“What about the Caucasus?” he asked directly. “Will our position there remain secure?”
Manstein hesitated briefly, for this was the real heart of the matter. The Donets line screened Rostov, which in turn provided Kleist and Hansen their line of communications back to the heart of Armeegruppe South.
“For the moment,” he said, a warning implicit in that remark.
Part VII
One Small Step
“There is but one step from triumph to fall. I have seen that in the greatest affairs a little thing has always decided great events.”
Chapter 19
“The Caucasus,” said Manstein. “It is time we had a frank discussion about that. When I received the order to move on Maykop, and against Volkov’s forces, I was very troubled. It seemed to me that we had enough on our hands, and too few allies in this war. Now here we were making an enemy of one of them, and for something that we might have obtained simply with a willingness to negotiate. France joined us, and we ended up having to disarm and occupy them. I fear that the same will happen with Italy soon, and now we are at war with the Orenburg Federation, with a whole new front to hold and defend.”
“There were political considerations you were not aware of,” said Hitler. “Volkov was duplicitous, and to say even that would be too kind. He was devious, scheming to occupy and control all the key oil production centers of the world, and he nearly had them all! Besides, what did we ever gain through this alliance?”
“His Armies were of great help at Volgograd,” said Manstein. “And on the Volga, Sergei Kirov must post many armies to watch that frontier—all troops that he would much rather deploy against us.”
“It was clear that Volkov would never deliver the oil he promised us,” said Hitler. “So he had to be taught a lesson, and learn the consequences of his duplicity.”
“Indeed,” said Manstein with a shrug, “and we must live with them as well. I would ask you to consider our situation in the Caucasus from an economic perspective as well as a military one. It is clear that we cannot proceed to either Baku or Astrakhan, nor is there any reason why we should, now that we have the oil fields at Maykop. The overall strategic situation has dramatically changed in the last few months. The loss of 5th Panzer Army in Tunisia was a very hard blow.”
“Without question,” said Hitler. “Yet that was avoidable. Kesselring gave the enemy far too much there, which is why I am so keen on holding what we have here in the east. Backward steps can become a very bad habit—bad for our morale and good for the enemy.”
“Not in every case,” said Manstein, needing to hold that flank. “Tunisia was a liability. Yes, it kept the British and Americans occupied in the West, but that position should have been evacuated long ago, while we still had the air and naval power to permit that. As for the Caucasus, we have another situation there that can also become a grave liability. Our troops are now holding terrain over a very broad front, and for no good reason. Hansen and Rouff have sixteen divisions between them. If we were to consolidate to a line closer to Maykop, we could hold that region with an iron wall with no more than eight to ten divisions. Volkov has no offensive capacity. That would free up six to eight divisions, and this would dramatically redress the imbalance in our struggle to hold the middle and upper Donets—one we are clearly losing.”
“I have heard such talk from others,” said Hitler. “A defeatist attitude will never win a race. Look what we have done! We smashed them at Kiev, at Minsk, at Smolensk. We burned Moscow; made rubble of Volgograd! Now I ask the army to take Kursk, one city… One city! Suddenly it cannot be done; not with Steiner, not with seven Panzer divisions that were committed to that attack.”
“What does this tell you?” said Manstein. “The Army has fought hard. We have better tanks and equipment than we ever had before. There is no question as to the valor and dedication of the troops, yet now he can push us. He had enough to fight us in the north and still launch this heavy attack towards Kharkov again. It took all we had to stop those Winter offensives in the Don Basin last year. What does this tell you? Our enemy has changed. He has taken every blow we have delivered, suffered enormous losses, and yet there he stands. We crushed what was left of his old army in the Kuban, and it was but a shell of the force he first sent there. Now we face an all new army, and for the first time, they have tasted victory. They will want more.”
Manstein needed to find some way to make the situation clear. “We destroyed most of their 5th Shock Army, and two Tank Corps during Operation Zitadelle. Yet still they come, and as strong as ever. They have replaced all their losses, seemingly overnight, which can only mean one thing. The Soviets were not idling behind their fortified lines all winter. We are seeing new tanks and vehicles, new mechanized corps, entire new armies being transferred to this front. It is clear that the enemy has decided to focus all his energies against the southern wing of our forces. It is the one place they can attack that can yield striking gains.
“Do you realize that an advance now of little more than 100 kilometers takes them to the Dnieper? That should be a sobering thought, and here I am trying to scrape up infantry divisions to cover the Middle Donets. Do you see that gap in the lines on the situation map? There is nothing to stop them from going for the Dnieper this very moment. It is only their caution after the blow we delivered last month that gives them pause, but I have little doubt that even as we speak, they are moving up fresh reserves to exploit that opening.
“In the meantime, Steiner’s divisions move from one crisis point to another. His equipment might be new, but there were not enough infantry replacements, and those that did arrive were green. I had Sepp Dietrich holding a frontage of 30 kilometers at one point, and he was opposed by the entire 1st Guards Army! The Panzergrenadiers are wearing down. Some battalions are only 60% of normal strength. And now, since I have had to concentrate everything here in the south to protect Kharkov, that left Knobelsdorff with only two Panzer divisions. The enemy is attacking up there with five armies, which include six mobile corps. There was simply no way that line will hold without redeploying to the south to straighten out the front.
Hitler shook his head, frustrated. “More ground lost, when we should be half way to Kursk by now. We have given Sergei Kirov everything he has gained. If my Generals would fight as hard as our troops, he could not take a single acre from us! Now you suggest we withdraw to Maykop? What about Groznyy? We shed good German blood taking that from Volkov. You would simply hand it back to him?” Hitler seemed aghast.
“Not at all,” said Manstein. “There will be nothing to give, for we would utterly destroy it. In fact, we should do the very same thing at Baba Gurgur—burn it. Destroy everything, and by so doing we deny it to the enemy. I have already made it painfully clear that we will gain absolutely no economic benefit from those oil fields. We cannot transport it to Germany. In the case of Groznyy, it will take a pipeline from there to Rostov, because we do not control Georgia, nor will we have the forces necessary to do so. That is 700 kilometers, and it will take us six months or longer before it could be functional. However, a pipeline from Maykop to Rostov already exists. It is only in need of repair. And if necessary, we could also build such a line from Maykop to Taman, and then simply move the oil over the Black Sea. For that matter, building the line south to Tuapse would be even easier. That is a distance of just a little over 100 kilometers, over some mountainous terrain, but it could be constructed in a few months. Some of that line already exists as well.”