Polotsk, besides its two rifle regiments (the 494th and 508th), two composite regiments were subordinated, formed in early July from the subunits of the Polotsk divisions that had gone west on the eve of June 22: the 55th Composite Rifle Regiment, formerly of the 17th Division (while the full-fledged 55th Rifle Regiment in the composition of the 17th Division was retreating from Lida through the Naliboki Forest to Polesie and in August 1941 operated as part of the 3rd Army under its commander Major G. G. Skripko) and the 50th Composite Rifle Regiment (named after its rifle division that had gone west). By the beginning of the new German offensive, the 55th Composite Regiment first disappeared from the summaries (it was disbanded and sent to reinforce the 494th Regiment), later, during the exit from the encirclement, the 50th Composite Regiment was merged/poured into the 508th Rifle Regiment.
The 186th Rifle Division by the beginning of the new German offensive (July 13) had already suffered a defeat when the enemy seized the bridgehead in the area of Ulla, thus the defense zone of the division no longer represented a continuous front. The division commander, Major General N. I. Biryukov, wrote in his memoirs: "On July 12 I arrived in Trudy, which is 30 km north of Obol, at the command post of the 62nd Rifle Corps and reported to General Karmanov about the situation in which the division had to fight, and about how it acted. Then I reported that after breaking out of the encirclement the division numbered up to three thousand men <this is as of 12.07 and without other units with which it later managed to link up; it is known that on July 11 the 238th Rifle Regiment of the 186th Division fought in the area of the Lovsha station between Shumilino and Obol separately from the main forces of the division> and is concentrated in the area of Mishnyaki (20 km north of Mishnevichi). The corps commander ordered the division to be withdrawn to the area of Rovnoye (15 km north of Obol) to carry out further tasks…"
Let me remind you that the main reason for the defeat of the 186th Division was the rapid advance of the 39th Motorized Corps from Minsk to Vitebsk and the unexpected capture of Lepel on July 3, which simply had no one to defend. - The 186th Division, which had arrived on the eve of the war in the area of Sebezh, had to be hastily transferred to positions along the northern bank of the Western Dvina east of Polotsk (it was replaced in the area of Sebezh by the 170th Division), and then the defense zone of the 186th Division along the Western Dvina, as the German advance progressed, stretched more and more to the east up to Vitebsk, which is precisely why its defense zone turned out to be much larger than the regulation (this topic is examined in more detail in Chapter 2 "Across the Berezina to the Dnieper").
Due to the defeat of the 186th Division on its left flank, the command of the 174th Division was forced to transfer part of its forces to the area of Obol. As a result, at the beginning of the German offensive from the Disna bridgehead, the positions of the 174th Division looked as follows: from the west Polotsk (north of the Western Dvina) was defended by the 494th Regiment "with units of the 126th Division of the 11th Army", from the south Polotsk was defended by the 50th Composite Regiment (on the southern bank of the Western Dvina), east of Polotsk at a position in the area of Obol (village of Zakharovo; Obol itself was occupied by the enemy) the 508th Rifle Regiment with artillery came out (transferred from the southern bank of the Western Dvina). It was precisely this left flank of the 174th Division that attacked the rear of the German 18th Motorized Division (on the road Ulla, Shumilino, Gorodok), which the German commanders noted.
However, the axis of advance of the 3rd Tank Group was directed to the east, all three tank divisions of the 39th Motorized Corps (20th, 7th and 12th) advanced along the southern bank of the Western Dvina and formed the northern "pincer" of the new Smolensk "cauldron". The German troops were not going to strike at the rear of the Soviet Polotsk grouping. This gave the initiative in the area of Gorodok to the Soviet troops. The 214th Rifle Division that had unloaded in the area of Nevel was advanced by the Soviet command (deputy front commander Lieutenant General A. I. Eremenko) to the area of Gorodok to close the breach in the defense of the 22nd Army (it was assigned a zone from Bolshoye Kosho to Romanovo), and there it immediately went over to attacking actions. The fresh 697th Anti-Tank Artillery Regiment was also advanced here, and on July 13 the 214th Division was reinforced with a tank company (17 light T-26 tanks).
In the second echelon of the 22nd Army, the map marks the 50th Rifle Division in the area of Velizh and the 179th Rifle Division in the area of Pustoshka.
In fact, the 50th Rifle Division - what remained of it after the heavy retreat from Molodechno, Vileyka through Pleshchenitsy (north of Minsk), Zembin (north of Borisov), Lukoml, Senno and Vitebsk to Velizh - after the enemy captured Vitebsk, lost contact with the headquarters of the 22nd Army; the headquarters of the 19th Army, to which it was formally resubordinated, also did not immediately establish contact with it. Meanwhile, German troops after the capture of Vitebsk continued the offensive, the 50th Division did not manage to put itself in order in a calm situation, already on July 13 Velizh was occupied by the enemy. From Velizh the 50th Division retreated to the southeast, first to Dukhovshchina, then to the Dnieper crossings east of Smolensk; for that period the definition that Soviet commanders then used with respect to the units and formations entrusted to them fits it very well: "only a number remained". Only by August 1941 was the division finally restored and entered battle as part of its 19th Army on the line of the Vop River.
The 179th Rifle Division - as already mentioned, this was a division of the Lithuanian Corps, which was withdrawn to Polotsk and filled with conscripts from the Ural Military District, then withdrawn to the second echelon of the 22nd Army. Here it could indeed be used as a reserve. The place of deployment of the division on July 12 is named as the area of Pustoshka, but in the Combat Order of Battle of the units and formations of the Western Front on July 13, the location of the regiments of the division is indicated: Idritsa, Gorodok, Nevel.
The map does not mark the 48th Tank Division of the 23rd Mechanized Corps, which from July 6 was arriving in Nevel from Voronezh (Oryol Military District) - it could be called the main and only mobile reserve of the 22nd Army, but it did not at all correspond to the proud name "tank division of the Red Army of the 1941 model", and besides, at first it was not subordinated to the headquarters of the 22nd Army. Other formations of the 23rd Mechanized Corps (the 220th Motorized Division with one tank regiment of the 51st Tank Division) fought for Vitebsk, now it would also be good for the 48th Tank Division of the corps to attack Vitebsk from the side of Nevel, Gorodok! However, events developed quite differently.
The Soviet 48th Tank Division belonged to the tank formations of the last priority (it was created almost "from scratch", beginning in April 1941), it was satisfactorily manned with personnel, but it lacked combat equipment. According to the "Characteristics of the combat operations of the 48th Tank Division", its two tank regiments (the 95th and 96th) by the beginning of the war had only one formed tank battalion each, in the two remaining tank battalions in each regiment there were no tanks; according to E. Drig, they were armed with anti-tank guns. In total, the division at the beginning of combat operations had 7 medium T-34 tanks and 95 light T-26 tanks (instead of the 375 tanks required by the table of organization). The motorized rifle regiment of the division also did not have the material part assigned to it by the tables, and the howitzer artillery regiment had only 4 122-mm howitzers and 2 training guns (according to the tables it was supposed to have 12 122-mm howitzers and 12 152-mm howitzers). The reconnaissance battalion, of the assigned material part, had only 3 T-26 tanks.
On July 10, the headquarters of the 22nd Army, which had somehow obtained the right to dispose of a division not its own, sent a tank battalion of the 96th Tank Regiment to reinforce the 170th Rifle Division, which, after abandoning the Sebezh fortified region, fought in the area of Kuznetsovka, Idritsa and received the task of restoring the situation in the area of Sebezh. Soon the 48th Division was officially subordinated to the 22nd Army, and on July 13 a tank company of the 95th Regiment reinforced the 214th Division in the area of Gorodok, and on July 14 another tank company of the 95th Regiment was again allocated in support of the 170th Division. As a result, at the beginning of the German offensive, in the disposition of the division in the area of Nevel there remained only the motorized rifle regiment and a tank subunit of the 95th Tank Regiment.
Looking ahead, I will present here the losses in tanks of the 48th Division (they amounted to 100%), which give some idea of the areas of their employment (according to the data of the "Characteristics…"):
• sent for repair for technical reasons - 4 T-34 and 24 T-26 (more than a quarter of the total number of tanks and more than half of the medium T-34s);
• sent for repair, knocked out by the enemy - 1 T-34 and 19 T-26;
• left on enemy territory ("irrecoverable losses") - 2 T-34 and 52 T-26, including:
• in the defense zone of the 170th Rifle Division - Kuznetsovka (2), Idritsa (6), Pustoshka (3) and Ust-Dolyssy (2),
• in the zone of operations of the 214th Rifle Division - Lake Kosho (9) and Gorodok (3),
• Nevel (5),
• Velikiye Luki (6),
• Uzkoye 13 km west of Usvyaty (2 T-34 and 1 T-26)…
Together with the 48th Tank Division, the 27th Motorcycle Regiment of the 23rd Motorized Corps (commander - Lieutenant Colonel A. F. Chebanenko) unloaded in the area of Nevel, like the entire mechanized corps, in the initial stage of formation, without material part, but with personnel. It also found itself at the disposal of the 22nd Army.
In general, according to German data (an entry from F. Halder's War Diary of July 11), "in Nevel a large collection point has been created for the formation of march battalions from the remnants of broken units, from where completely unorganized masses of people without officers and non-commissioned officers are sent to the divisions operating at the front".
In the combat composition of the 22nd Army on July 12, the 360th Howitzer Artillery Regiment of the Reserve of the High Command is not indicated: in the summaries of the front headquarters it began to be listed as part of the 19th Army, which was arriving from Ukraine to the area of Vitebsk, and in Directive No. 18 of the headquarters of the Western Front of July 9, they even tried to subordinate the 186th Rifle Division to the 19th Army:
«…Second. I assign to the commander of the 19th Army the destruction of the enemy that has broken through into the area of Sirotino, Vitebsk, therefore for this purpose I subordinate the 186th Rifle Division and the 128th Rifle Division and authorize the use of the 220th Motorized Division and the 57th Tank Division, subordinating to myself in the area of Vitebsk the 390th Howitzer Artillery Regiment». — In this hastily prepared document, not only the 128th Rifle Division is indicated, whose "paper" fate we have already discussed, but also, erroneously, the 390th Howitzer Artillery Regiment, although by meaning it should have been the 360th Howitzer Artillery Regiment of the Reserve of the High Command (it is recorded in the List of the combat composition of the Red Army as part of the 19th Army on July 10).
But, as in the case of the 186th Rifle Division, so in the case of the 360th Howitzer Artillery Regiment, nothing came of this. The 186th Rifle Division remained in the composition of the 62nd Corps of the 22nd Army, the 57th Tank Division also did not become part of the 19th Army (it remained in the composition of the 20th Army), and the 128th Rifle Division, as we know, was not in the area of Vitebsk at all (it was in the area of Vitebsk only on the maps of the General Staff of the Red Army).
As for the 360th Howitzer Artillery Regiment of the Reserve of the High Command, on June 22 it was located in the area of Lepel, after the start of the war three battalions (1st, 2nd and 4th) were attached to the 112th Rifle Division of the 51st Corps of the 22nd Army and fought in the area of Kraslava, then they were withdrawn to Polotsk, and the 3rd battalion was left at the place of deployment in Lepel and took part in the defense of the city on July 3, then retreated along the route Borovka—Kamen—Ulla.
By the beginning of the German offensive on July 13, two battalions of the 360th Howitzer Artillery Regiment (the 1st and 3rd) supported the actions of the 186th Division, and they operated separately: the 1/360 concentrated in the area of Trudy, then supported the attacks of units of the 186th Division in the area of Obol; the regimental commander, Colonel Kremlev, was with the 1st Artillery Battalion. And the 3/360 was thrown back from Ulla to Sirotino, they linked up only on July 13.
The two other battalions (the 2nd and 4th) by the beginning of the German offensive had been withdrawn to the area of Nevel, then after the enemy broke through to Nevel they were withdrawn to Toropets for rearmament.
The Lieutenant General A. I. Eremenko, who had arrived from the Far East, on June 30 replaced General of the Army D. G. Pavlov as commander of the troops of the Western Front, but already on July 2 he yielded this position to Marshal S. K. Timoshenko (at that time - People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR), remaining his deputy, responsible for the northern flank.
It is clear that, having arrived from afar to the Western Front, A. I. Eremenko, to put it mildly, experienced shock. His mood immediately before the war is well conveyed by his diary, now available for study. The entry in the diary of the future marshal of May 25, 1941 reads: "In the morning I took a shower and began to drink tea (the day was a day off). I was overwhelmed by thoughts about modern war. I believe that tank troops, aviation and parachute troops come to the fore. I believe that in a modern operation those troops will have success which in their composition will have large parachute-airborne troops, other things being equal.
I will not here detail and subject to analysis my thoughts - why I came to such a conclusion. Later, when I have time, I will make this analysis. Therefore I believe that we need to immediately create parachute-airborne armies, at least in the West and at least one corps in the East. I am saying this only for 1941, and in 1942 they should be increased. I would like to command an airborne army (consisting of three corps with means of reinforcement). The task that the army would receive, rest assured, I would fulfill with honor".
The main problem that confronted A. I. Eremenko: the Western Front no longer exists, it has been defeated at Belostok and Minsk, and its remnants are not capable of stopping the enemy. Even the primary task - to stop the enemy at least on the Minsk-Moscow highway - was not fulfilled, the German 18th Tank Division of the 47th Motorized Corps already on July 1 captured intact the strategically important bridge over the Berezina River in the area of Borisov and continued the offensive to the east. Soon the line of the Berezina River was overcome in several places already.
