Disaster at Stalingrad: An Alternate History (19 page)
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Authors: Peter Tsouras
The Gebirgsjäger were eager to pass through the
Wiking
and Slovak divisions to begin the ascent into the mountains after a long, hot march through the Kuban. The Alpini were no less eager. Their corps commander had moved from unit to unit addressing them:
Ragazzi
[My boys], the eagles of our ancestors look proudly down upon you. You have marched farther than any legion of
la cittá eterna.
Now the great mountains of the Caucasus tower over us. You will conquer them! Roma will give you a triumph such as Caesar would have envied.
Viva l‘Italia! Viva l’Alpini!
The elite troops of the Italian Army were excellent. The mass of the Italian Army, however, suffered from the deep incompetence of the officer corps compounded by the corruption and unrealities of the Fascist regime.
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The German and Italian objectives were the high mountain passes, the most important of which was the 9,230-foot Klukhor Pass and the beginning of the Sukhumi Military Highway. Defending a 275-mile stretch of mountains and passes was the 46th Army. It had largely neglected the defence of the passes, never believing the Germans would attempt to break through such forbidding terrain. At most the passes were defended by companies or battalions. The company at the mouth of the Klukhor Pass had no idea of the troops they were up against. The 1st Gebirgsjäger Division fixed the enemy’s attention to their front with a demonstration, climbed the flanking mountain, and fell upon their rear, collapsing the defence by the evening of the 17th. They were followed by the Austrians and Bavarians of the 4th Gebirgsjäger Division, and together they pushed on to overwhelm the strong Soviet defence of the pass exit.
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MAP №4 PENETRATING THE CAUCASUS MOUNTAINS
It was a close-run thing. The attackers had expended the last of their ammunition just as the Soviet defenders broke and fled. Their margin had been filled by the mules of the Alpini. The Italians had developed special mule supply units that could navigate some of the harshest mountain trails. They had generously shared them with the Germans. The Alpini were at the same time clearing the high passes of the main range to the southwest and suddenly found themselves also in the forests on the southern side, with Sukhumi barely 12 miles away on the Ossetian Military Highway.
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Mules or not, neither the Germans nor Italians would have broken through the increasing Soviet resistance had not the Luftwaffe flown close air support. Flying through mountain valleys is tricky in peacetime. In wartime it adds a whole new dimension to risk. One man who positively relished the intensified risk was Major Hans-Ulrich Rudel who had used every bit of influence and pull to bring his new squadron of Stukas to the fight. Rudel was the ideal new German - devoted to National Socialism and Hitler and as lethal as the plague. For him:
Fighting in the narrow valleys is a thrilling experience. It is easier after we have been into every valley a few times and know which valleys have exits, and behind which mountain it is possible to get out into open country. This is all guesswork in bad weather and with low lying clouds. When we make low level attacks on some valley road occasionally the defence fires down at us from above because the mountains on either side of us are also occupied by the Ivans.
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Particularly dangerous to the troops fighting their way down the rear slopes of the mountains was an armoured train whose artillery raked the Germans. Every time Rudel’s Stukas attempted to take it out, timely warnings of their approach caused it to flee for safety into a mountain tunnel. The train always won the cat and mouse game with the Stukas until the day Rudel changed the rules. While the train was hiding in its lair, Rudel’s Stukas hit the tunnel mouth with special bombs that collapsed the entrance, sealing the train inside.
Rudel tried to answer every call for close air support, but ‘battles in the mountain forests are particularly difficult; it is fighting blindfold’. Yet time and time again his Stukas delivered steel on the target, earning the praise of the troops on the ground.
With the Klukhor now cleared, the
Wiking
and Slovak divisions flowed down through the pass and onto the Sukhumi Military Highway as it led through the lush semi-tropical forests towards Sukhumi, only 25 miles away.
The German mountain troops could not resist the opportunity to climb Mt Elbrus itself, even as the attack on the passes began. The Italians heard of it and insisted on going along. The Germans had wanted the glory for themselves until the Italians asked how useful the mules were. A group of men from each of the German and Italian divisions then made the ascent and planted their division flags and the swastika and royal Italian flag on its summit. It made an enormous propaganda splash, but Hitler launched into one of his tirades at what he thought was a wasteful stunt. His architect, Albert Speer was there:
I often saw Hitler furious but seldom did his anger erupt from him as it did when this report came in. For hours he raged as if his entire plan of the campaign had been ruined by this bit of sport. Days later he went on railing to all and sundry about ‘those crazy mountain climbers’ who ‘belong before a court-martial’. They were pursuing their idiotic hobbies in the midst of a war, he exclaimed indignantly, occupying an idiotic peak even though he had commanded that all efforts must be concentrated upon Sukhumi.
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He need not have worried. Sukhumi was well in hand.
Planning Germany’s attack on the USSR in 1941. From left, Field Marshal Keitel, Chief of Staff of OKW, Field Marshal von Brauchitsch, C-in-C of the Army, Hitler, Gen. Halder, Chief of Staff of the Army.
Marshal of the Soviet Union and brutal dictator, Joseph Stalin, was as murderous as Hitler but a far more rational war leader.
The men trying to keep the Soviet Union in the war through military aid: President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill (
seated
). Behind them stand (
from left
) Adm. King, Gen. Marshall, Gen. Dill, Adm. Leahy, and Adm. Pound.
Soviet T-34 tank refurbished and improved at the Kharkov Tractor Factory for use by the Germans.
Soviet military production was severely disrupted by the German invasion which forced the relocation of thousands of factories to the Urals and elsewhere. The tank factory at Chelyabinsk was so large it became known as Tankograd.
Field Marshal Erich von Manstein, conqueror of the Crimea, the only man Hitler could call on to retrieve the situation at Stalingrad.
Col. Gen. Friedrich Paulus, commander of the 6th Army, a competent general until the situation required him to think for himself.