War and Game

The fortifications had been built in the 19th Century by the Prussians. General Chuikov described the forts as
. . . underground structures each with several storeys, the whole projecting above the surrounding terrain. Only a mound was visible above ground -- the layer of earth covering the rest. Each fort was ringed by a ditch ten metres wide and eight metres deep, with walls revetted with brickwork. Across the ditch was a bridge, leading to one of the upper storeys. Among the forts, to the rear, there were one-storey brick bunkers. These were clad in concrete almost a full metre thick, and were used as stores. The upper works of the forts were sufficiently strong to provide reliable protection against heavy artillery fire. . . . the enemy would be able to direct fire of all kinds against us both on the approaches to the forts and within them, on the rampart. The embrasures were such that flanking fire from rifles and machine-guns could be directed from them.


A report dated 31 March 1945 by Chief of the Political Administration of the 1st Belorussian Front, General-lieutenant Galadshev, to his superiors on the front military soviet and the Chief of PUR, on the battle for Poznan, Poland reflects the differences between the Red Army of 1941 and that of 1945. The battle took place during January and February 1945 and deserved a special report because Poznan turned out to be unexpectedly difficult to subdue. Unexpected, because the 8th Guards Army, commanded by General Vasilii Chuikov, was in the process of rampaging across northern Poland and into East Prussia at the time, sweeping all before it until it bumped up against the stubborn defenders of Poznan. The 8th Guards Army encircled Poznan on 22 January 1945 and, failing to take it from the march, left a corps to capture it as soon as possible.

To begin, General-lieutenant Galadshev explained that the city was not taken initially because, “A check of workers of the political administration exposed serious shortcomings in the military work of units and formations and in party-political work which hampered the fulfillment of combat tasks.” One of the main problems was that many commanders and political workers were thrilled by the previous victories of the winter and had ceased to take into account that the enemy still was able to mount serious resistance. This main deficiency led to such subsequent shortcomings as the cessation of coordination between the two rifle corps of two different armies operating in the vicinity of Poznan. The commanders of these corps failed to share information. As this problem was revealed, command of all units in Poznan devolved solely into the hands of General Chuikov. Before the first attack, the Soviet forces very poorly reconnoitered the German forces defending Poznan. One report said the city was defended by only five or six thousand men, another that it was protected by 20,000. It turned out to be defended by nearly 50,000 German soldiers.

Ignorantly pushing against the fortified lines of an enemy of underestimated strength caused the majority of initial casualties. As a result, commanders stepped up reconnaissance and political workers stepped up propaganda work against enemy soldiers. Another problem was that men began to shirk their combat duty. In the first days of the attack few men participated in the fighting. One rifle battalion of a guards rifle regiment mustered only 15–16 riflemen for the assault, whereas rosters indicated there were supposed to be some 157 men in this grossly depleted battalion. “Where were these people at the time of combat?” asked Galadshev rhetorically. He answered they were hanging out in the homes of the local Polish inhabitants, drunk. Other regiments reported equally low numbers of effectives. The front commander quickly ordered the military procuracy of the front to prosecute shirkers as a way of increasing discipline and the number of men in the front-lines.

The old problem of coordination and cooperation between the various arms surfaced in the attack on the city. The artillery fell behind the infantry and did not know what the infantry’s objectives were. The artillery did not know which buildings were occupied by the Germans and which were not. There was a distinct lack of knowledge on how tanks, selfpropelled guns and infantry were to cooperate in the street fighting. Galadshev then credits the political organs for addressing and overcoming the corps’ problems in taking Poznan. The corps’ political workers were ordered to quickly have veterans of Stalingrad teach the newer recruits. They canvassed the divisions for veterans of Stalingrad and battles in other cities and organized them to instruct the rest of the soldiers in the tactics and techniques of urban warfare.

At the suggestion of veterans of Stalingrad, rifle battalions were reinforced with tanks, artillery, and flamethrowers transforming them into battalion-sized storm detachments which were further subdivided into storm groups. Soldiers were grouped into five man assault teams. The corps’ political organs organized some exclusively communist and Komsomol storm groups and sections. Groups were supported by direct fire from two or three selfpropelled guns, two or three field guns and indirect fire from division artillery.