On July 4, the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR, Marshal S. K. Timoshenko, assumed the position of commander of the troops of the Western Front (the appointment is dated July 2; at the same time the new Western Front was formed), after which on July 4 or 5 A. I. Eremenko appeared at the headquarters of the 22nd Army. His activity during the period of the defense of Polotsk is now known well enough. Most likely, it was to him that the flattering review of the commander of the German 3rd Tank Group, Colonel General H. Hoth, about a "capable leader" who did not allow him to capture Polotsk on the move, referred. Because it is hardly likely that this referred to the commander of the 174th Rifle Division, Brigade Commander A. I. Zygin - not only the 174th Division had a relation to the "sealing" of the Disna bridgehead, where it was necessary to organize the interaction of different regiments, different divisions and even different corps. Another (in my opinion, also not the most probable) contender - the competitor of A. I. Eremenko for the role of "capable leader in the area of Polotsk", according to the enemy, - the commander of the 22nd Army, Lieutenant General F. A. Ershakov. Although when describing those difficult events it is important to remember every commander who was at the height of his official duties, whether it be the commander of the 174th Division, Brigade Commander A. I. Zygin, the commandant of the Polotsk fortified region, Colonel N. S. Devi, and many others.
And what was happening then at the front cannot be called anything other than a continuing catastrophe, the front continued to crumble here and there. Practically identical descriptions of the withdrawal of troops, the unauthorized abandonment of positions, we meet in the memoirs of the most varied military leaders of the Western Front of the summer of 1941: here is the withdrawal of units of the 170th Division in the area of the Sebezh Fortified Region, and the withdrawal of the 166th Regiment of the 98th Division during the enemy's seizure of the Disna bridgehead, and the withdrawal of a regiment of the 162nd Division of the 25th Corps in the area of Ulanovichi (northeastern suburb of Vitebsk), described by A. V. Gorbatov, and the withdrawal of other units of the 19th Army from Vitebsk along the Smolensk highway, described by I. S. Konev, and the withdrawal of units of the 20th Rifle Corps in the battles against the German bridgehead south of Mogilev… And this is only what got into the memoirs!
In an attempt to stop the DRAP, high Soviet military leaders often cut from the shoulder; up close this sometimes looked very unsympathetic. A fragment from the memoirs of A. I. Eremenko about the flight of the "166th Rifle Regiment of the 126th Rifle Division" and the "weakness of the leadership of the 62nd Corps" is widely known (although it was about the 166th Rifle Regiment of the 98th Rifle Division of the 51st Corps - apparently, the memoirist and his editors deliberately "confused the tracks"). Now the original report of A. I. Eremenko of July 6 has become known, which explains a great deal (and makes the indicated fragment of memoirs completely meaningless):
"8 hours 40 minutes 06.07.1941. The present situation at the front. For report to the commander of the Western Front and to the General Staff.
The present situation at the front of the 51st Rifle Corps turned out not to be as the corps commander reported. The 166th Rifle Regiment began its withdrawal from 16-00 04.07.41, and not at 21-00 04.07.41. And neither the division nor the corps knew about this. The headquarters and commanders sat it out in the forests and did not organize a stubborn battle. At 18-00 05.07.1941 I stopped the fleeing 166th Rifle Regiment and organized a counterattack by the 626th Rifle Regiment <should be the 628th Rifle Regiment of the 174th Division - VM> and the 285th Rifle Regiment <the 385th Regiment of the 112th Division>. The attacks by one battalion of the 166th Rifle Regiment that had been gathered, and pushed the enemy back 3 km south of Borkovichi. At 01-00 6.7.41 I reinforced this direction with the 110th Howitzer Artillery Regiment to conduct battle as a rifle unit, since it has no material part <the 110th Howitzer Regiment of High Power of the 27th Army of the NWF, retreating to the east, had one and a half thousand personnel on July 4>. By 02-00 6.7.41 a large night battle developed. On the enemy's side, flamethrower tanks were used. As a result, our units gave back somewhat and at present a battle is ongoing at this line. I shot the vile coward, the former commander of the 166th Rifle Regiment, Major Zainullin, who was the first to leave his command post and flee 15 km to the rear, in the presence of the assembled remnants of the regiment. I removed from his post the commander of the 98th Rifle Division, Major General Gavrilov, who sat it out in the rear out of cowardice, for a whole day did not know the situation at all, reported lies twice, and I transferred the case about him to a tribunal. The command of the division was taken over by his deputy, Colonel Yevsyukov. I gave a firm warning to the commander of the 51st Rifle Corps, Major General Markov, who also knew nothing about the situation and also sat it out in the rear, and had already organized the withdrawal of the corps headquarters to the next command post.
When I directed the battles, I trained the generals so that they would not be afraid of fire. I ordered them and personally participated in the counterattack and everything ended well, and I fired upon the generals. Only I received a concussion to the head from dive bombers and from fire, but I feel nothing and can continue service.
By 06-00 6.7.41 the situation at the front with the introduction of enemy tanks is as follows: our units the 380th Rifle Regiment <385th> the 626th Rifle Regiment <628th>, the 110th Howitzer Artillery Regiment and the remnants of the 166th Rifle Regiment are waging the most stubborn battle on the line Piskunova, and Borkovichi, i.e. what was recaptured by the counterattack, the enemy has returned back and has now captured Borkovichi. At the front an enemy division with tanks is operating. The enemy is conducting strong artillery fire and since morning has begun the intensive use of aviation. It is necessary to deliver a blow to the enemy in the area: Borkovichi, Koziki. I have just received information that in the area of Maslovo, Konopanshchina, the collective farm Pogran-Mayak, which is 10 km west of Borkovichi, the 126th Rifle Division of the 16th Rifle Corps has come out and concentrated, to which I have assigned the task, through a delegate of the front - Antushchevo, Filippovo, to deliver a blow to the flank of the enemy at Borkovichi. Although its combat capability is low, but there is nothing else at hand.
Lieutenant General Eremenko. Transmit to Smolensk <to the headquarters of the Western Front> immediately".
A. I. Eremenko remained in the 22nd Army for several days. After the German 39th Motorized Corps forced the Western Dvina and captured Vitebsk and Gorodok, he organized the offensive of the 214th Rifle Division, which had unloaded in the area of Nevel (it was arriving from Voroshilovgrad / Lugansk, Ukraine), toward Gorodok on July 10, because the division commander, Major General M. M. Butsko, as is now known, received a serious wound at the unloading station and was put out of action for a long time. It is not excluded that it was by his authority that the 48th Tank Division ended up in the end at the disposal of the 22nd Army. But soon the main attention of A. I. Eremenko had to be given to the area of Vitebsk: on July 12 the Commander-in-Chief of the troops of the Western Direction, Marshal S. K. Timoshenko, assigned to him the coordination of the actions of the 22nd, 19th and 20th Armies in an attempt to retake Vitebsk.
On July 13, A. I. Eremenko visited the headquarters of the 34th Rifle Corps near Vitebsk (where he remained dissatisfied with the actions of the corps commander, Lieutenant General R. P. Khmelnitsky), then the headquarters of the 19th Army of Lieutenant General I. S. Konev in the area of Rudnya, about which both wrote anxious pages in their memoirs, then went to the 134th Rifle Division near Surazh, visited the positions of the 162nd Rifle Division in the area of Kolyshki…
On July 15, A. I. Eremenko was present at the salvo of the rocket "Katyushas" in the area of Rudnya, then organized the defense in the area of Smolensk and Yartsevo, by his personal order the bridge-pontoon battalion of the 7th Motorized Corps built a crossing in the area of Solovyovo, which was later used as the main connecting thread between the Soviet troops in the Smolensk "cauldron" and the "Mainland" (the famous Solovyovo crossing).
On July 19, Lieutenant General A. I. Eremenko was appointed for the second time commander of the Western Front (Marshal S. K. Timoshenko remained his immediate superior in the position of Commander-in-Chief of the troops of the Western Direction). The main zone of attention of A. I. Eremenko remained the area of Smolensk: the organization of efforts to retake Smolensk, then to bring out the encircled Soviet troops from the Smolensk "cauldron".
For a long time he had no time for the situation on the northern flank and no time for the 22nd Army.
The presented Soviet map of July 12 may create a false impression of the threats to the position of the 22nd Army. The main threat to the 22nd Army was borne not by its enveloped flanks (the infantry divisions of Army Group "North" in the area of Sebezh and the 39th Motorized Corps of the 3rd Tank Group in the area of Vitebsk, Gorodok). First of all, because the 22nd Army was not a target of the Wehrmacht. After the German 56th Motorized Corps broke through to Sebezh (it was here that on July 7 the commander of the SS motorized division "Totenkopf", T. Eicke, received a serious wound), it went far to the north, to the area of Pskov, with a view to a further offensive toward Leningrad. And the German 39th Motorized Corps, which on July 7 forced the Western Dvina east of Beshenkovichi (Ulla, Porechye), captured a bridgehead and on July 9 broke through to Vitebsk and Gorodok, then advanced strictly to the east, forming the northern "pincer" of the Smolensk "cauldron". - As it turned out, the main threat to the 22nd Army (in the "Polotsk salient" between the two axes of advance of Army Groups "North" and "Center") was borne by the accumulation on the Disna bridgehead of the 57th Motorized and 23rd Army Corps.
The 57th Motorized Corps, like the 39th Motorized Corps, also tried on July 7-8-9 to go over to the offensive from the bridgehead captured on July 4 in the area of Disna, but could not independently overcome the line of the Polotsk Fortified Region and was forced to wait for the approach of the infantry divisions. And the infantry divisions were able to approach only by the 10th of July.
Meanwhile, the SS motorized division "Totenkopf" in the area of Sebezh was replaced by the 290th Infantry Division, but then it too moved north. As a result, by the middle of July, against the Soviet 22nd Army there operated (from the composition of Army Group "North"):
28th Army Corps (General of Infantry M. von Victorin) - as written in the history of the corps, until the middle of July it "got stuck" in the area of Sebezh, then was sent to the northeast in support of the German formations advancing on Leningrad:
• 122nd Infantry Division,
• 123rd Infantry Division.
2nd Army Corps (General of Infantry W. von Brockdorff-Ahlefeldt) - crossed the Western Dvina in the area of Kraslava and to the east (Druya) and came out to the positions of the Soviet 51st Rifle Corps on the Saryanka River. On July 9 it went over to the offensive and, possessing numerical and fire superiority, actively pressed the Soviet 112th Division. However, this corresponded more to the term "pressing" and "squeezing out" than to a breakthrough of the defense. Looking far ahead, it should be noted the general direction of the offensive of the 2nd Corps - Kholm (which was captured only on August 2), that is, to the northeast:
• 12th Infantry Division,
• 121st Infantry Division,
• 32nd Infantry Division.
50th Army Corps (General of Cavalry G. Lindemann) only on July 10 began crossing to the northern bank of the Western Dvina in the area of Druya and Drissa (Verkhnedvinsk), that is, it came out to the right (eastern) flank of the 2nd Army Corps (and became the left neighbor of the 57th Motorized Corps of Army Group "Center"). The crossing of the 50th Corps took place practically without enemy opposition, because the Soviet 51st Rifle Corps had significantly shortened its defense zone along the Western Dvina in order to create an acceptable width of defense for its divisions. Again looking ahead, I will indicate the general direction of the offensive of the 50th Corps: at the end of July the divisions of the corps came out to Velikiye Luki (direction - northeast):
• 251st Infantry Division,
• 253rd Infantry Division,
• another division (the SS division "Polizei") found no place in the combat formations of the corps, and soon it was transferred to the north, to the area of Luga.
From the composition of Army Group "Center":
57th Motorized Corps (General of Tank Troops A. Kuntzen) - on July 4 captured, then held and expanded the bridgehead in the area of Disna west of Polotsk. Even then, in the documents of the corps, the final goal of the offensive was defined: Dretun, Nevel and Velikiye Luki - for the 19th Tank Division, and Gorodok, Kresty - for the 18th Motorized Division (later the 18th Motorized Division was resubordinated to the 39th Motorized Corps, in exchange the 14th Motorized Division was transferred to the corps). However, the unexpected appearance for the Germans of the troops of the Second Strategic Echelon of the Red Army in the area of Polotsk delayed the fulfillment of these plans for a long time. By the beginning of the new offensive on July 13, two divisions had prepared:
• 14th Motorized Division,
• 19th Tank Division.
23rd Army Corps (General of Infantry A. Schubert) - crossed to the significantly expanded Disna bridgehead and allowed the 57th Motorized Corps to form a strike fist for the offensive of July 13. At the same time, a little earlier, when discussing the question of what was more important: the capture of Polotsk or the reaching of Nevel, the German command of the 9th Army (Colonel General A. Strauss) decided that Polotsk was more important, as a large thorn in the northern flank of Army Group "Center":
• 86th Infantry Division,
• 206th Infantry Division,
• 110th Infantry Division (in the second echelon of the corps).
6th Army Corps (General of Engineer Troops O.-W. Forster) - after the completion of the Border Battle, only by July 13-14 approached Polotsk from the south:
• 26th Infantry Division,
• 6th Infantry Division.
39th Motorized Corps (General of Tank Troops R. Schmidt) - a large armored fist, assembled in the area of Vitebsk, on July 12 delivered a crushing blow to the formations of the 19th Army, which had only recently begun to arrive from Ukraine and did not have time to concentrate:
• the 18th Motorized Division crossed the Western Dvina in the area of Ulla and advanced to the area of Gorodok, covering the area of Vitebsk from attacks from the north; it was precisely it that operated against the units and formations of the Soviet 22nd Army; later the 18th Motorized Division was replaced by the 900th Motorized Brigade;
• the 20th, 7th and 12th Tank Divisions on July 12 began the offensive to the east in the direction of Velizh, Demidov and Rudnya and, further, toward Dukhovshchina, Yartsevo;
• the 20th Motorized Division was first left to defend Vitebsk, then moved after the tank divisions toward Demidov.
