Disaster at Stalingrad: An Alternate History (33 page)

Raus’s aide woke him at two in the morning.
‘Herr General,
Manstein orders us forward.’ The Austrian was instantly awake. Within moments his orders went out to assemble the division and get it ready to move at first light. In ten minutes he was dressed and stepped out into the cold and was enveloped in the icy mist. He was still taken aback by the T-34s of his headquarters guard, despite the German cross and the months of training he had put the division through with these reconditioned Soviet tanks. The panzergrenadier guard at his tent was cradling his Stürmgewehr with more than a little affection. The men had taken so well to the new automatic assault rifle that he believed they would mutiny if ordered to turn them in for the old bolt-action Kar 98.

A similar order had also set
Grossdeutschland
into a frenzy of activity. Hörnlein was just as pleased as Raus with his new equipment. The morale of both divisions of LX Panzer Corps was high. As with all the divisions of 11th Army, Manstein had seen to it that they had winter clothing and rations.
⁷
These two panzer divisions were the newly forged spear-tip of the operational reserve that the field marshal so carefully amassed. He had by now disobeyed so many Führer orders that his head was in a noose. Only success would prevent the hangman from dropping the trap door. As the news of the Soviet offensive along the Don began to build a picture of the extent of the attack, he ordered 11th Army to move north to support Seydlitz’s withdrawal. The orders went out at night for movement at first light the next day. Raus and Hörnlein had their reconnaissance battalions moving out by 03.00 and their panzers by 04.00.

South of Stalingrad Soviet engineers had carefully cleared the minefields in front of narrow sectors of the overstretched 4th Romanian Army. One day after the Don Front’s attack to the north, Soviet guns roared in the early morning to smash into the defences of the 1st and 18th Romanian divisions guarding the southern flank of 6th Army. The targets of the guns shifted inland after only a few hours as the Stalingrad Front unleashed its 13th Tank Corps (57th Army) 4th Cavalry and 4th Mechanized Corps (51st Army) to overrun the thin Romanian positions and plunge deep into the enemy rear. With 350 tanks these three corps were the equivalent of a tank army. Their objective was Kalach towards which 5th Tank Army was aiming from the northwest. A German observer noted that the Soviet attack ground forward methodically ‘as if on a training ground: fire - move - fire - move’.
⁸
In Stalingrad, the men of 62nd Army heard the noises of battle and realized that the offensive was true after all. ‘It was an incredible feeling. We were no longer alone.’

By the end of the first day, 4th Mechanized Corps had advanced 27 miles to Verkhne-Tsaritsynski, half-way to their objective. The 13th Tank Corps had penetrated even closer to Kalach in a running battle with 6th Army’s withdrawing divisions. The 4th Cavalry Corps, guarding 4th Mechanized Corps’ southern flank, reached Abganerovo. Behind them came a wave of rifle divisions. The Soviet attack was aided just as that in the north by an icy mist that blinded the defenders and grounded German air reconnaissance.

The successes of the day hid a dangerous lack of supplies and trucks. The build-up for the attack had been grossly hindered by the difficulty of getting material and supplies over the ice-choked Volga. The river was not yet fully frozen over but filled with huge chunks of ice rushing downstream. Leading formations had only enough food for one more day. Nevertheless, the morale of the attacking troops was sky-high. They knew they were turning the tables on the ravagers of the Motherland. They shot hundreds of Romanian prisoners out of hand.

Raus and Hörnlein’s reconnaissance battalions had heard the thunder of Yeremenko’s attack to the north. It was not long before they encountered the fleeing rear-echelon troops of the 4th Romanian Army.
⁹

Generalmajor Leyser, commanding 29th Motorized Division, had put his men on alert ready to move off at a moment’s notice that morning as the rest of the XLVIII Panzer Corps took off for Kalach. He did not have long to wait as the radio filled with frantic calls from the Romanians holding the line to the east. Out of communication with army group, Hoth ordered Leyser east.

The 29th roared off to meet the enemy. Leading the way was the 129th Panzer Battalion, deployed in a wedge formation with fifty-five Panzer III and IV tanks in front. On the flanks were the self-propelled antitank guns. Behind in their half-tracked armoured personnel carriers came the grenadiers, followed by the artillery. The commanders stood in their open turret hatches. Visibility was less than 100 yards. Then the fog lifted.

At the same moment the tank commanders stood up straight: before them, not 400 yards away, approached the tank armada of the 13th Tank Corps. The cupola hatches slammed shut. The familiar commands rang out: ‘Turret 12 o’clock!’ - ‘Armour-piercing’ - Range 400’ - ‘Many enemy tanks’ - ‘Open fire!’
¹⁰

It was the classic meeting engagement which goes to the side which reacts quickest and most aggressively. Today it was Leyser’s panzers. To that response was added the advantage of more effective communication. Every German tank had a radio and could respond immediately to a changing situation. Only the company commander in Soviet tank units had a radio, which put a premium on follow the leader and preplanned actions. The difference was lethal. The panzers killed and killed. Tank after tank blew up or collided with others. Within half an hour the remnants of 13th Tank Corps were retreating eastward.

Amazingly a train suddenly appeared from the east and stopped to disgorge masses of Soviet infantry. The Soviets had actually driven a train full of troops into their breakthrough. The cleverness of the idea died right there as the 29th’s artillery got the range and smashed one wagon after another.