PUR organized a party cell and a Komsomol organization in each detachment. Communists and Komsomols were given intense motivational talks and indoctrination as to their role in leading and inspiring their detachment or group in preparation for the resumption of the attack. The report claims that Komsomols did most of the political education work in the storm groups and acted as role models fighting fanatically in storming enemy positions. Several communists in each storm group were designated agitators with the task of coming up with short two- or three-sentence slogans about the need to take the next objective. Detachments with large numbers of party members or Komsomols were assigned to spearhead most attacks. They correspondingly suffered heavy losses.

The main role assigned to party organs and bureaus of primary party organizations in street fighting was to keep the men motivated in the attack and to keep an eye out for and prevent drunkenness and looting, and to keep men from fading away from the firing lines. Officers were said to be unable to do this as they were preoccupied with the fight at the very frontlines. Party members were also to keep an eye out for valorous behavior so they could recruit those men into the party on the spot. Communist agitators used not only words, but also actions to inspire their fellow soldiers and officers. One common tactic was to carry the red flag of the USSR in the vanguard of assaults. When one attack on Poznan’s citadel began to falter, a man holding a red flag leapt forward shouting, “For the Fatherland, for Stalin, forward!” and the rest of the detachment followed him. The political apparatus strongly urged immediate recognition of outstanding performance in combat with medals and awards and then spreading the word of the deeds among the other soldiers as a means of continuing to motivate the men in the midst of battle. Galadshev made great importance of the work of agitators in the victory at Poznan.

In street fighting regimental agitators and workers of political organizations were located with the battalions and storm groups. There they passed on the latest news from Sovinformbiuro, related the latest heroic acts, told how many Germans the regiments had killed and captured in the battle, gave lectures on the current military situation with the 8th Guards Army, and highlighted Stalin’s latest pronouncements, etc. Agitators passed out the all-important newspapers to the front-line soldiers. Of course the agitators were not completely successful in motivating all soldiers. Galadshev included an incident in which three flamethrower operators showed cowardice by letting the compressed air out of their flamethrowers then claimed they did not work so they could be excused from the flamethrower detachment. They were immediately turned over to a court-martial. The report sums up the contributions of the political sections in overcoming the problems in the opening phase of the battle for Poznan enumerated earlier. At the top level, the 8th Guards Army political section served to facilitate communications between the various unit commanders. Corps and division political sections did the same at their level. Most significant perhaps was the work of zampolits in the rifle units and the support given them by higher political sections. They ensured communication and fulfillment of orders, helped man storm units and prepared them for fulfilling their tasks.

Most important, of course, was what happened at the front. Galadshev wrote, “The center of all party-political work was in the storm groups.” It was given maximum attention by staffs and political sections. Komsomols and party members of all arms of storm groups held meetings to strengthen the combined arms work of the groups, increase the feeling of comradeship, and discuss how to coordinate their efforts. Division party commissions also kept up their work during the battle. The commission secretaries organized and held meetings to handle party business such as admitting applicants and examining infringements of party or military duties by party members. Another important job of senior party instructors was to keep track of casualties of communists.

At higher levels the party also had important practical work to do. Division political sections helped evacuate wounded and bury the dead. Political sections also combed the rear areas for supernumerary men, vehicles, and horses and sent them back to the front. One division political section flushed out nearly 300 men from the rear to send to the front in the last days of January, before the resumption of the attack on Poznan. Despite this success, Galadshev admitted that the work and organization of party and Komsomol organizations in the rear area was poor. For example, both the regimental supply point and the automotive company of one division went for over a month without holding meetings, and not a single man was admitted to the party in that time. In his conclusion General Galadshev stressed the role of the political apparatus and party members in assisting the military leadership in achieving victory in Poznan.

The most illuminating aspect of the report is how the Red Army was able to regroup and teach itself how to fight in the middle of a battle. One reason for this was the Red Army had the initiative, and in this instance could take the time to regroup and reorganize before returning to the attack. In 1941, front-line units seldom had the luxury of time for reappraisal, and, because the Germans had the initiative, generally spent most of their time reacting to German attacks. Another telling aspect was the especially active role of the party and political organs and communist and Komsomol soldiers and officers. These groups and individuals were far better organized and far more active and motivated in 1945 than in 1941. In most of 1941 and 1942 after action reports there were calls for greater political work, but in 1945 such work was more often than not highly integrated into the standard procedures of combat units and paid obvious dividends. On the purely military side, recurring problems with reconnaissance and coordination between units continued to result in unnecessary losses.