In the second echelon of the northern flank of Army Group "Center", the following moved toward the front: the 106th Infantry Division (at that time - in the composition of the 42nd Army Corps) on July 15 reached the area of Drissa (Verkhnedvinsk), the 20th Army Corps (256th and 129th Infantry Divisions) - the area of Lepel; soon the 106th and 129th Divisions with the headquarters of the 20th Corps headed to the area of Smolensk (arrived in the area of the battles on July 20). As for the 256th Division, which bore the main burden of repelling the Soviet counterattack near Grodno in the first days of the war, the commander of the 9th Army, A. Strauss, on July 15 reported to the commander-in-chief of Army Group "Center", F. von Bock, that "the 256th Division, assigned to the XX Corps, according to the report of its commander, is at the limit of its capabilities. I <F. von Bock> asked Strauss to check this report and said that I would recommend that he transfer the division to a calmer sector of the front, since he cannot help it in any other way".
Only in August was the 256th Division able to take part in the battles in the area of Velikiye Luki.
The 5th Army Corps was advancing to the area of Vitebsk (by July 15 its formations had come out):
• 5th Infantry Division - Sirotino on the northern bank of the Western Dvina,
• 35th Infantry Division - Bogushevsk on the southern bank of the Western Dvina,
• 900th Motorized Brigade - Vitebsk.
Sirotino - this is in the zone of the Soviet 186th Rifle Division and this is precisely the securing of the communications of the German 39th Motorized Corps in the area of Obol, which were subjected to attacks by the "Soviet garrison of Polotsk". But very soon the 5th Army Corps, like other formations of Army Group "Center", moved toward Smolensk, to the aid of the 12th Tank Division of the 39th Motorized Corps that had gotten stuck near Rudnya. Already on July 16 the 5th Infantry Division crossed into Vitebsk; against the 22nd Army only the 900th Brigade remained in operation, which on July 15 was ordered to advance from Vitebsk to Gorodok and replace the 18th Motorized Division.
Colonel General F. Halder on the afternoon of July 13 reported to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Wehrmacht A. Hitler: "…The area of Nevel and Velikiye Luki. Here the grouping consists of approximately seven divisions. Among them there are also fresh forces that arrived several days ago, from Ukraine and from the internal regions of Russia <this refers to the 214th Rifle and 48th Tank Divisions>. In addition, the remnants of units defeated in the border battles, but again replenished with people who arrived from the collection point in Nevel, have joined it. This group is sufficiently strong, and therefore it is necessary to conduct a special operation with the aim of its final defeat".
Thus, by the beginning of the new German offensive against the 22nd Army (8 rifle and 1 "not very tank" division) there operated 1 tank (19th), 2 motorized (14th and 18th) and up to 13 infantry divisions (122nd, 123rd28th Army Corps, 12th, 121st, 32nd2nd Army Corps, 251st, 253rd50th Army Corps, 86th, 206th, 110th23rd Army Corps, 26th, 6th6th Army Corps and, for a short time, 5th5th Army Corps), as well as the 900th Brigade. At the same time, the 28th, 2nd and 50th Army Corps were subordinated to the headquarters of the 16th Army of Army Group "North", while the 57th and 39th Motorized Corps and the 23rd and 6th Army Corps belonged to Army Group "Center". The organization of interaction between the flanks of Army Groups "North" and "Center" was at that period in the center of attention of the German command.
By July 10, 1941, the Wehrmacht had completed the defeat in the Border Battles of the First Strategic Echelon of the Red Army "north of the Pripyat Marshes". The German mobile formations (this term was used in those times for tank and motorized divisions) of the 3rd and 2nd Tank Groups had reached the line of the Western Dvina and Dnieper rivers and were occupying their starting positions for the further offensive. The army corps being released were hastily advancing to the east after the mobile formations in order to consolidate their success.
July 10 is considered in Soviet military historiography to be the beginning of the Smolensk Battle - on that day the 24th Motorized Corps of the 2nd Tank Group of G. Guderian began forcing the Dnieper in the area of Stary Bykhov (those events are described in detail in Chapter 4). On the following day (July 11), two other motorized corps of the 2nd Tank Group (the 46th and 47th) began forcing the Dnieper on the sector between Mogilev and Orsha. With these three corps, the 2nd Tank Group cut the Soviet Western Front in half and broke through to Smolensk (July 15*, the 47th Motorized Corps), Yelnya (July 19, the 46th Motorized Corps) and Krichev (July 17, the 24th Motorized Corps).
On July 12, the 39th Motorized Corps of the 3rd Tank Group of H. Hoth went over to the offensive from the area of Vitebsk:
• the 20th Tank Division - toward Velizh (captured on July 13*),
• the 7th Tank Division - toward Demidov (captured on July 14), on July 15 passed Dukhovshchina and came out to Yartsevo on the Moscow highway 60 km east of Smolensk,
• the 12th Tank Division on July 13 came out to Rudnya (on the Vitebsk-Smolensk highway), where it became embroiled in protracted battles.
Finally, on July 13, the 57th Motorized Corps of the 3rd Tank Group "broke open" the Disna bridgehead and began the offensive in the direction of Dretun, Nevel. This offensive was fundamentally different from the offensive of the other German motorized corps in the Smolensk Battle: it did not rush forward "headlong", without waiting for the approach of infantry formations (like the other motorized corps) - it was able to go over to the offensive only when it was supported by the 23rd Army Corps from the second echelon.
*P.S. There exists an astonishing phenomenon of Soviet historiography: the shifting of the dates of the capture of Soviet cities by German troops by one day: in official historiography the date of the capture of Smolensk is considered to be July 16 (in fact July 15), Velizh was captured by the enemy on July 13 (in historiography - July 14), Polotsk and Nevel - July 15 (in historiography - July 16), and Velikiye Luki - July 18 (in historiography - July 19).
The German 57th Motorized Corps began the offensive from the Disna bridgehead in the area of Vladychino (it was precisely here that a weak spot in the Soviet defense was found - at the junction of the 98th and 174th Rifle Divisions), and by evening the forward detachment of the 19th Tank Division came out to the Dretun station - on the communications of the "Polotsk garrison". The 14th Motorized Division operating on the left (north) managed to capture intact the bridge over the Nishcha River near Tserkovishche, but Soviet counterattacks stopped its further advance.
As the modern researcher O. I. Nuzhdin reports ("History of the 22nd Army", 2015), on the eve, in the morning of July 12, German sappers of the 57th Motorized Corps built a new crossing northeast of Borkovichi, opening for themselves an additional route for further advance.
And in the report of the Soviet 126th Rifle Division, which occupied positions at the junction of the 174th and 98th Divisions, it is said that from July 12 it was retreating "for re-formation to the area <further in the document there is a gap>. Subsequently the route was changed and the place of formation was in the Fedorukhovo forest, where they arrived with a strength of 1,847 men, of whom 50% with rifles, without heavy machine guns and artillery, 110 horses. The human and horse strength was severely overfatigued". From this the modern researcher V. Komissarov concludes that the junction between the 174th and 98th Divisions was for a time left bare. It was precisely here that the German 19th Tank Division delivered its blow.
It was precisely at this moment that significant forces of the 174th Division were diverted to the area of Obol to cover the breach that had arisen in connection with the withdrawal of the 186th Division from the Western Dvina: here, as I mentioned, the entire 508th Rifle Regiment and part of the artillery from the southern bank of the Western Dvina were transferred, and here also the division commander, Brigade Commander A. I. Zygin, arrived.
The 214th Rifle Division in the area of Gorodok was reinforced with a company of T-26 tanks from the composition of the 48th Tank Division and continued its attacks, but the enemy managed to hold its positions - here at that time units of the German 20th Tank Division (reconnaissance and motorized infantry battalions) were being replaced by the 18th Motorized Division.
To protect the communications of the 18th Motorized Division itself on the Ulla-Gorodok road, forward detachments of the infantry divisions of the 5th Army Corps were advanced.
On the same day, the Soviet 22nd Army was attacked / continued to be attacked by the infantry divisions of Army Group "North" and Army Group "Center". Simultaneously with the motorized corps, hour by hour, from the Disna bridgehead the 23rd Army Corps began the offensive with two of its infantry divisions (the 86th and 206th) in the direction of Polotsk. Here the 494th Rifle Regiment of the 174th Division and two machine-gun battalions of the Polotsk Fortified Region were defending. By the end of the day the command of the German 86th Division assessed its achievements as quite satisfactory: it had managed to deeply wedge into the Soviet defense and one could count on further success; the achievements of the 206th Division were more modest.
The third division of the 23rd Corps (the 110th4 ) began crossing to the bridgehead, that is, the enemy had the opportunity to significantly build up its forces. Considering that the 86th and 206th Divisions turned out to be tied down by the battles for Polotsk, soon it was precisely the 110th Infantry Division that was the first to begin the offensive after the 57th Motorized Corps toward Nevel.
The 6th Army Corps was only still preparing for the offensive against Polotsk from the south.
Three army corps of the southern flank of Army Group "North" (the 28th, 2nd and 50th) were opposed by three divisions of the 51st Rifle Corps (the 170th, 112th and 98th); a ratio just like in the Belostok Battle. In the operational summary of the headquarters of the Western Front, the withdrawal of the right-flank 170th Division under pressure from the enemy to the line Idritsa, Knyazevo is described, and it is said that between Sebezh and Idritsa a gap had arisen. And in the operational summary for the next day it is noted that at 2.00 on July 14 the front headquarters lost communication with the headquarters of the 22nd Army, that information from units and formations was received in fragments: …the 170th Division with its right flank fought in the area of Idritsa, and with its left flank withdrew to the line of lakes Beloye, Neicheritsa, Lisno. In support of the 170th Division the 215th Rifle Regiment of the 179th Division was sent - almost the only reserve available to the command of the 22nd Army.
Pressure also continued in the zone of the Soviet 112th Division, which was unable to hold its positions in the inter-lake defiles, and in the zone of the 98th Division, pressed by the divisions of the 50th Corps that had crossed in the area of Drissa.
The German 57th Motorized Corps continued the offensive from the Disna bridgehead: the 19th Tank Division by a morning attack occupied Dretun, and by evening reached Kulevo 10 km southwest of Nevel (the distance covered by the units of the division on July 13, from Vladychino to Dretun — about 50 km, on July 14, from Dretun to Kulevo — another 50 km!); the 14th Motorized Division operating on the left flank transported heavy equipment across the Nishcha River and began the offensive toward Rozhnovo5 . The deep breakthrough forced the commander of the 22nd Army, Lieutenant General F. A. Ershakov, to ask permission to retreat to a new defense line and abandon Polotsk, but the Soviet Main Command allowed only the withdrawal of the 98th and 112th Rifle Divisions to the line Yukhovichi, Borovukha, but the 174th Division was ordered to continue holding the Polotsk Fortified Region.
At the same time, the German command complained that the 19th Tank Division was sharply lagging behind the other tank divisions (an entry in F. Halder's diary in the morning of July 14), and that the advance of the motorized corps was being hindered by active counterattacks of Soviet troops and equally active destruction of bridges and roads.
Further F. Halder recorded the day's events: "Conversation with General Greiffenberg <chief of staff of Army Group "Center"> about the interaction of Army Groups "Center" and "North" during the period of the battles at Nevel. The 19th Tank Division should be directed to Nevel, but not advanced from there to Velikiye Luki until a decisive success is achieved in the battles at Nevel.
South of the area of the forthcoming battles at Nevel, conditions are being created for conducting another operation of encirclement in the area of Polotsk. At the same time, attention should be paid to the fact that the infantry formations of the 5th and 6th Army Corps do not become embroiled in battles in this area, but advance to the east as quickly as possible.
Conversation with Field Marshal von Leeb <commander-in-chief of Army Group "North"> about the interaction of the army groups during the battles in the area of Nevel. His first desire is the earliest possible offensive of the 19th Tank Division toward Nevel…"
The modern researcher O. I. Nuzhdin cited the request of the commander of the 50th Army Corps, G. Lindemann, to the commander of the 57th Motorized Corps, A. Kuntzen, that his units turn north, come out to the area of Nevel, Ust-Dolyssy and complete the encirclement of the enemy in front of the front of the southern flank of Army Group "North" (the Soviet 51st Rifle Corps), but received a refusal: Kuntzen explained that his motorized corps had other tasks.
Field Marshal F. von Bock (commander-in-chief of Army Group "Center") made the following entry in his diary: "In the evening an officer from Army Group "North" arrived to discuss the problems of mutual cooperation. We came to an agreement on all points: first, regarding the small "cauldron" in front of the southern wing of Army Group "North", which Kuntzen's group will deal with after the capture of Nevel, having blocked the area of lakes to the north of Nevel and having linked up there with the 12th Reconnaissance Battalion of the II Army Corps. I did not have the opportunity to promise more significant support for the liquidation of another, larger "cauldron" that may subsequently form there, until the battle in my sector of the front is finished".
The next day, in a conversation with the commander-in-chief of the German Ground Forces, W. von Brauchitsch, F. von Bock said: "Leeb plans to carry out the encirclement of enemy units in three places: to the west of Nevel, in the area of Kholm - and further to the north. As I already said, Army Group "Center" is ready to support Leeb's measures to encircle the enemy to the west of Nevel. But more active actions of Goth's group to create "cauldrons" on the front of the 16th Army can be carried out only after the completion of the battle for Smolensk".