Hardly had the 13th Tank Corps been routed than word came over the radio to Leyser that another Soviet corps had penetrated 24 miles south. This was 4th Mechanized Corps with about ninety tanks. Leyser’s division had taken few casualties and now resumed its wedge formation driving south across the hard, snow-covered ground. The Soviet corps should have been much farther to the west when Leyser’s panzers found it at a place called Verkhne-Tsaritsynski. Its commander, Major General Vassili Volsky, had handled his unit poorly during its advance causing so many delays that it brought the Stalingrad Front commander to a state of incandescent rage. Yeremenko was already in a foul mood because Volsky had had the unheard-of temerity to write to Stalin personally, stating that Uranus was too risky. Clearly his timidity was a direct response to his lack of faith in the operation. He had already morally defeated himself when Leyser caught up with him and finished the job. Dozens of burning pyres, the remnants of his tanks, sent their smoke into the air as the survivors fled eastward.

The scouts of the Soviet 4th Cavalry Corps relayed the oddest reports to their commander, which he passed up the chain of command, sowing confusion at each level. Large columns of T-34s were coming north towards the corps’ penetration at Abganerovo Station. The 61st, 63rd, and 81st Cavalry Divisions of the corps were all raised in Turkestan and had never seen combat. The Central Asian cavalrymen were mounted on hardy steppe ponies. One brigade was even mounted on camels.

By the time it was clear from their markings that these were not Soviet tanks,
Grossdeutschland
and 6th Panzer Divisions were closing on Abganerovo Station from both sides. By then the Russian corps commander, General Shapkin, realized he had to break out and threw an entire cavalry division at the closing arm of 6th Panzer while another tried to escape through a gap between two dry river beds.

The Turkmen cavalry swept forward, spurring their little steppe horses. With a resounding
‘Urrah!’
thousands of sabres came out. The Germans were openmouthed, amazed, at the spectacle of 5,000 horsemen surging towards them. They thought they had slipped back in time to the wars of Frederick the Great or Napoleon. All it took was fingers depressing triggers to send streams of machine-gun bullets into the packed ranks for the spectacle to turn into carnage. Then the tanks and artillery fired high explosive and shrapnel. Whole ranks went down in the storm, those behind piling up on the dead and wounded heaps of men and screaming horses.

The Germans covering the gap between the dry riverbeds now noticed:

The German tanks pursued firing at the frenzied camel cavalry. The mass of surviving camel riders turned and ran through an area that was still marshy despite the snow. ‘The camels proved quicker and better able to move across the country and consequently won the race.’ Also in the race was Shapkin, lashing his horse to the rear while two of his division commanders lay dead among their men.“
¹¹

As Raus’s tanks stopped at the marshy ground,
Grossdeutschland
was chasing the surviving cavalry division in their direction. They came streaming into a trap as 6th Panzer’s tanks turned about and its panzergrenadiers deployed on the flanks of the oncoming Turkmen horsemen. In moments the dense ranks of cavalry disintegrated into an abattoir of dying and wounded men and horses. Here and there groups of horsemen tried to break through only to be cut down. At last the survivors leapt off their horses to surrender.

Raus radioed Hörnlein thanking him for beating the enemy into the killing zone, ‘just like a safari!’ Hörnlein took it well, though it annoyed him that his fine division had only played the role of beaters for 6th Panzer. At this point LX Panzer Corps wheeled west followed by 11th Army’s two corps, its new mission: destroy Soviet forces as far as the Volga.

In the darkness of the early morning, strong elements of 3rd Cavalry Corps crossed the Don just west of 6th Army’s western flank and rode for the bridge at Akimovka over the Don, 20 miles north of Kalach. They were to slice right behind the German XI Corps. These were mostly Cossacks, raised to the saddle and combat-hardened, not unblooded Turkmen. Nine miles north of the bridge the Red Army’s 16th Tank Corps (24th Army) was cutting through the 76th Division (VIII Corps) aiming to cut off any Germans west of the Don.

MAP №9 THE DESTRUCTION OF STALINGRAD FRONT 2–4 NOVEMBER 1942

At the bridge there was chaos as mobs of Germans and Romanians fled the disasters to the west. Many of the Germans had been separated from their units or were the few survivors. Here and there small units and guncrews hung together during the unrolling disaster. Among them were Soviet prisoners harnessed to carts to replace fallen horses. Any man who dropped was shot.

Now the innate ability of the German Army to pull itself together appeared. Officers, pistol in hand, stopped the rout, sorted out the men, put them into
ad hoc
combat units to defend the crossing and wait for the Russians to attack. Through all of this the core of
Hoch- und Deutschmeister
hung together, crossed the bridge, and headed south. On its way it was joined by the retreating columns of the 113th Infantry Division, all that was left of VIII Corps since the Russians tank corps had rolled over 76th Infantry Division. Two weak divisions were now all that was left of two of 6th Army’s corps.

Seydlitz felt as if a primeval force was blasting out of the radio at him. Hitler was in a rage, that state that had overawed and terrified countless men. He could picture Hitler frothing at the mouth that his orders had not been obeyed to the letter. ‘What is going on? How dare you not obey your orders?’ the voice demanded. He then looked at the radio operator, drew his finger across his throat. The sergeant’s eyes dilated to saucer size as he realized the general had ordered him to cut off the Führer. The general just winked at the sergeant. ‘Damned ionosphere.’
¹³

The ionosphere was acting up all over the place from the perspective of OKW. It was amazing how a conspiracy could affect the weather so conveniently. The patient efforts of Stauffenberg and Tresckow to place reliable men in critical positions were paying off. However, the need to win the battle had subsumed but not replaced the plot against Hitler. The plotters were patriots who did not see a catastrophic German defeat on the edge of Asia to be a necessary precursor to removing Hitler. The hecatomb of disaster was a price they were not willing to pay. They would win the battle and get rid of Hitler, but winning the battle required disregarding the Führer orders.