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The Citadel in Posen – Wargame Scenario in winSPWW2


Date: February 18, 1945

In January 1945, the Soviets opened their winter offensive with the objective of overunning Poland and capturing Berlin.

By direct order of Adolf Hitler, the Germans organized certain cities as 'Festungen' (fortresses) that were directed to hold out as long as possible.  Posen was designated such a Festung.  The fight for the city and its surrounding forts began in late January.  By mid-February, the Soviets had forced their way into the center of the city and were posed to assault and seize the Cytadela (main fortress).

The Soviets had to free Posen of German troops because the city was on the direct supply route to Soviet forces to the west of Posen on the Oder River.  An assault on Berlin would not be possible until Posen had been seized.  This critical job was given to the 8th Guards Army.  For the final assault on the Cytadela, the 74th and 82nd Guards Rifle Divisions were chosen to lead the attack.

To defend Posen, the Germans have a hodge-podge of various school units, police, SS troops, and fortress defense units.

Elements of six rifle divisions have been encountered so far in the battle for Posen.

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Sir William Joseph Slim, (First Viscount Slim) (1891–1970)

British army general and commander of the Fourteenth Army in India and Burma. Born on 6 August 1891 in Bristol, Slim came from humble stock. He joined the Officer Training Corps, and in August 1914, he was commissioned a second lieutenant. At Gallipoli in 1915, he received a serious wound, but he made a full recovery. He deployed to Mesopotamia in 1916, earning the Military Cross for valor before being wounded again and sent to India to convalesce.

Between the wars, Slim served with the Indian army, honed his writing doing part-time journalism, and distinguished himself as an instructor at the Staff College at Camberley and as a student at the Imperial Defence College. By 1940, he was a brigadier general commanding the 10th Indian Infantry Brigade. At Gallabat in the Sudan, his brigade retreated in the face of inferior Italian forces. After this error in judgment, he adopted a marked preference for offensive boldness. The next year, he rose to major general and command of the 10th Indian Division in Iraq and Syria.

With the Japanese invasion of Burma, Slim returned to the China-Burma-India Theater in March 1942 to command the Burma Corps. Overwhelmed by the superior skill and mobility of attacking Japanese forces, Slim oversaw a 1,000-mile retreat, the longest in British army history. Throughout, he kept his demoralized and seriously outclassed corps together, preserving 12,000 men to fight another day.

Promoted to lieutenant general and given command of XV Corps in April 1942, Slim worked to instill in his soldiers resilience and an aggressive attitude. By emphasizing fitness, night and jungle training, small-unit tactics, and self-reliance, he restored the confidence of a badly shaken army. As with the more famous Bernard Montgomery, Slim had the advantage of being not quite a gentleman. He spoke to his troops using their language (he knew Urdu and Gurkhali), and he shared their sacrifices. A solid physique and strong, lantern-jawed mien lent authority to his tough talk. As he mingled with his men, he transmitted the forcefulness of his own personality to the units under his command. Slim continued his personalized brand of leadership when he assumed command of the Fourteenth Army in May 1943.

Slim’s Fourteenth Army faced its sternest challenge with the Japanese HA-GÙ and U-GÙ offensives in March 1944, the latter aiming for Imphal and Kohima. Initially caught off balance, Slim’s army fought doggedly, forcing the Japanese to expend their momentum and limited supplies in costly attacks. Counterattacking, Fourteenth Army pursued the Japanese across the malarial mountains of Burma during the monsoon season. In its headlong retreat, the Japanese Fifteenth Army lost nearly half of its initial force of 150,000 men. Fighting a unified Japanese army with an aura of invincibility about it, Slim’s multiethnic and religiously diverse army inflicted the largest land defeat on Japan up to that time. Slim then led the reconquest of Burma until war’s end.

After the war, Slim served as chief of the Imperial General Staff, and in 1949 he earned promotion to field marshal. From 1953 to 1960, he was governor-general of Australia, becoming in 1960 the First Viscount Slim. His memoir, Defeat into Victory (1956), is regarded as a classic. Slim died in London on 14 December 1970.

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Bill Slim, but from what I have read he seems to have done pretty well in the Middle East. In East Africa he led an assault that he didn't agree with until he got shot (in the ass,). The attack baulked at that point.