The Soviet 51st Rifle Corps continued to slowly retreat under pressure from the enemy. The positions of the 170th Rifle Division by 11.00-12.00 are indicated already much further east than the positions of the previous day: Isakovo, Mogilno, Lake Mogilno, Sutoki, Lake Sviblo. In support of the 170th Division, another company of light T-26 tanks from the composition of the 48th Tank Division was sent.
The remaining forces of the 48th Tank Division (in essence, a motorized rifle regiment with a tank subunit (a company?) and a howitzer regiment with a minimal number of guns) and the 27th Motorcycle Regiment (also without material part) on a wide front (30 km) took up defense in front of Nevel.
The German 19th Tank Division broke through the Soviet defense and at about 21.00 broke into Nevel, which was defended by the motorized rifle regiment of the 48th Tank Division, the guard battalion of the headquarters of the 22nd Army and the 22nd Engineer Regiment of the army. H. Hoth recalled after the war: "…having brought into battle the tank regiment and having enveloped the city from two sides, the 19th Tank Division broke into Nevel and after fierce battles cleared it of the enemy. In this battle both sides suffered heavy losses. The capture of the city was accomplished so swiftly that the Russians, not knowing the situation, during a whole night sent vehicles with various cargoes into it".
Army Group "North" also continued the offensive on its southern flank: the 28th Army Corps by this time had already gone beyond the zone of the Soviet Western Front and attacked the 65th Rifle Corps of the 27th Army; the 2nd Army Corps, advancing from Osveya, occupied Idritsa; and the 50th Army Corps, advancing from Drissa / Verkhnedvinsk, approached Klyastitsy; its 253rd Infantry Division established contact with the 14th Motorized Division, which allowed the latter to continue the offensive after the 19th Tank Division.
The 23rd Army Corps of Army Group "Center" finally captured Polotsk (the main part of the city was located on the northern bank of the Western Dvina), and the 6th Army Corps broke through the line of the fortified region to Polotsk on the southern bank of the Western Dvina. Here it turned out that the retreating Soviet troops had managed to destroy all three bridges over the Dvina. The next day the 6th Corps had to build its own crossings for further advance to the east.
The German 18th Motorized Division not only repelled the Soviet attacks of the 214th Rifle Division in the area of Gorodok, but was able with part of its forces to continue the offensive, its forward detachment reached Usvyaty (about 80 km east of Gorodok), where it had to repel new counterattacks. According to the loss report of the Soviet 48th Tank Division, near the village of Uzkoye (13 km west of Usvyaty) 2 T-34 and 1 T-26 were lost from the tank company attached to the 214th Division. In order for the 18th Motorized Division to be able to continue the offensive, in the area of Gorodok it was ordered to be replaced by the 900th Motorized Brigade from Vitebsk. In the area of Vitebsk, in turn, it was to be replaced by the 5th Infantry Division of the 5th Army Corps - the 5th Corps was hurrying to Rudnya (on the Vitebsk-Smolensk highway), where the 12th Tank Division was washing itself in blood.
F. Halder wrote in his diary: "On the left flank <of Army Group "Center"> an operation in the area of Polotsk is gradually maturing. In this area and west of Nevel a new encirclement of the enemy has taken shape. In the area of Polotsk the first infantry divisions are beginning to be released, which will be transferred after Goth's tank group…"
The chief of staff of the Soviet 22nd Army, Major General G. F. Zakharov, reported to the chief of staff of the Western Direction, Lieutenant General G. K. Malandin: "There is a danger of the army being torn into two parts".
Only now did the 22nd Army receive permission to withdraw. The Commander-in-Chief of the troops of the Western Direction, Marshal S. K. Timoshenko, ordered Lieutenant General A. I. Eremenko to organize a new continuous front on the northern flank of the Western Front on the line Alushkovo (east of Pustoshka), Nevel, Dubrovo (northeast of Gorodok), Surazh-Vitebsky, the Zabolotinka station (southeast of Vitebsk). But this was an impossible wish: by July 15 the 3rd Tank Group, besides Nevel and Usvyaty (almost 50 km east of Dubrovo), had captured Velizh (40 km east of Surazh), Demidov, Dukhovshchina and had come out to the area of Yartsevo (the northern "pincer" of the Smolensk "cauldron"), along the front of the "cauldron" had occupied Rudnya (65 km southeast of Zabolotinka), and the 29th Motorized Division of the 47th Motorized Corps of the 2nd Tank Group had broken into Smolensk from the south (the southern "pincer" of the Smolensk "cauldron").
As stated in the combat journal of the Western Front, at the request of the commander of the 22nd Army, the Chief of the General Staff of the Red Army, General of the Army G. K. Zhukov, allowed the use of the 126th Rifle Division of the Northwestern Front for the defense of Sokolniki, Velikiye Luki. Thus the 126th Division finally ended up in the composition of the Western Front and was no longer mentioned in the summaries of the Northwestern Front (it was also no longer mentioned in the summaries of the 62nd Rifle Corps).
The capture of Nevel by the 57th Motorized Corps indeed tore the 22nd Army into two parts, and each of them was under threat of encirclement. The supply of the 51st and 62nd Corps was disorganized; in the journal of the 62nd Corps it is recorded that the chiefs of the warehouses destroyed their bases in Klyastitsy, Dretun and Polota, after which the systematic supply of the troops was interrupted.
From the front, the Soviet 51st Rifle Corps was pressed by the divisions of Army Group "North". The 12th Infantry Division of the 2nd Army Corps occupied Pustoshka; in Zabelye (east of Pustoshka) the headquarters of the Soviet 179th Rifle Division came under attack, and the division commander, Colonel A. I. Ustinov, and the commissar D. Ya. Prodeus were killed, and the division chief of staff, Major I. D. Kopylov, was wounded.
The German 121st Division of the 2nd Corps occupied Tolkachevo (10 km east of Idritsa; near Lake Mogilno), the 32nd Division moved in the second echelon of the corps and came out to Rudnya (southeast of Sebezh), the next day its headquarters moved to Bolbuki near Tolkachevo. Considering that the commanders of Army Group "North" had failed to change the direction of the offensive of the 57th Motorized Corps, the 12th Infantry Division was ordered to advance from Pustoshka to Nevel - to the southeast, to link up with the 57th Motorized Corps. F. Halder wrote in his diary, "…the 19th Tank Division reached Nevel, however the 12th Infantry Division moving toward it has not yet come out to the area designated for it. This breach at the junction of Army Groups "Center" and "North" has still not been closed".
Meanwhile, the 253rd Infantry Division of the 50th Army Corps occupied Klyastitsy and Selyavshchina (10 km south of Rossony). The 110th Infantry Division of the 23rd Army Corps, having moved after the 57th Motorized Corps, covered half the way to Dretun and reached Boboviki, Polota, and also sent a forward detachment to Nevel. The two other divisions of the 23rd Corps (the 86th and 206th) were finishing the mopping-up in the area of Polotsk.
Among other things, the capture of Nevel disrupted the communications of the Soviet 214th Division and eased the position of the German troops in the area of Gorodok, where the 900th Motorized Brigade replaced the 18th Motorized Division. The German 19th Tank Division after the capture of Nevel received an additional task to strike at Gorodok, into the rear of the 62nd Rifle Corps, but this plan was temporarily abandoned - there were not enough forces for it.
Instead, a combat group was formed for the offensive against Velikiye Luki. The commander of the 3rd Tank Group, Colonel General H. Hoth, recalled: "While the 19th Tank Division on July 16 pursued the enemy in the direction of Velikiye Luki, an important junction of railways and highways, the 14th Motorized Division, operating on a wide front south and north of Nevel, deployed front to the west and secured the 19th Division from possible attacks by the enemy retreating in the zone of the 23rd Army Corps…" By the end of the day the advance guard of the 19th Tank Division reached Klevniki halfway to Velikiye Luki, where it captured intact the bridge over the Lovat River.
The headquarters of the 22nd Army (which was located near Nevel), as stated in the combat journal of the Western Front, from 21.00 "transfers" to the area of the Nazimovo station east of Velikiye Luki.
Having strengthened its positions in the area of Nevel, the command of the 57th Motorized Corps (A. Kuntzen) and the 3rd Tank Group (H. Hoth) authorized the 19th Tank Division to reinforce the forward detachment in the area of Klevniki (on the way to Velikiye Luki), and also to send a combat group to Gorodok with the aim of completing the encirclement of the Soviet troops retreating from the "Polotsk salient" (the 62nd Corps: the 186th and 174th Rifle Divisions, the 56th Corps Artillery Regiment6 ). Toward it, from Gorodok to Yezerishche, the 900th Motorized Brigade was advanced.
Meanwhile, the 12th Infantry Division of the 2nd Army Corps advanced to the southeast along the Leningrad highway from the side of Pustoshka and established contact with the 14th Motorized Division of the 57th Motorized Corps in the area of Ust-Dolyssy, completing the encirclement of the 51st Rifle Corps (the 112th, 98th and part of the 170th Rifle Divisions7 , the 545th Corps Artillery Regiment and the 3/697th Anti-Tank Artillery Regiment8 ) northwest of Nevel.
The 50th Army Corps occupied Rossony and continued the offensive to the northeast, pressing the Soviet 51st Corps from the front. The German command considered that the SS "Polizei" Division could be removed from the composition of the 50th Corps: it was ordered to be withdrawn to the area of Opochka (soon it ended up on the Luga line, where in the very first battles it lost its commander); the corps headquarters relocated from Drissa to Klyastitsy.
The German 23rd Army Corps advanced toward Nevel from the southwest already with two divisions (the 110th and 86th): by the end of the day the 86th Infantry Division took Trudy by battle (the location of the headquarters of the Soviet 62nd Corps, here also the units of the 174th Rifle Division retreated from Polotsk). The third division of the 23rd Corps (the 206th) remained in the area of Polotsk and began the offensive only in the evening.
The 6th Army Corps lagged far behind its neighbors and continued crossing to the northern bank of the Western Dvina in the area of Polotsk.
In the combat journal of the Western Front it is recorded: "Units of the 179th Rifle Division after heavy battles in the area of Pustoshka are being withdrawn to Velikiye Luki for re-manning. To the line of the Zabelye station, previously occupied by the 179th Rifle Division, units of the 126th Rifle Division have come out.
…The position of the <22nd> Army is aggravated by the fact that the insignificant mobile groups of the enemy that have broken through to Nevel disorganize the systematic nature of the withdrawal".
At the disposal of Lieutenant General F. A. Ershakov after the encirclement of the main forces of the 22nd Army there remained:
• the 126th Rifle Division, which was being restored in the area of Novosokolniki, took up defense in the area east of Pustoshka (Zabelye), its 366th Regiment the commander of the 22nd Army left in his reserve in the area of Velikiye Luki;
• part of the 170th Rifle Division (the 717th Rifle Regiment, the rear of the division), which turned out to be outside the encirclement (its position, according to the data of the front headquarters, the area of Boyevo, Nikonikha south of Lake Ushcho east of the Leningrad highway), was retreating in the direction of Novosokolniki;
• the 214th Rifle Division with subunits of the 697th Anti-Tank Artillery Regiment was thrown back from Gorodok, communication with it was for a time lost;
• the 179th Rifle and 48th Tank Divisions suffered heavy losses and were being withdrawn to the area of Velikiye Luki.
Into the composition of the 22nd Army of the Western Front, from the composition of the Northwestern Front, the headquarters of the 29th Rifle Corps was transferred (corps commander - Major General A. G. Samokhin). It was to unite under its command the 170th and 179th Rifle Divisions in the area of Velikiye Luki; it was ordered to complete the concentration by July 20.
"The remnants of the motorized rifle regiment of the 48th Tank Division" (thus in the document) took up defense 5 km northwest, west and southwest of Velikiye Luki.
The Commander-in-Chief of the troops of the Western Direction, Marshal S. K. Timoshenko, at 1.30 on July 18 issued Directive No. 19 with the demand: "The 22nd Army - by decisive actions of detachments day and night to exhaust the enemy's forces.
The army, fulfilling the previously assigned task, by the forces of the local garrison, replacements, the population and by throwing in by motor vehicles a Rifle Regiment of the 126th Rifle Division, is not to allow the enemy group to break through to Velikiye Luki. With the left-flank units to conduct flank attacks in the direction of Vitebsk and paralyze the enemy's actions in this direction. The city of Velikiye Luki is not to be surrendered under any circumstances.
I place personal responsibility for the execution on the army commander and the members of the Military Council".
Considering the events taking place at that moment on the Western Front (the encirclement of three Soviet armies in the area of Smolensk, the encirclement of Mogilev and the defeat of the 20th Rifle Corps in the Krichev direction), it was not possible to reinforce the 22nd Army.
"To conduct flank attacks with the left-flank units of the 22nd Army against Vitebsk" was also not possible - these good wishes of the Soviet Main Command did not correspond to the situation and resemble the order to the remnants of the Western Front to "strike at Rakov" with the aim of deblocking the encircled Soviet troops in the final part of the Belostok-Minsk Battle.
By the way, in the combat journal of the Western Front there is an entry for this day which produces a strange impression: "The 22nd Army is withdrawing to the line Alushkovo, Nevel, Zakharki, Dubrovo, with the aim of shortening the front, to create an army reserve in the area of Usvyaty…" (Report of the Military Council of the Western Direction to Stalin, Molotov, Zhukov) - this is the line designated by Marshal S. K. Timoshenko to Lieutenant General A. I. Eremenko in the order of July 15, which was outdated and did not correspond to the situation already at the moment the order was written, and all the more so by July 17.
Apparently, the strange entries and the confusion of the numbers of formations and lines in the combat journal of the front in this period are due to the fact that on July 15, due to the threat of capture by the enemy (the breakthrough of the 7th Tank Division to Dukhovshchina and Yartsevo), the headquarters of the Western Direction was forced to hastily relocate to the east. But even more strange is that these entries were made in a journal that was filled in after the fact.
