The civilian populations suffered equally, many communities bereft of food perished through hunger, simply melted away, unlike the snow and ice that presently gripped the continent.
Occasionally, some enthusiastic officer would suggest a raid or a reconnaissance, and a bloody fight would break out, but mostly the casualties that filled the dressing stations on both sides of the line were caused by the lowest temperatures ever recorded on mainland Europe, except for the 1932 dive to -52.6°c, registered at Grünloch in Austria.
USAAF meteorologists at the Bolzano fighter base incredulously recorded a new record Italian low temperature of -49.5°c.
At Butgenbach in Germany, -49.9°c wreaked havoc on the US Army personnel stationed there.
In Denmark, Danish and American personnel downed tools at Karup, unable to achieve anything of value in -50.1°c.
On the other side of the line, in the small Czech town of Křemže, the supply soldiers of the Red Banner Forces of Soviet Europe didn’t know the temperature; just that it was cold enough to freeze the blood in their horses’ veins, and their own, for that matter. The cold prevented the tired and hungry men from eating any of the carcasses, and the unit just gave in to the cold.
The valuable supplies remained deep frozen in their carts.
A Czech science teacher and amateur weather forecaster later confirmed that Křemže had descended to a record temperature of -51°c.
Of course, warmer weather, or more accurately, less freezing weather, came and went, sometimes lasting as long as forty-eight hours.
Exhausted Allied engineers and pioneers labored long and hard to keep open roads that seemed to attract drifting snow in huge quantities. Bulldozers, tanks converted to snow ploughs, and plain old human muscle moved tons of snow and ice out of the way of the vital supplies of war. Many men were hospitalized, and over three hundred engineers died in the first four weeks of 1946, but their efforts kept the roads and rail lines open.
Across the front lines, a different story started to emerge, as fuel rationing, at least at first, prevented the use of non-military vehicles in most of occupied Europe.
Many local commanders saw the foolishness of the orders, and made other arrangements, often siphoning fuel from their tanks and trucks in favour of civilian snow ploughs, in order to keep the roads open and permit their supplies to get through.
The difference between the two huge armies was clear, as the Red Army, cleared roads or not, was delivering so little to the frontline troops by comparison to the Allied soldiery.
Mostly, this was the result of the Allied air campaign, but often, rear line units ‘claimed’ supplies passing through their territory, depriving the frontline troops of their rightful allocations of fuel, munitions, medical supplies, and, above all, food.
Many Soviet units went days without a delivery of rations, and foraging had very quickly taken precedence over any organized military activity.
Sometimes there were clashes between different hunting parties, and many often ended in violence, with groups of soldiers firing at each other in an effort to secure a farmer’s hidden store of grain, or a newly discovered cache of vegetables.
Men died in such encounters.
Supply officers found themselves without suitable supply units, as often horsed units delivering to starving units would not return, the carts left redundant as the frontline soldiers filled their bellies on fresh red horse meat.
That in turn created more supply problems.
Soviet troops started to cross No Man’s Land, some in organized groups, intent on stealing from their clearly better off enemy, others for the clear purpose of desertion and surrender.
Many of the latter were shot down as they ran, more often than not by their own officers, rather than a vigilant Allied soldier.
The life of the frontline Soviet soldier was truly awful, pushing their collective will to resist the cold and deprivation to the outer limits of human endurance.
But, in the main, they endured, a testament to the incredible resilience of the Red Army, as well as an endorsement of their German enemy’s respect for their incredible capacity to absorb suffering.
Behind the lines it was little better, although the hideous temperatures mostly kept the few surviving Kommando and guerrilla groups in hiding.
And then, as fuel became scarcer still, Soviet efforts at maintaining the road network did not involve mechanical effort at all; fuel was now far too precious. Instead, local populations were driven from their homes; young, old, and infirm were all set to work with shovels and brooms. That most died in the process was of no import.
German civilian casualties were extreme.
For most Soviet officers, the released Russian POWs were still considered dishonoured vermin and an insufferable burden, but now they found them new work shifting tons of snow from A to B, often with nothing more than pieces of wood or their bare hands.
And finally they added the new wave of POWs. Allied soldiers, often still in their summer uniforms, were set to work to do their share for the motherland.
So, across Europe, thousands died.
Combat.
Starvation.
Exhaustion.
Frozen to death.
German women, Austrian children, Polish grandmothers, Czech grandfathers; all died.
Indian sepoys, Canadian riflemen, US aircrew, British tankers; all died.
The NKVD were merciless, driving the clearing work forward with a flurry of blows, or organizing working parties to place the frozen corpses of the fallen beside the roads, creating piles that marked the routes for vehicles and horses to follow.
And there was cannibalism.
The Baltic Sea was frozen, or at least most of it was. The Red Navy stayed at home, its ports locked by ice, with only submarines undertaking patrol activities to the south.
The ice extended to the Danish islands, although any reasonable size vessel would have been able to move it aside, not that any tried with the Allied air superiority so marked.
Whilst the Baltic itself saw next to no action, there was a flurry of political activity from the Finns.
From September 1944, they had concluded hostilities with the Soviet Union and commenced what became known to them as ‘The Lapland War’, fighting their former allies, the German Army, in the most northern of Finnish provinces.
Rather perversely, Finland officially found herself technically at war with Germany, the Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom.
Links forged in the battles on the Eastern Front ensured that quiet communications from German friends came to receptive Finnish ears, and they passed on high-powered assurances about Allied intentions regarding Finland
Per Törget, the head of Swedish intelligence services, again proved of great value, facilitating a number of clandestine meetings between members of the Finnish Foreign Ministry and representatives of His Majesty’s government, which resulted in a secret protocol being established between Finland and the Allied nations.
On Thursday 9th January, Finland officially declared herself as adopting a neutral stance and openly declared her national borders on land, sea, and air to be inviolable to all sides, including other neutral nations, and without exception.
In Moscow, the immediate reaction was to turn on the upstart Finns, until calmer heads prevailed, and the advantages of a neutral bastion were appreciated.
‘Calmer heads’ at first consisted solely of Zhukov, who quickly ventured to suggest that Beria’s idea of liquidating the entire Finnish state would require slightly more than the ‘three panje carts and an old musket’ that represented his uncommitted reserves.
Stalin enjoyed the moment as his man was put down by Zhukov’s sarcasm, but pursued the military option with his recently appointed Commander of Soviet Ground Forces.