In Syria he led a long-range penetration that was successful in dislocating Vichy positions and contributed to the success of the operation - one of the few successful British feats of arms to that point. He led from the front, too. Rather in front of the front. There is a story about the lead recon unit of his force advancing along a winding mountain road in Syria. They heard a vehicle approaching and set up an ambush. The vehicle they stopped was Slim's staff car, coming from in FRONT of them. Slim said, "By the way, there's an AT gun on the third bend ahead of you." He then drove off, leaving the Recon officer gaping at a rather large hole in the back of the General's staff car.

As 14th Army CO, he took a ragtag bunch of people who had been 'abandoned' by Higher Authority and turned them into a winning force. OK, the Japenese were outgunned and starving; such did not keep them from inflicting approximately equal casualties in any other campaign (the difference is the Allied casualties included dead and wounded, the Japanese were almost all DEAD). 14th Army did better than any other force facing Japanese opposition, and did it while "Sucking Hind Teat" on the supply chain even worse than SWPA and SoPac were. I mean, who else conducted successful mobile warfare using Grants?

PS: When Slim succeeded Montgomery as Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Monty gave him a detailed gripe session about the many things wrong with the British Army.

Slim's response was, "And what have YOU done about it?" He then proceeded to straighten things out during his term as CIGS (insofar as anyone can straighten out an organization dominated by the bureaucrats of MoD).

References
Calvert, Michael. Slim. New York: Ballantine Books, 1973.
Evans, Geoffrey C. Slim as Military Commander. London: B. T. Batsford, 1969.
Lewin, Ronald. Slim the Standardbearer: A Biography of Field- Marshal the Viscount Slim. Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1976.
Slim, Sir William. Defeat into Victory. London: Cassell, 1956 (rev. ed. 1961).

Winston Churchill is frequently quoted as saying that he did not become the King’s First Minister in 1940 to preside over the dissolution of the British Empire, implying that his primary aim in the war was to see that the Empire emerged intact. But this comment, his public backing for the Empire and his extremely prickly reactions to efforts by US President Roosevelt and his Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, to involve themselves in Indian affairs give a misleading impression of British policy towards Asia and the Pacific during World War II (James 1970: 179–215; Sherwood 1949: 516; Charmley 1993: 495; Hull 1948: 1482–95). Government Ministers knew that they would have to accept Indian independence after the war, however much Churchill himself disliked this. Ministers were only too well aware that Britain’s position in South East Asia had been undermined by the loss of Malaya and Burma. As ministerial diaries make clear, the Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden, took seriously both Roosevelt’s idea of Britain, China and the US sharing control of Malaya after its recapture, and Chinese demands to regain Hong Kong (Barnes and Nicholson 1988: 831, 833, 851). In terms of defence, Ministers focused their attention on the protection of Britain itself, on the battle of the Atlantic to keep Britain’s supplies coming despite the U-boat offensive and on the desert war to protect the Middle East, with its precious oil resources. Offensively, they planned to intensify the strategic bombing of German cities in order to undermine their morale, clear the whole of French North Africa of Axis forces, support the Soviet struggle with weapons and supplies, invade Italy and subsequently liberate France and the rest of Europe. Asia and the Pacific were to be left until every one of these other goals had been achieved, or were well on the way to achievement. As the Commander of British Forces in Burma, William Slim, put it after the war:

It was unavoidable that the Fourteenth Army should be the Cinderella of all the Armies, receiving only what the richer sisters in Africa and Europe could spare. As a result throughout the campaign, we were short of men, equipment and ammunition. (SLIM 2–3, 6 February 1946)


Thus, the 750,000 Anglo-Indian forces involved in desperate fighting along a 700 mile front in Burma considered themselves ‘forgotten’ by London and, as a result, allegedly voted against the Conservatives in the 1945 general election. Slim said that he told Churchill before the election that 70 per cent of the men in his army would vote Labour and the other 30 per cent would abstain out of affection for the Prime Minister (Young 1980: 716).