The German 19th Tank Division, having broken through the Soviet defense in the area of Klevniki on the eve, continued the offensive toward Velikiye Luki. In the combat journal of the Western Front it is recorded: "For the defense of Velikiye Luki the remnants <thus in the text> of the 179th Rifle Division, the remnants of two battalions of the 134th Rifle Division (19th Army), two march battalions and the remnants of the motorized rifle regiment of the 48th Tank Division are concentrated". In the second half of the day German troops broke into the city. In order to completely capture Velikiye Luki, the 19th Division was forced to gather all its units; in the area of Nevel only the 14th Motorized Division remained, which had to hold a front about 60 km wide.
In the area west of Nevel, German troops were completing the encirclement of the main forces of the Soviet 22nd Army; this battle received the name Kesselschlacht von Newel, the battle for the Nevel "cauldron" (in fact for two "cauldrons"). Two infantry divisions of the 50th Corps by the end of the day broke through the defense of the rearguards of the Soviet 51st Corps in the inter-lake area of Sviblo-Neshcherdo. And the 110th Infantry Division of the 23rd Corps came out to the inter-lake area of Neshcherdo-Sinsha; by evening it established contact with the 12th Infantry Division of the 2nd Army Corps, which controlled the Leningrad highway on the northern face of the "cauldron" - northwest of Nevel, and the forward detachment of the 110th Division had already reinforced the 14th Motorized Division in the area of Nevel. Thus, the ring of encirclement around the 51st Rifle Corps was closed. As the chief of staff of the 51st Corps, Colonel K. I. Sazonov, recalled after the war, on the night of July 17 to 18 motor transport still passed to the corps, but in the evening of July 18 it could no longer pass. From 00.00 on July 19, the 12th Infantry Division was temporarily subordinated to the headquarters of the 50th Army Corps.
The second division of the 23rd Corps (the 86th Infantry) was completing the mopping-up of the area of Trudy; the third division of the 23rd Corps (the 206th Infantry) came out to the area of Dretun.
The 6th Army Corps had already completely crossed to the northern bank of the Western Dvina, its divisions reached the line Obol9 , Zazerye (15 km west of the Leningrad highway between Gorodok and Yezerishche). This sector of the highway from Gorodok to Yezerishche formed the eastern face of the "southern Nevel cauldron", it was held by the 900th Motorized Brigade; further from Gorodok to Usvyaty were the units of the 18th Motorized Division.
By this time, the other corps of the German 16th Army of Army Group "North" had managed to encircle the 65th Rifle Corps of the 27th Army of the NWF (the neighbor on the right of the 22nd Army) in the area 50 km east of Opochka (as written in the documents of the 65th Corps, "the encirclement was facilitated by the withdrawal of the 21st Mechanized Corps from Novorzhev to the east and of a battalion of the 23rd Rifle Division from Bardovo"); in the Soviet report the appearance of the headquarters of an enemy formation in the area of Kudever was noted (previously - the location of the headquarters of the 65th Corps). - To two infantry divisions of the German 2nd Army Corps (the 121st and 32nd) the way to Kholm was opening, while the 2nd Corps was already operating outside the zone of the Soviet Western Front and its 22nd Army.
The peculiarity of the capture of Velikiye Luki by the German 19th Tank Division - the city belonged to the zone of Army Group "North" and was not a priority for the 3rd Tank Group of Army Group "Center". The German command simply planned to use the "northern route" to reach the town of Bely northeast of Smolensk, because, as it explained, the "southern route" to Bely through Usvyaty, Kresty is worse in road quality, and at the same time it would be necessary to overcome the Western Dvina in its upper reaches, where the bridges would be destroyed (which is what happened).
The modern American researcher David Glantz gives a semi-detective story about the advance of the 19th Tank Division to Velikiye Luki (in the book "The Collapse of the Barbarossa Plan. The Confrontation at Smolensk", volume 1, 2015): the commander-in-chief of Army Group "Center", F. von Bock, was against directing the 19th Tank Division to Velikiye Luki. "From his orders addressed to Hoth and Kluge, it is clear that the 19th Tank Division of Knobelsdorff was to occupy blocking positions in Nevel and send only reconnaissance detachments to the area of Velikiye Luki.
However, apparently due to poor communications, von Bock's order reached the 19th Tank Division already after it had left the area of Nevel. When the order finally reached Knobelsdorff, his troops had already defeated Soviet units on their way, cut the railway lines east of Velikiye Luki, capturing at the same time a whole train of new tanks, and in the evening of July 18 took possession of Velikiye Luki, capturing at the same time several important warehouses. Hoth assigned the 19th Tank Division to advance to Velikiye Luki because, according to Knobelsdorff's reports, all pockets of resistance in the area of Nevel had been suppressed, and the 14th Motorized Division could independently carry out the tasks of securing the occupied positions. In addition, Hoth believed that Kuntzen's troops would find it easier to get to Bely through Velikiye Luki rather than through Usvyaty and Velizh. The fact is that although the route through Velikiye Luki was longer, the roads there were better, which could ultimately save time.
The situation with the poor communications was aggravated by the following. Strauss did not know that the tank units of the 19th Tank Division of Knobelsdorff had rushed to Velikiye Luki, and he was unable to bring up his XXIII Army Corps to eliminate the gap in the ring of encirclement south of Nevel. Even Army Group "North" and its 16th Army received only fragmentary information about the advance of the LVII Motorized Corps. As a result, despite the fact that Hitler's adjutant Major Engel spent July 16 at the headquarters of the 16th Army, he also turned out to be unable to report anything articulate to the "Wolf's Lair". Although von Bock later concluded that it was simply a confusion, in fact all sides at the most decisive moment suddenly lost control over the operations, and as a result the greater part of Ershakov's 22nd Army managed to avoid defeat".
The advance of the 19th Tank Division to Velikiye Luki, as it turned out, led to a weakening of the blocking positions of the 57th Motorized Corps on the routes of retreat of the encircled units of the 22nd Army. The situation resembled the situation with the advance of the 17th Tank Division to Borisov on June 30 after the capture of Minsk - then it contributed to the breakthrough from the encirclement of the headquarters of the Soviet 3rd Army and two rifle divisions of the 44th Rifle Corps. Something similar happened this time as well.
The modern researcher O. I. Nuzhdin writes that "The command of the LVII Corps and the 14th Motorized Division believed that the resistance of the encircled was mainly broken. Therefore, the organized attempts of large forces of the Red Army to break through that resumed on the night of July 20 turned out to be unexpected for them".
However, an organized breakthrough by the 51st Rifle Corps did not succeed, the units became mixed up, serious disagreements arose between the corps commander, Major General A. M. Markov, and the corps chief of staff, Colonel K. I. Sazonov, the battles for the exit from the encirclement continued for several days. Some researchers believe that on this line (the Leningrad highway between Nevel and Pustoshka; the place of the breakthrough through the highway most often mentioned is Begunovo, and the place of concentration of Soviet troops before the breakthrough is Repishche) the 98th and 112th Rifle Divisions ceased to exist, their commanders went missing (the commander of the 112th Division, Colonel I. A. Kopyak, turned out to be alive, returned to the ranks, later received the rank of major general, commanded a new division and died on the Southern Front in August 1942; the commander of the 98th Division, Colonel M. S. Yevsyukov, is still listed as missing), and the remnants of the divisions were later gathered into composite regiments and subordinated to the headquarters of the 170th Rifle Division.
The breakthrough from the encirclement of the 62nd Corps went more successfully. By this time the main forces of the corps had concentrated in the area of Novokhovansk, and the breakthrough was initially planned in the inter-lake area of Yemenets-Melkoye south of Nevel. In the combat journal of the corps it is described: "After artillery preparation, from the morning of 19.7 the units of the corps attacked the enemy, but had no success. Communication with the 186th Rifle Division was lost. During 19.7.41 preparations were made for a repeated attack. During the day the 186th Rifle Division was found, its units were organized and after a 2-hour artillery preparation a second night attack by all units of the corps was again organized. After a series of night attacks, the burning of a number of villages where the enemy conducted active fire, the units of the corps, overcoming stubborn resistance, advanced to the east. By 6.00 on 20.7.41 in the sector of the 174th Rifle Division success was marked, to which all the forces and means available at the disposal of the corps commander were thrown, including the corps headquarters - to develop the success".
The 65th Rifle Corps of the 27th Army of the NWF also managed to escape from the encirclement - possibly the German 2nd Army Corps lacked precisely the 12th Infantry Division, which was drawn into the battle for the Nevel "cauldron", and it could not participate in closing its own "cauldron" (the "Kudever" one). By July 22, from the composition of the 65th Corps, the 84th Motorized Division, the 5th and 33rd Rifle Divisions managed to get out, then also the 188th Rifle Division, and on July 23 the corps (to which the 23rd Rifle Division was also subordinated) took up a new defense zone. (And soon it again found itself in encirclement and again came out of it…)
On this day F. Halder wrote in his diary a new subject: "I am increasingly beginning to be disturbed by the question of whether the vanguards of the enemy grouping concentrating in the area of Bologoye, Rzhev have already appeared on the front of Army Group "North", which in the end will force the troops of the right wing of Army Group "North" to advance through the northern part of the Valdai Hills".
Bologoye and Rzhev - a fairly accurate indication of the headquarters of the new armies of the Front of Reserve Armies formed by the Soviet command: the 29th and 30th. But these "groupings" had a relation not to the problems for the right flank of Army Group "North", but to the Smolensk Battle. Although the thought that the Wehrmacht would in the end have to carry out a special operation to "neutralize" these "groupings" was correct.
The 29th Army of Lieutenant General I. I. Maslennikov received an order to cover with three rifle divisions the area of Toropets (85 km east of Velikiye Luki) in the rear of the 22nd Army, and the 30th Army of Major General V. A. Khomenko soon advanced three divisions to the area southwest of Bely, where the German command was precisely directing the 57th Motorized Corps. Both armies closed the gap that had formed on the northern flank of the Western Front as a result of the breakthrough in the zone of the 22nd Army and the defeat of the 19th Army.
Soon the armies of the Front of Reserve Armies allocated operational groups for the offensive against Smolensk (July 23-24); the operational group of V. A. Khomenko (three rifle and 2 cavalry divisions) also went over to the offensive. Only the 29th Army at first did not receive offensive tasks - until the situation in the zone of the 22nd Army improved (it received the order for the offensive on the night of July 26).
Because of the appearance behind the back of the 22nd Army in the area of Toropets of the new 29th Army, the "northern" route for the 57th Motorized Corps to reach the town of Bely (through Velikiye Luki) finally became impossible. Having reached Velikiye Luki, the 57th Motorized Corps did not come out to the operational expanse, unlike in the Belostok-Minsk Battle. In the end, it moved to Bely along the "southern" route through Usvyaty and Velizh, and in the end the whole operation turned out not as the German command had seen it.
On the northern flank of the Soviet 22nd Army, the 126th Rifle Division (defending with two regiments) under the onslaught of the 2nd Army Corps by noon abandoned Zabelye. About the remaining formations of the 22nd Army, the combat journal of the Western Front said: 170th Rifle Division - no information received, 51st Rifle Corps and 62nd Rifle Corps - conducting stubborn battles in encirclement, 214th Rifle Division - no information received, units of the "Velikiye Luki garrison" (179th Rifle Division and others) "thrown back by the enemy to the northeastern outskirts of Velikiye Luki". - This is precisely how the classic picture of defeat looks in documents.
At the same time, heavy battles with the units of the 22nd Army breaking out of the encirclement did not allow the 14th Motorized Division in the area of Nevel to be released for further offensive (one recalls the phrase from F. Halder's diary of June 28, 1941 that the fierce battles for the Belostok "cauldron", "contrary to expectations, tied down the entire center and part of the right wing of the German 4th Army, which had to be reinforced with the 10th Tank Division"). To the aid of the 14th Motorized Division, the 254th Infantry Regiment of the 110th Infantry Division approached the area of Nevel - this division was closer than the other divisions, since it had begun advancing after the 57th Motorized Corps earlier than the others; by the end of the day it came out to Lake Usvoya west of Nevel. An infantry regiment was a more substantial contribution to the support of the 14th Motorized Division (2 motorized infantry regiments) than a forward detachment, but this was still not enough, and the remaining infantry divisions did not manage to approach the positions of the 57th Motorized Corps.
So the 14th Motorized Division not only failed to move after the 19th Tank Division - the German command decided to withdraw the 19th Division back from Velikiye Luki; it was directed to intercept the Soviet grouping that had broken out of the encirclement south of Nevel (the 62nd Corps). The combat group of the 19th Tank Division advanced from Velikiye Luki through Klevniki to Borok10 , but was stopped in the area of Senkovo and did not reach Borok - the units of the 62nd Corps that had come out here (in the description of combat operations it was said that by the morning of July 21 it had concentrated in the area of Borisogleb, Zui - a little west of Borok) turned out to be "too tough" for the enemy. By the end of the day the main forces of the 19th Tank Division had concentrated east of Nevel.
The German command considered this area so important that it even used against the Soviet troops in the area of Borok the 8th Air Corps of W. von Richthofen - the main strike aviation force of Army Group "Center".
However, the hope of the German command that it would be possible to withdraw the greater part of the 19th Tank Division from Velikiye Luki and at the same time retain the city did not come true. Around Velikiye Luki units of the 48th Tank Division, a composite detachment of the 179th Rifle Division and the 366th Rifle Regiment of the 126th Rifle Division were concentrating. The Soviet attacks began in the evening, continued at night and ended in success by the morning of July 21.
The command of the 3rd Tank Group of Army Group "Center" did not consider the retention of Velikiye Luki its priority; much more important was considered the destruction of the Soviet troops in the "cauldrons", for which the units of the 19th Tank Division were to either reinforce the defense in the area of Nevel or take part in the destruction of the Soviet troops south of Nevel - the units of the 62nd Corps that had broken out of the encirclement (the second option was chosen). O. I. Nuzhdin in his book reports on the negotiations of H. Hoth with the chief of the operational department of the headquarters of the 57th Motorized Corps: "General H. Hoth personally assured that in the current situation the retention of Velikiye Luki is of no great value, since after the destruction of the "cauldrons" the troops of the LVII Corps will receive a new task - to advance on Usvyaty, Velizh", that is, to the southeast, closer to Smolensk. (One should recall how H. Hoth assessed the breakthrough of the German 46th Motorized Corps from the tank group of G. Guderian to Yelnya: it is of no great importance, much more important was to close the Smolensk "cauldron", but this was precisely what the German troops failed to do; I described this subject in Chapter 3).
F. Halder recorded the situation at the front by evening: "On the front of Army Group "Center" the enemy managed to break the ring of encirclement in the area of Nevel. It is not yet possible to say why the enemy managed to escape from the encirclement. Possibly, the too early turning of the 19th Tank Division to Velikiye Luki is to blame for this. In any case, the situation is developing in a joyless way. The units of the enemy that have come out of the encirclement will move to Velikiye Luki, as a result of which the position of the 19th Tank Division, which has already today fallen into serious difficulties, will become extremely grave".
Then he added: "The fierceness of the battles conducted by our mobile formations operating in separate groups, as well as the untimely arrival at the front of the infantry divisions slowly pulling up from the west, and the constraint of all advances by bad roads, not to mention the great fatigue of the troops, who since the very beginning of the war have been continuously making long marches and conducting stubborn bloody battles, - all this has caused a certain decline of spirit among our leading instances. This was especially clearly expressed in the completely depressed mood of the commander-in-chief <W. von Brauchitsch>. Meanwhile, there are in reality no grounds for such pessimism. In order to draw any conclusions, it is necessary first to wait for the end of the large operations currently taking place. Only then will it be possible to give this battle a correct assessment".
F. von Bock wrote in his diary much more emotionally: "Today a real hell broke loose! In the morning news came that the enemy had broken through the positions of Kuntzen's group near Nevel. Contrary to my recommendations, Kuntzen sent his most powerful combat formation, the 19th Tank Division, in the direction of Velikiye Luki, where it became embroiled in senseless protracted battles.
Near Smolensk the enemy began a powerful offensive tonight. Large forces of the enemy also advanced in the direction of Smolensk from the south <this refers to the offensive of two divisions of the 34th Rifle Corps>; however, on the way they ran into the 17th Tank Division and were destroyed… Meanwhile, the gap between the two tank groups to the east of Smolensk has still not been closed!"
And further: "…our position is not improved by the redeployment of two divisions of Kuntzen's corps to the area of Nevel" - meaning the diversion of an entire motorized corps from the Smolensk Battle, which did not contribute to the closing of the Smolensk "cauldron".
Thus, the command of Army Group "Center" (F. von Bock) and of the 3rd Tank Group (H. Hoth) insisted that the main direction of the offensive of the 57th Corps was the eastern one (Bely), and not the northeastern one (Velikiye Luki, Toropets), and the main task was still the retention and liquidation of the Smolensk "cauldron", in which the troops of three Soviet armies had been encircled.
The next day the 19th Tank Division headed for Usvyaty.
According to the combat journal of the Western Front, by 5.00 Soviet troops had cleared Velikiye Luki of the enemy. Despite the low assessment given on the eve of the value of Velikiye Luki for Army Group "Center", F. Halder wrote on the morning of July 21: "On the northern flank of the army group our troops, unfortunately, had to leave Velikiye Luki. This is very disadvantageous. Significant forces of the enemy will be able (in front of the 16th Army) to come out from under the threat of encirclement".
On this day Halder raised the question of shifting the line of demarcation between Army Group "North" and "Center" to the north, so that Velikiye Luki would be in the zone of responsibility of Army Group "Center", and also of the possibility of resubordinating the right flank of the 16th Army of Army Group "North" (the 50th Army Corps) to the 9th Army of Army Group "Center" (which later happened).
After the liberation of Velikiye Luki, Soviet units continued to pursue the enemy and came out to positions 15 km south, where they consolidated. The garrison of Velikiye Luki was made up of units of the 179th Rifle Division (to which the 366th Regiment of the 126th Division was also subordinated), 2 battalions of the 134th Rifle Division, the remnants of the motorized rifle regiment of the 48th Tank Division and 2 march battalions; Major General T. K. Silkin, the former commander of the 170th Rifle Division, was appointed commandant of the city. Colonel N. M. Laskin was appointed acting (vrid) commander of the 170th Division. The entire sector of defense in the area of Velikiye Luki was subordinated to the 29th Rifle Corps of Major General A. G. Samokhin.
Colonel D. Ya. Yakovlev reported on the state of his 48th Tank Division after the battles for Velikiye Luki: losses in personnel amounted to 80%, in artillery - 100%. The tank division had lost its tanks even earlier.
The 62nd Corps restored communication with the headquarters of the 22nd Army, which reported that "a motor column from the city of Toropets with ammunition, fuel and food (50 vehicles) is being sent to the area of the village of Zui. Your area is being covered by fighter aviation. Until the arrival of the motor column from Toropets and the coming out to your line of the 29th Rifle Corps (northwest of you), remain in place and gather the corps".
The German 50th and 23rd Army Corps advancing to the east continued to tighten the walls of the "cauldron" northwest of Nevel; the probability of a successful organized breakthrough of the Soviet 51st Corps was increasingly reduced. The 23rd Corps received an order to replace the 14th Motorized Division in Nevel, so that it could continue the offensive to the east.
The German 19th Tank Division, having withdrawn from Velikiye Luki to Nevel, refused to attack the large concentration of Soviet troops at Borok (the 62nd Corps) and sent its tank regiment to the west, to Koshelevo, with the task of further turning to the east and advancing on Usvyaty; in the evening it established contact there with units of the 18th Motorized Division (the 30th Motorized Infantry Regiment).
F. Halder made an important entry in his diary about the course of the Smolensk operation of Army Group "Center": "The encirclement of the enemy in the area of Smolensk apparently has not yet been completed. The 7th Tank Division is probably not on the large highway going to Moscow, but north of it. In this area stubborn battles are still continuing. After our troops failed to encircle the enemy in the area of Nevel and had to leave Velikiye Luki, the chances of a major success of the operation, which would have led to an overwhelming superiority on our side, have significantly decreased…"
In fact, the German 7th Tank Division had already on July 15 come out to the Moscow highway west of Yartsevo and soon took it under control, but there still existed the Old Smolensk Road through Solovyovo, the Solovyovo crossing over the Dnieper River was operating, providing communication of the Soviet armies encircled near Smolensk with the "Mainland".
But, indeed, the enemy clearly lacked the forces to "digest" all the encircled Soviet troops in the "cauldrons", the German army corps (the 5th, 8th and 20th) moving east after the motorized corps became embroiled in battle along the western contour of the "cauldron" and still lagged far behind the mobile formations, and the motorized corps (the 39th from the north and the 47th from the south) lacked the forces to independently close the "cauldron". - All this gave the Soviet troops a chance to break out of the encirclement and restore / form a new front.
With such a course of combat operations the losses of the Soviet troops were colossal, much greater than the losses of the enemy, both in men and in equipment, but in the Smolensk Battle even in the "cauldrons" they continued to preserve their organizational structure. And only the 51st Rifle Corps, still unsuccessfully trying to break out of the Nevel "bag", was defeated almost completely (just like in the Belostok "cauldron"). As a result, it had to come out "in small groups": the commander of the 51st Corps, Major General A. M. Markov, later came out of the encirclement with a group of 150 men, the corps chief of staff K. I. Sazonov came out with his group separately, the deputy commander of the corps, Major General M. F. Gavrilov - separately, the commander of the 112th Rifle Division, Colonel I. A. Kopyak - separately.
Despite the fact that the German 19th Tank Division had withdrawn its main forces from Velikiye Luki, which led to the loss of the city, Velikiye Luki remained a target of the German offensive - but now of the infantry divisions. O. I. Nuzhdin describes a conference of the commanders of the 50th Army Corps of Army Group "North" (G. Lindemann) and the 23rd Army Corps of Army Group "Center" (A. Schubert) on the coordination of actions in the Velikiye Luki direction: the 50th Corps, with part of its forces operating against the encircled Soviet troops, planned to attack in the direction of Novosokolniki and come out to Velikiye Luki from the west, while the 23rd Corps, also continuing to operate with part of its forces against the "cauldron", was to advance on Velikiye Luki along the Nevel highway, from the south.
The forward 110th Infantry Division of the 23rd Corps advanced with part of its forces toward Velikiye Luki. A heavy battle is described for the crossing over the Lovat River at Klevniki; it had to turn for help to the 19th Tank Division, and only thanks to this was it possible to preserve the bridgehead. - In essence, the German troops had to return several days back and again fight for lines already captured earlier.
Meanwhile, the main forces of the 19th Tank Division through Usvyaty reached Velizh, practically without encountering resistance - this territory had been captured by German troops a week earlier. The 14th Motorized Division advanced after it. A few days later the 19th Tank Division joined the main forces of the 3rd Tank Group on the outer ring of the Smolensk "cauldron".
The Soviet 22nd Army was carrying out a regrouping of troops in the area of Velikiye Luki and organizing a new defense on the line of the Lovat River, Lake Serutskoye; the Soviet command was not going to lose Velikiye Luki a second time.
The right-flank 126th Rifle Division was defending west of Novosokolniki, soon it began a systematic withdrawal to Velikiye Luki (by the morning of July 25 it had withdrawn to the line Kochanovo, Borshchanka east of Novosokolniki).
To the south operated the part of the 170th Division that had found itself outside the encirclement; under pressure from the 50th Army Corps, by the morning of July 24 it had withdrawn to Lake Astso south of Novosokolniki. Another part of the 170th Division fought in the encirclement in the Nevel "cauldron".
The 179th Rifle Division with part of its forces (one rifle regiment plus the motorized rifle regiment of the 48th Tank Division) defended Velikiye Luki, while with two rifle regiments it attempted to continue the offensive to the south, but was forced to go over to the defensive - the German 110th Infantry Division operating here received reinforcement in the area of Klevniki, but it too failed to expand its bridgehead on this day. The remaining German infantry divisions of the 23rd Army Corps gradually pulled up to the area of the battles south of Velikiye Luki.
The 214th Rifle Division took up defense south of Velikiye Luki; on the eve it had been subordinated to the headquarters of the 29th Rifle Corps, its 709th Howitzer Artillery Regiment was transferred to the 48th Tank Division (which, as its commander Colonel D. Ya. Yakovlev reported, after the battles for Velikiye Luki was in fact left without artillery).
About the exit from the encirclement of units of the 51st Rifle Corps, two days later the operational summary of the Western Front said: individual groups of soldiers and commanders are coming out to the area of Novosokolniki; by the end of July 23, 800 men had arrived from the 98th Rifle Division, the 155th Howitzer Artillery Regiment of the division came out with its material part, having lost only two 152-mm guns (how far this corresponded to reality is difficult to say); from the 112th Rifle Division 1,800 men came out.
The 62nd Rifle Corps (the 174th and 186th Rifle Divisions), as indicated in the operational summary of the Western Front, "was occupying the defense on the line Shchukino, Porechye, Lake Serutskoye and was taking measures to bring out of the encirclement the remnants of the 134th Rifle Division of the 19th Army discovered on 23.7 in the area of Prikhaby, Baranovo, Karpovo (all points 20-25 km north of Velizh)". The composition of the divisions of the corps after the breakthrough from the encirclement is presented in the operational summaries:
• 174th Rifle Division: two rifle regiments (the 494th Rifle Regiment of two-battalion composition and the 508th Rifle Regiment), plus the 598th Light Artillery Regiment, the 730th Howitzer Artillery Regiment, the 390th Howitzer Artillery Regiment (without material part), in the reserve the composite 56th Artillery Regiment is indicated (apparently, the remnants of the 56th Corps Artillery Regiment);
• 186th Rifle Division: three rifle regiments (the 238th, 290th and 298th Rifle Regiments), plus the 360th Howitzer Artillery Regiment (without material part), the 446th Howitzer Artillery Regiment, in the reserve - the 327th Light Artillery Regiment (without material part).
Despite the measures taken to search for the 134th Division (a special detachment of up to a battalion was sent to search), its withdrawal from the encirclement did not succeed. On July 26 the detachment of the 62nd Corps linked up with the remnants of the 134th Division (1,500 men) in the area of Yakovlevo (30 km north of Usvyaty). But apparently the greater part of the division ended up in another area, on July 27 the commander of the 134th Division, Brigade Commander V. K. Bazarov, died near Makhovo in the north of Smolensk Oblast, on the same day the chief of staff, Lieutenant Colonel V. A. Svetlichny, managed to bring out of the encirclement one group of the division, another group came out of the encirclement only on August 11 as part of "Boldin's group" (some details of the exit of the 134th Division from the encirclement are presented in the report of the Chief Military Prosecutor V. Nosov to the Deputy People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR, Army Commissar 1st Rank L. Z. Mekhlis, where it was about how the 134th Division came out of the encirclement in three detachments, see Chapter 3; when reading this document it is important to take into account the degree of blackening of the military on the part of the "special officers").