The way in which the India–Burma theatre was marginalized by London was epitomized by the allocation of aircraft. Amery and Slim were in agreement that air power was crucial in Asia. Because of the great size of the theatre, Amery wanted more transport aircraft and towed gliders for assaults (AMEL 2/1/33 file 3, Letter of 18 November 1941). Slim believed that British troops could achieve superiority over their enemies in Burma only if they made extensive use of transport and ground support aircraft. Backed by Churchill, the Royal Air Force (RAF) responded unenthusiastically, as it was doggedly husbanding resources for the strategic bombing campaign against Germany. But the value of the air transport which the Indian authorities managed to prise loose from London was demonstrated overwhelmingly in Burma for evacuating casualties and for keeping his forces supplied even when surrounded by Japanese. Using 340 transports, Slim moved six of his divisions by air, landing 2,000 tons of men and supplies daily. There was nothing like it again until the Berlin airlift in 1948–49, when the whole of US and British air power was involved (SLIM 3–2; Barnes and Nicholson 1988: 804; Calvocoressi et al. 1989: 532; RAF Historical Society 1995: 89–91). According to Slim, the great Japanese advantages were in the courage and mobility of their troops: ‘our one real advantage over the Jap – air supremacy gained by the sheer skill and courage of the allied air forces – gave us the answer’. Desperate struggles to penetrate thick jungle, at which the frugal and courageous Japanese excelled, could be avoided to some extent by air supply (SLIM 3–2, Lecture to the Press Club).

There are several myths about this battle which have recently been exposed, but the most common one is that the reason the British lost and were wiped out was because the quarter-masters responsible for issuing ammunition refused to do so without the required chits signed by senior officers and so the troops ran out of ammunition. [1]
A slight variation on this story was that the quartermasters issued the ammunition but nobody had the required screw-driver to open the boxes.

Both these myths have since been exposed as inventions of the imagination created to explain the inexplicable without actually placing the blame on anyone important.

In fact, battlefield archeologists have conducted a thorough survey of the Isandhlwana battlefield and discovered a far more plausible explanation based upon the distribution of cartridges and other battlefield debris.

It appears that contrary to the official version of events, the British did not form up in a dense battle line just beyond their camp to receive the Zulu attack, nor did they form gallant squares and fight to the last man as their ammunition ran out. Though this obvious would be what the gold braid at Horse Guards wanted to believe, and so they assumed that this must have been what happened.

However, based upon the distribution of cartridge cases and other battlefield debris across the battlefield it seems that rather than forming a battle line close to the camp the British troops were ordered to advance in skirmish order towards the Zulu army. This was actually hidden beyond a ridge, and the theory is that the intention was to advance up to the ridge line and use it as an initial firing position from which to reduce the strength of the approaching Impii's.

Whatever the intention, the plan went horribly wrong as it appears the Zulu's reached the crest of the ridge just as the British skirmish line was climbing the last few yards before the summit. The first British cartridge cases were found scattered across the front face of the ridge not in dense lines but in dispersed patterns.

It appears that panic immediately set in, as the Zulu's hurtled over the crest and down the slope towards the scattered British troops. Almost immediately the archeologists began to find evidence of discarded equipment. Haversack buckles, rifle mechanisms (some clearly jammed), cap badges were found all the way from the ridge back to the main camp site. Suggesting that the British fell back rapidly in some disorder, and just kept going. There were occasional dense concentrations of cartridges, equipment and uniform remnants in dips and wadi's suggesting that some groups of men had turned at bay and tried to hold positions before being overrun, but the vast majority of the men seem to have started running and never stopped, and cartridge cases were scattered in a wide and dispersed pattern right through the camp and for a mile beyond it as the last survivors were chased and harried to extinction.
At no point was there any evidence of a formed battle line or a gallant square, the last debris found was a few pitiful scraps of uniform and buckles scattered in a dry stream bed over a mile from the battlefield site, where presumably the last survivors, out of ammunition and too tired to run farther were caught and slaughtered.

Bad leadership and even worse intelligence. The British didn't even know where the Zulu Army was. Lord Chelmsford had taken the main body of his force off looking for the Zulu Army.

The Zulus were written off as ignorant savages but it is interesting to note that rather than attack Chelmsford’s main column they instead chose to attack his base camp and later that day Rorke's Drift. i.e. Chelmsford's communication and supply route.

Also the British rifles would be prone to jamming which normally wouldn't have been an issue when the British were in tight formation. In a skirmish line where the men were 10-15 yards apart, a jam would be deadly for the individual concerned and would further weaken an already difficult position.

[1]The reason most of the ammunition boxes were found intact in the camp, giving rise to the myth, is not that nobody had the right paperwork, or a screwdriver (in fact it was shown that one hefty slap with a rifle butt opened an ammo box easily anyway), but simply that they were running for their lives with a bunch of screaming Zulu's on their tails and hadn't got the time or inclination to stop and draw fresh ammunition.

The battle was joined at Sabhraon on 10 February 1846. Dressed in white and riding his white steed, the grey-bearded Sardar Sham Singh moved from column to column calling upon his men to fight to the last.