The German 19th Tank Division, advancing through Usvyaty and Velizh further to the east, occupied Ilyino and came out to Kamennoye in the upper reaches of the Western Dvina, but here it lost much time on restoring the bridge (it, as had been assumed, turned out to be destroyed). Behind it moved the 14th Motorized Division, which in the area of Nevel had already been completely replaced by the 23rd Army Corps. After the 57th Motorized Corps, the 6th Army Corps (the 26th and 6th Infantry Divisions) advanced toward Velizh, Usvyaty, Kresty.
Ilyino - this is 67 km south of Toropets (much east of Velikiye Luki). And it was precisely in the area of Toropets that the new three rifle divisions of the 29th Army of the Front of Reserve Armies (the 243rd, 252nd and 256th) were concentrating, propping up the 22nd Army and hanging over the 57th Motorized Corps from the north.
On this day, the Central Front was separated from the composition of the Soviet Western Front to direct the troops on the southern flank - in the area of Mogilev (the 13th Army) and Gomel (the 21st Army). The commander (since July 19) of the Western Front, Lieutenant General A. I. Eremenko, now was responsible only for the situation in the area of Smolensk and Velikiye Luki. In the composition of the Western Front there remained the 22nd Army, defending in the area of Velikiye Luki, the 16th and 20th Armies in the Smolensk "cauldron", the 19th Army (its headquarters came out of the encirclement, on August 1 it was assigned a new defense zone, and on August 3 it appeared in the operational summaries of the front) and the Operational Group of the Yartsevo Direction (K. K. Rokossovsky); it was also subordinated the operational groups allocated from the composition of the armies of the Front of Reserve Armies: the group of I. I. Maslennikov (the 29th Army), the group of V. A. Khomenko (the 30th Army), the group of S. A. Kalinin (on August 1 received an order to transfer its divisions to the 19th Army) and the group of V. Ya. Kachalov (the 28th Army).
The operational groups of V. A. Khomenko and S. A. Kalinin began the offensive against Dukhovshchina. The offensive of another group - of Major General K. K. Rokossovsky, did not take place: the fresh formations intended for it were transferred to Kalinin's group, and the enemy continued to attack its positions in an attempt to completely close the Smolensk "cauldron".
The operational group of V. A. Khomenko (three rifle divisions, the group was covered by a fighter and a ground-attack aviation regiment) went over to the offensive from the area southwest of Bely, however it immediately ran into the defense of the German 18th Motorized Division. For several days there were heavy battles for the village of Cherny Ruchey on the Bely-Dukhovshchina highway. (In the combat journal of the 30th Army it is said that "the order of the army commander on the beginning of the offensive at 5.00 on 24.7 was not fulfilled by the units of the army. At 5.00 on 25.7.41 the 897th Rifle Regiment came into contact with the enemy…")
Into the rear of the enemy from the line of Lake Shchuchye a cavalry group (the 50th and 53rd Cavalry Divisions) was sent with the task of coming out to the line Demidov, Kholm, but this turned out to be an unsuccessful place and an unsuccessful time. H. Hoth wrote in his memoirs: "…In the upper reaches of the Western Dvina, northeast of Velizh, fresh enemy forces also appeared (two Caucasian cavalry divisions). On July 24 and 25, having encountered the 19th Tank Division, which was advancing from the area of Velizh through Kresty in a northern direction, they suffered heavy losses and were thrown back to the north. Under conditions of incessant air raids by the enemy, the 19th Division continued its advance to the east. On July 27 it was assigned a zone between the 20th Tank and 18th Motorized Divisions and was given the task of taking part in repelling the enemy's blows, which from July 24 were usually delivered after powerful artillery preparation and with the support of tanks. The enemy with forces of five divisions continued to deliver blows from the east, as a result of which all units and formations of the 3rd Tank Group, including the training <900th> brigade, were drawn into the battles to repel the enemy's onslaught".
After the German 57th Motorized Corps came out to positions closer to Smolensk, and the 6th Army Corps moved after it, only 5 infantry divisions of the 50th and 23rd Army Corps continued to operate against the Soviet 22nd Army (for several days on the southern flank of the 22nd Army the 26th Infantry Division of the 6th Army Corps was also noted).
The 251st Infantry Division of the 50th Corps captured Stankovo (15 km west of Novosokolniki), and the 253rd Infantry Division on the night of July 25 occupied Novosokolniki. Along the entire front of the corps the withdrawal of Soviet troops was noted - they were taking up new positions closer to Velikiye Luki.
The 23rd Army Corps continued the offensive against Velikiye Luki from the south. The 110th Infantry Division broke through the Soviet defense in the area of Klevniki, the 86th Infantry Division was directed to the southern end of Lake Psovo, the 206th Infantry Division, which lagged behind the other divisions, was approaching the area of the battles.
In the summary of the Soviet 62nd Rifle Corps it was said about the breakthrough of the Soviet defense. "Communication in the divisions with the units has been lost. We have no communication with the 186th Rifle Division, communication with the 174th Rifle Division was established by 24.00 on 25.07…"
Having returned the 57th Motorized Corps to the main operational direction, the command of the German 3rd Tank Group was finally able to begin forming a new strike fist for the offensive against Bely: to the headquarters of the 57th Motorized Corps, besides the 19th Tank and 14th Motorized Divisions, it was planned to subordinate the 18th Motorized (again) and 20th Tank Divisions. However, these plans were not destined to come true: the offensive of the Soviet operational groups tied down the German strike groupings. As a result, the town of Bely remained then unattainable for the Wehrmacht and was captured only in October 1941 during the offensive against Moscow.
As indicated in the operational summary of the Soviet Western Front, the 22nd Army on its right flank (the 29th Rifle Corps) was conducting defensive works (the German 50th Army Corps gave its divisions a respite, at that time German reconnaissance was probing the outline of the forward edge of the new line of Soviet defense in the area of Velikiye Luki), with its left flank (the 62nd Rifle Corps) was conducting battle with the advancing enemy - here units of the 23rd Army Corps continued to develop the breakthrough at the junction of the 29th and 62nd Corps and by the end of the day occupied Mulino. In the battle the commander of the 216th Infantry Regiment of the 86th Infantry Division, Lieutenant Colonel Hans Dege, was killed.
The left flank of the 214th Rifle Division withdrew to the line Leonovo, Gusakovo, units of the 174th Rifle Division in disorder withdrew to the eastern bank of the Kunya River (all - southeast of Velikiye Luki). The Soviet command demanded that the division commanders establish control of the troops and warned that for a repetition of cases of such disorderly withdrawal of units they would be brought before a military tribunal. To close the breakthrough the Soviet command advanced the 170th Division (that part of it which had found itself outside the encirclement); by the next day it had taken up positions southeast of Velikiye Luki (Gusakovo, Ignashovo) and was subordinated to the headquarters of the 62nd Corps.
The remnants of the divisions of the 51st Corps that had broken out of the encirclement (about 4-5 thousand men) were consolidated into composite regiments (under the numbers of the 98th and 112th), on July 27 they were subordinated to the headquarters of the 170th Rifle Division (the regiments of the 170th Division were now named: 112th, 98th11 and 717th Rifle Regiments).
The operational group of I. I. Maslennikov with two rifle divisions began advancing south from Toropets to the line Olenino, Sevastyanovo (20 km north of Ilyino), where it came into contact with the enemy and thereby marked a threat to the communications of the 57th Motorized Corps (in the combat journal of the 29th Army these battles received the name First Ilyino Operation). Its third rifle division (the 256th) Maslennikov's group transferred to the subordination of the 22nd Army.
However, the German command managed to cover the area of Ilyino: here, to the aid of the 14th Motorized Division, the German 6th Army Corps was advancing, by the end of the day its 6th Infantry Division had come out to the positions of the 19th Tank Division at Kamennoye.
The German 50th Army Corps, having reconnoitered the Soviet defense on the eve, resumed the offensive, but the attempt of its 253rd Infantry Division to break through to Velikiye Luki from the west (in the zone of the 29th Rifle Corps) was not crowned with success. The next day the 253rd Division was given the task of repeating the attack.
To the south, the Soviet 62nd Rifle Corps, as stated in the documents, "broke away from the enemy" and took up a new line of defense on the eastern and northern bank of the Kunya River. The enemy on this day showed no activity in the zone of the corps.
The German 2nd Army Corps, operating against the 27th Army (the right / northern neighbor of the 22nd Army), had already on July 25 captured Loknya (70 km north of Velikiye Luki) and now, according to German summaries, was successfully advancing to the northeast along the Loknya-Kholm highway.
But the 57th Motorized Corps, which was preparing for the attack on Bely, instead of an offensive was forced to repel the attacks of the Soviet operational groups, including Maslennikov's group, on its communications in the area of Ilyino.
According to the operational summary of the headquarters of the Soviet Western Front, the enemy in the second half of the day again attacked in the direction of Velikiye Luki, but the 126th Rifle Division with the motorized rifle regiment of the 48th Tank Division held their positions.
Southeast of Velikiye Luki the Soviet 62nd Rifle Corps from the morning went over to a counteroffensive with the forces of the 170th and 174th Divisions, throwing back the enemy.
Thus, the Soviet 22nd Army managed to stabilize the front for a couple of days and even improve its positions - and this had quite concrete reasons, which we learn from F. Halder's entry on the following day.
The German command came to the conclusion that it would not be possible to capture Velikiye Luki a second time by storm, by a bold unexpected attack (as on July 18) - it was necessary to prepare a military operation in earnest. The question remained unresolved: whether or not it would be possible to attract the formations of the southern flank of Army Group "North" to the operation (in particular, the 12th Infantry Division). - Army Group "North" was carrying out its own tasks, and whether it would be able to share its forces was unclear. The divergence of the axes of advance of Army Groups "North" and "Center" continued to create problems for the Wehrmacht.
F. Halder wrote in his diary: "Army Group "North": The unexpected and very successful advance of our troops toward Kholm (2nd Army Corps). Our troops are also advancing in the direction of Staraya Russa…
The situation at the front in the evening:
c. …The enemy has wedged somewhat into our disposition on the sectors of the 19th and 20th Tank Divisions <this refers to the offensive of Kalinin's operational group, as a result of which the 19th Tank Division had no time for the offensive against Bely; to close the breach the 106th Infantry Division was sent here>. Exceptionally stubborn enemy attacks have been noted on the sectors of the 6th Army Corps and the 14th Motorized Division. <This refers to the continuation of the attacks of Maslennikov's group, which tied down in the area of Ilyino, Kresty the 14th Motorized Division and the entire 6th Army Corps (the 26th and 6th Infantry Divisions).>
d. Army Group "North": The enemy is conducting strong attacks in the area of Velikiye Luki. Our troops have found themselves in a difficult position due to a shortage of ammunition. The 2nd Army Corps is successfully advancing in the direction of Kholm. The situation at the junction of Army Groups "Center" and "North" requires the unification of the formations operating in this area under a single leadership. A corresponding instruction has been given. The formations will be united under the leadership of the command of the 9th Army. My proposal, which foresaw this unification several days ago, was at the time rejected".
After the transfer of the 50th Army Corps (the 251st and 253rd Infantry Divisions) to the 9th Army of Army Group "Center", all German troops in the area of Velikiye Luki found themselves under a single command. But the problems with supply that arose in this connection played into the hands of the Soviet troops - the enemy undertook the next attack on Velikiye Luki only on August 2.
F. Halder wrote: "South and southwest of Toropets stubborn battles have begun. There is a possibility of encircling large enemy forces in this area. For this the command of Army Group "Center" must send the 14th Motorized Division to envelop the enemy from the south, and the command of Army Group "North" - the 50th Army Corps and Schubert's group (from the area of Velikiye Luki) to envelop the enemy from the north. The OKH must give an order on the organization of the leadership of this operation".
From a conversation with the commander-in-chief F. von Bock: the 23rd Army Corps went over to the defensive.
"17.20 - Telephone conversation with General Greiffenberg:
1. Organization of interaction with Army Group "North" in the area of Velikiye Luki, Toropets during the encirclement of the enemy.
…4. The 50th Army Corps has no ammunition for artillery! It is possible to deliver ammunition only by 1.8".
However, the plans of the chief of the German General Staff of the Ground Forces remained good wishes: the 14th Motorized Division had no time for "enveloping the 22nd Army from the south"; just as Army Group "North" in the end was unable to send its 12th Infantry Division of the 2nd Army Corps to the south, to the rear of the 22nd Army (as happened during the period of the Nevel battle for the encirclement of the 51st Rifle Corps). - Army Group "North" had no time for the problems of Army Group "Center": the 16th Army, having no motorized corps, could not finally defeat the Soviet troops opposing it south of Lake Ilmen and solve the main task: to come out to the Moscow-Leningrad highway. Therefore it was Army Group "Center" that in August 1941 had to transfer part of its strike formations to Army Group "North". - It was precisely on July 30 that the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Wehrmacht A. Hitler signed OKW Directive No. 34, in which the tasks set in the previous documents were specified (OKW Directive No. 33 of July 19 and the Supplement to Directive No. 33 of July 23):
"1) On the northern sector of the Eastern Front, continue the offensive in the direction of Leningrad, delivering the main blow between Lake Ilmen and Narva with the aim of encircling Leningrad and establishing contact with the Finnish army.
This offensive must be limited to the north up to Lake Ilmen by the Volkhov sector, and to the south of this lake - continued as far to the northeast as will be required to cover the right flank of the troops advancing to the north of Lake Ilmen. Preliminarily the situation in the area of Velikiye Luki should be restored. All forces that are not attracted to the offensive south of Lake Ilmen must be transferred to the composition of the troops advancing on the northern flank. The previously planned offensive of the 3rd Tank Group on the Valdai Hills is not to be undertaken until the combat capability and readiness for action of the tank formations is fully restored.