Meaning the "Guru's Own," "Khalsa" was the name given by Guru Gobind Singh to all Sikhs who took the initiation of the double-edged sword. In British India, it was the word commonly used to refer to the Sikh army in the Punjab, organized primarily by Ranjit Singh who united the loosely federated Sikh clans of the Punjab and created a European-style force using European officers, usually French veterans of Napoleon Bonaparte's Grande Armée but also British, Americans, Germans, and Italians. The Khalsa was a military fraternity, a superb fighting force, and after Singh's death almost a government within the Sikh state. After the Khalsa's defeat at the Battle of Gujarat in the Second Sikh War, the British army began to raise Sikh battalions.

FURTHER READING: Singh, Amandeep, and Parmot Singh. Warrior Saints: Three Centuries of Sikh Military Tradition. New York: I. B. Tauris, 1988.

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A British soldier describes preparations for a battle of the first Sikh war

Excerpt from Sergeant Pearman's Memoirs by Jack Pearman
"The gun I had was deficient of a cock to hold the flint; the gun of Private Goodwin had no screws to hold on the lock; the gun of private Roberts had no ramrod, and several others were like them. With such arms we were taken into action. We now commenced the advance in right earnest, sometimes twice a day, and all talk and hope was 'Shall we be there in time to get the medal?'. I was on the advance guard with six men. We were about a quarter of a mile behind the rear guard of the 53rd when suddenly that regiment sounded 'Form Square' which they did. The rear guard of about 20 men remained out, and formed by themselves. We, being recruits, did not know what to do. I fell my six men in under a tree. It was very dark. Our detachment formed a square when some few of the enemy's men rode round us and left us neither party doing anything."

Sergeant McCabe at the Battle of Sobraon placing the Regimental Colour of the 31st Regiment on the Sikh ramparts, 10th February 1846. (Painting by Ackerman)

The final showdown of the First Sikh War fought on February 10, 1846, near the village of Sobraon. The Sikhs had constructed 3,000 yards of entrenchments in a semicircle, with each end touching the Sutlej River. Construction was shoddy, especially on the right side, as the Sikh generals practically wanted defeat. General Sir Hugh Gough, with his 15,000 troops, rightly wanted to launch the main assault against the Sikh right flank and then attack the center and left. The battle began at dawn with artillery fire for two to three hours, but the British quickly ran low of ammunition. Gough ordered an infantry charge, which was initially repulsed, but finally succeeded in pushing back the Sikh army. Because Tej Singh had removed much of the pontoon bridge that went across the Sutlej, many Sikh soldiers were forced to retreat into the river, which quickly became clogged with dead and dying men. British casualties amounted to nearly 2,300, of whom 300 were killed. The Sikhs had upwards of 8,000 casualties. The British victory at Sobraon broke the Khalsa, and fighting in the First Sikh War came to an end.

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FURTHER READING: Bruce, George. Six Battles for India: The Anglo-Sikh Wars, 1845-6, 1848-9. London: Arthur Barker, 1969; Cook, Hugh. The Sikh Wars: The British Army in the Punjab, 1845-1849. London: Leo Cooper, 1975; Crawford, E. R. "The Sikh Wars, 1845-9." In Brian Bond, ed. Victorian Military Campaigns. New York: Frederick A. Praeger Publishers, 1967; Farwell, Byron. Queen Victoria's Little Wars. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1972.

Early in July the German General Staff estimated that the British Army disposed of fifteen to twenty divisions 'of fighting value'. These forces consisted of nineteen Territorial divisions, one armoured division, and the remnants of fourteen divisions who had returned from France with heavy casualties, without all their vehicles, and without almost all their artillery and anti-tank guns. Eleven of the Territorial divisions were thought to be fully equipped, but were without fighting experience. It was considered that the majority of the divisions would have to move on foot or by rail. In addition, there were static defence troops on the coasts and the Home Guard, whose fighting value was rated as 'slight'. In the middle of August, shortages of equipment were noted, and it was observed that the artillery of the twenty operational divisions was half the normal establishment.

In the middle of September the General Staff considered that there were thirty-nine divisions in Britain, of which nineteen were fully operational and seventeen were suitable for limited operations. Seventeen of these divisions were committed to coastal defence.

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The search for the causes of the rejection of invasion is a matter of some complexity, but it is clear that the planning or preparation of alternative operations can be excluded from consideration immediately.