Instead of this, the troops of the left flank of Army Group "Center" must advance in a northeasterly direction to a depth sufficient to secure the right flank of Army Group "North"…
2) Army Group "Center" goes over to the defensive, using the most convenient sectors of the terrain for this…"
This decision, which to a significant degree contradicted the previous Directive No. 33 and the Supplement to it (previously it was supposed to send the tank groups to the aid of other army groups, but to continue the offensive against Moscow with infantry formations), was influenced, among other things, by how the "offensive by infantry divisions alone" against Velikiye Luki and the offensive of the 16th Army on the southern flank of Army Group "North" looked: deprived of the strike instruments of blitzkrieg (motorized corps and ground-attack aviation), the infantry divisions could not achieve decisive superiority over the enemy.
The offensive of Army Group "Center" against Moscow by army corps alone would have meant a return to the technologies of World War I. Because despite the impressive successes and the defeat of the Soviet troops in the Belostok-Minsk and Smolensk battles, in front of Army Group "Center" there again stood a continuous Soviet front.
F. Halder noted that "the command of Army Group "North" objects to the allocation to the Toropets direction of part of the forces of the group operating in the area of Kholm" <that is, against the turning of part of the forces of the 2nd Army Corps to the south>.
"Conversation with Wagner (Quartermaster General): 1. The difficulties with ammunition in the 9th Army arose due to the fact that the 50th Army Corps was only recently resubordinated to the army and it had not yet been possible to organize its supply of ammunition…"
Situation in the evening: "…Army Group "North": The 2nd Army Corps met strong enemy resistance in the area of Kholm, which is delaying its further movement. The corps is conducting stubborn battles. In connection with this, the sending of the 12th Infantry Division to the south is for the time being impossible".
F. von Bock wrote in his diary: "The chief of staff of the 9th Army, General Weckmann, is in a gloomy state of mind. He is also pessimistic about the situation on the northern wing. I told Strauss <commander of the 9th Army> that the <Smolensk> "cauldron" must be cleared at any cost in the very nearest time. Regarding the attack on the northern wing I said: the orders for the attack have already been issued. Whether the 12th Division from Army Group "North" will take part in it is unknown. But however the circumstances may turn out, the main task - the destruction of the enemy - must be fulfilled!"
And at this time, in accordance with the new OKW Directive, Army Group "Center" began to be "expropriated": in favor of Army Group "North" the 8th Air Corps of W. von Richthofen was taken from it - the main aviation component of the blitzkrieg. F. von Bock complained: "I have almost no reserves left to oppose the constant counterattacks of fresh Russian troops. At the same time, my ground-attack aviation and heavy artillery have been taken away from me, which cannot but affect the position of the eastern sector of my front".
F. Halder: "At Velikiye Luki the situation is unchanged. Here the enemy, it seems, has seized the initiative".
In the combat journal of the Western Front it was said that the German troops, beginning on July 31, were carrying out a withdrawal in front of the units of the 22nd Army on the central sector of its front, and that units of the 170th Rifle Division had occupied Plaksino, Podol southeast of Velikiye Luki.
Further in Halder's diary it is said about the report of A. Heusinger (chief of the operational department of the German General Staff of the Ground Forces): "…b. About the area of Kholm, Toropets. Von Leeb does not want to transfer forces from the composition of the Kholm grouping to the southern sector of the front.
c. Tomorrow an offensive will be undertaken on the northern flank of the 9th Army from the line of Velikiye Luki".
The position of the German divisions of the northern flank of Army Group "Center" on August 1 is presented on the maps (the Soviet formations are presented conventionally, according to German intelligence data).
On the map the 50th (L) and 23rd (XXIII) Army Corps are marked, as well as the German infantry divisions (the 253rd, 251st, 110th, 86th, 206th, 26th, 14th Motorized and 1/3 of the 6th) and the mobile units of the 23rd Corps (m. Tle XXIII); the Soviet formations are presented according to German intelligence data (the numbers have little relation to reality).
On the map the 6th (VI) and 57th Motorized (LVII m) Corps are marked and the divisions: the 26th Infantry, the 14th Motorized, the 6th Infantry (three symbols: 1/3 of the division, part/Tle 6 of the division and the main part/masse of the division), the 18th Motorized and the 19th Tank. The Soviet formations, as usual, are presented according to German intelligence data.
The German 50th Army Corps with two infantry divisions went over to the offensive against Velikiye Luki, however this attack ended in failure. F. von Bock wrote in his diary: "The attack of the left wing of the 9th Army against Velikiye Luki has bogged down. The infantry division (the 251st) was unable to approach the city in time". - The attack from the west was repelled by the Soviet 179th Rifle Division with units of the 48th Tank Division, from the south (along the Nevel highway) - by the 214th Rifle Division.
The next day F. Halder gave the following explanation: "Velikiye Luki. The failure of the offensive is explained by the fact that the 251st and, apparently, the 253rd Infantry Divisions turned out to be unprepared for the fulfillment of such a task. An offensive on this sector can no longer be spoken of. We are forced to go over to the defensive here. The command of the sector of this front must be taken over by Stumme (commander of the 40th Corps). The task will be the "defense of the northern flank". The task of reaching Toropets must be removed".
Much more successful were the actions of the 2nd Army Corps of Army Group "North": it managed to occupy Kholm; the thrown-back units of the 65th Rifle Corps of the 27th Army the next day withdrew into the zone of the 22nd Army. In this situation the 256th Rifle Division, transferred from Maslennikov's group to the 22nd Army, turned out to be very timely: it was advanced to cover the gap with the 27th Army; in the combat journal of the Western Front it is indicated that its rifle regiment fought in the area of Ploskosh (a settlement between Toropets and Kholm) and that a second rifle regiment of this division was also advanced there. Later the 256th Rifle Division found itself in the subordination of the 27th Army of the NWF.
Now, considering the exit of the 6th Army Corps to the area of Ilyino, the Soviet 22nd Army again found itself enveloped by enemy troops from three sides. But right up to the 20th of August the front in the area of Velikiye Luki stabilized.
On August 5, Field Marshal F. von Bock wrote in his diary: "The attack on the northern wing of the 9th Army must be repeated, and this is easier said than done. I hope we will manage by that time to bring at least one tank division to the necessary condition in order to use it in the attack. The Supreme Command of the Ground Forces has issued an order according to which at least one division of the II Corps of Army Group "North" must join the attack in a southerly direction from the side of Kholm, thus supporting the offensive of the northern wing of the 9th Army. I must admit, I do not very much believe in this, since Army Group "North" has plenty of other concerns".
F. von Bock, August 9: "When Greiffenberg <chief of staff of Army Group "Center"> reported to me that the Supreme Command of the Ground Forces is showing great interest in our operations on the northern wing, I called Halder and said that I was not enthusiastic about the necessity of attacking from the south in a northerly direction. However, this is the only path accessible to us, due to the impossibility of an offensive through Velikiye Luki with a turn to the north because of the heavily swampy terrain in this area. Halder asked whether we were going to use tanks there. I replied: if the Supreme Command of the Ground Forces considers that time permits, I am ready to wait until Goth's tank group finishes its re-formation and can begin combat operations. To this Halder said that he would be glad to develop the attack we had planned on the northern wing into an operation of a larger scale, since at present the Supreme Command of the Ground Forces is showing great interest in the direction we have chosen. I replied that the decisive factor of any offensive in this direction is the question of the readiness of Goth's tank group. I also told Halder that the command of the 9th Army at present does not feel much enthusiasm for the prospect of an offensive, since it, and I too, have the impression that the Supreme Command of the Ground Forces overestimates the forces of the army. In the evening Goth reported that he would be ready to attack by the 20th (of August). I passed this message on to Halder and said that we would probably be able to begin the attack on August 23…"
Soon the German 251st and 253rd Infantry Divisions were transferred to the subordination of the headquarters of the 23rd Corps of the 9th Army (the 23rd Army Corps now included 5 infantry divisions), and the headquarters of the 50th Army Corps departed for the Leningrad direction - returned to the subordination of Army Group "North".
On August 16, the 39th Motorized Corps (the 12th Tank, 18th and 20th Motorized Divisions) was withdrawn from the front of the German Army Group "Center" and sent through Vilnius to Leningrad. - The German command was impressed by the Soviet counterattack near Staraya Russa (August 12-15), which diverted significant forces of Army Group "North" from Leningrad, in particular the 56th Motorized Corps. And one 41st Motorized Corps was clearly insufficient for a decisive offensive against Leningrad.
By the 20th of August the Wehrmacht was ready to resume the offensive in the area of Velikiye Luki. The new operation involved the 57th Motorized and 23rd Army Corps (the 19th and 20th Tank Divisions, as well as the familiar 253rd, 251st, 86th, 206th, 110th and the new 102nd and 256th Infantry Divisions); the organization of the operation was entrusted to the headquarters of the 40th Motorized Corps (General of Cavalry / General of Tank Troops G. Stumme), which had arrived on the northern flank of Army Group "Center".
By this time the 22nd Army had restored its 51st Army Corps, and the Soviet command considered the army strong enough for an offensive. The final goal of the offensive was declared to be Usvyaty; the offensive of the 22nd Army was part of the new offensive of the Western Front against Smolensk.
The combat composition of the army is presented in the order of August 19 for the offensive of August 21 (see Table 6-1). In total the 22nd Army as of August 20, 1941 numbered 71,613 men.
Commander of the 22nd Army Lieutenant General F. A. Ershakov,
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51st Rifle Corps
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366th Rifle Regiment126th Rifle Division
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29th Rifle Corps
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126th Rifle Division (without the 366th Rifle Regiment) (Colonel E. V. Bedin)
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62nd Rifle Corps
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174th Rifle Division (Major General**** A. I. Zygin)
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The scheduling of the Soviet offensive for August 21 turned out to be a very unfortunate coincidence: on the following day "Stumme's group" of the German 9th Army began its own offensive, and in an unexpected place and with unexpected forces, while the Soviet command had no idea of the German plans. As a result, the main forces of the 22nd Army were encircled - all three of its corps, as well as the forward group of the headquarters together with the army commander and the army chief of staff, advanced, as is proper during an offensive, closer to the front. According to the report of the command of the 22nd Army on the combat operations, it lost control of the troops on August 25 and came out of the encirclement only on September 5. On August 28, Major General V. A. Yushkevich (previously - commander of the 44th Rifle Corps in the composition of the Yartsevo Direction group of K. K. Rokossovsky) was appointed the new commander of the 22nd Army. Lieutenant General F. A. Ershakov, who came out of the encirclement in September 1941, headed the 20th Army of the Western Front.
The involvement of the 57th Motorized Corps (2 tank divisions, which as a result of a two-week rest had restored their combat capability) ensured the success of the German operation: the Soviet command never found an antidote against the German blitzkrieg. As a result, the Soviet 22nd Army was defeated, on August 25 the enemy occupied Velikiye Luki, on August 29 - Toropets.
On August 30, the 57th Motorized Corps continued the offensive in a northern direction, now in the interests of Army Group "North" - the goal was the defeat of the Soviet Northwestern Front (primarily the 34th Army, which 2 weeks earlier had delivered a counterattack in the area of Staraya Russa) and the coming out to the Moscow-Leningrad highway. The motorized corps in the hands of the German commanders for the umpteenth time became a serious argument: the Soviet troops suffered another defeat, on September 8 the 19th Tank Division captured Demyansk. The German command announced the capture of 35,000 prisoners, the destruction or capture of 117 tanks and 254 guns.
However, the enemy did not manage to break through to the Moscow-Leningrad highway.
At the end of September, the "instruments of blitzkrieg" were returned to Army Group "Center"; it began preparations for the offensive against Moscow (Operation "Typhoon").
1.
As A. Isaev writes, due to "distrust of national cadres" these divisions were maintained according to the tables of reduced composition, at 6,000 men. He also cites lines from the morning report of the front of June 22: "The 184th Rifle Division, which has not yet been fully manned with our personnel and is absolutely unreliable, the 179th Rifle Division - in Sventsyany is also not fully manned and unreliable…"
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2.
On August 23 divided into the Leningrad and Karelian Fronts.
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3.
Later the list of divisions in the composition of the corps changed somewhat.
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4.
Transferred from the composition of the 42nd Army Corps.
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5.
On the theater of military operations there are several villages with this name; here we are talking about a settlement between Polotsk and Rossony.
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6.
The 336th Corps Artillery Regiment was no longer mentioned in the composition of the corps; its formation began in early June 1941, how far it was completed by the beginning of combat operations is difficult to say, in the middle of July the artillery regiment took part in the battles in the area north of Vitebsk, then was withdrawn to the area of Rzhev for re-manning.
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7.
It was precisely the blow of the German 12th Infantry Division to the southeast from Pustoshka to Ust-Dolyssy that cut the 170th Division in half: part of the division ended up east of the Leningrad highway, part - west of it, in the forming "cauldron".
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8.
The 3rd Battalion of the 697th Anti-Tank Artillery Regiment.
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9.
There exist several settlements with this name. In this case, Obol southwest of Yezerishche is meant; in the previous summaries it was about Obol on the Vitebsk-Polotsk highway west of Shumilino/the Sirotino station (north of Ulla).
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10.
There exist several settlements with this name. In this case, Borok near Lake Uritskoye 30 km south of Velikiye Luki is meant.
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11. On August 12 it was ordered to withdraw the 98th Division to the army reserve for re-manning, and the 170th Division was to restore its 391st Rifle Regiment at the expense of its own resources. ⇑
Last update of this page - October 25, 2025.