[The comparatively small-scale operation designed to safeguard German oil supplies from Romania was the only one which might have affected readiness for Sea Lion, since it required airborne troops. On Hitler's instructions, a regiment of the latter with 270 transport machines was hastily assembled for this purpose at the end of August, while arrangements were made to withdraw a further 230 machines from air training schools as additional assistance. But Sea Lion was not, in fact, affected. The reduced commitment of paratroops for Britain was taken into account (see Annex, p. 156, fn. 4). In any case, the Romanian crisis was of short duration, and by 12 Sept. OKW informed the Luftwaffe that the units earmarked for Romania were again available for other operations. OKW w.d. (draft). 28, 30 Aug., 12 Sept.]

A number of smaller reasons played their part, but there were only three major causes. Since these factors should already be apparent from the foregoing survey, they require no more than brief mention.

The need to achieve air superiority was recognized throughout as the indispensable preliminary to invasion. Air superiority was not achieved, and Hitler himself recognized this on 14 September as the reason for not issuing orders to invade on that date. Since he appears to have been prepared otherwise to carry out the landing, the failure to achieve air superiority can be said to have determined the rejection of invasion; and it is the one reason clearly indicated by the evidence.

However, we have seen that the execution of invasion rested not only on the defeat of the Royal Air Force, but also on the infliction of such damage on the British economy and on British morale as to cause a state of collapse. The need to attain this second aim as well must in a wider sense have underlain the rejection of invasion, for it diverted the Luftwaffe from the sole task of defeating the Royal Air Force. This would seem to be the second reason.

The third reason was German weakness at sea, for it was this which prevented the execution of a true invasion plan. With the abandonment of that plan, the prospects of success for invasion on its own were infinitesimally small, and results were demanded of the air war which it could hardly hope to have achieved. Thus although Hitler accepted the reduced plan and made its execution dependent only on the air war, the conditions for its implementation could never, in retrospect, have been realized.

Some other minor factors, which contributed to the rejection of invasion, deserve mention, but for the most part they represent aspects of or can be attributed to these broader causes. Thus lack of sea power was also responsible for some smaller difficulties which would have hampered the naval execution of the operation. The German Navy, for instance, were unable to sweep mines close to the English coast, and they were forced to use barges roughly converted into landing craft.

This last disability, which made the operation unduly dependent on weather and vulnerable to attack, was due to German weakness at sea; for it was this which made the prospect of invasion seem remote in 1939. Again, British raids on the invasion ports helped to persuade the German High Command that air superiority had not been achieved, and are therefore included in that factor. The influence of weather on the renunciation of Sea Lion is to some extent different.

The unfavourable forecast on 17 September in the event contributed to Hitler's decision to postpone. Yet, even if the weather had been reasonable, it cannot be doubted that the invasion would still have been abandoned for the reasons mentioned. Further, since exceptionally fine weather was required on account of the inadequacy of the barges, the want of sea power made itself felt again here. In short, weather did not play a decisive part.

The lack of smooth co-operation between the German Army, Navy, and Air Force in the preparation of Sea Lion did not represent an important factor in the rejection of invasion. As we have seen, the demands of each Service were legitimate, and were, in any case, fundamentally irreconcilable. Considering the lateness of Hitler's decision to begin an examination of the problem, which underlay much of the trouble encountered in the detailed preparations, it was remarkable that, with the need to improvise shipping at short notice and all the other difficulties, this complex operation was in fact sufficiently prepared within little over two months.

This achievement was made possible for OKH and OKM by the interchange of highly experienced liaison officers at both high command and lower levels, by special correspondence and contacts when required, and, above all, by the general efficiency within its own sphere of each Service, who established special planning staffs, directed by the Chiefs of their Operations Branches, and who kept their subordinate headquarters as well informed as possible of all developments.

[The creation, early in July, of General Reinhardt's Experimental Staff, which examined the tactical employment of various forms of special landing equipment, may also be noted]

Nevertheless, faulty co-operation between the Services was a significant aspect of Sea Lion. It particularly deserves mention as it illustrates one of the defects in the German machinery for directing the war. The Fuhrer's policy of divide et impera and the Nazi conception of the Führerprinzip lay at the root of the trouble. For political reasons, Hitler did not wish these powerful elements in the State to work in close sympathy, and his suspicious nature would not have tolerated daily meetings of his Service representatives on the model of the British Chiefs of Staff committee.

Between June and September 1940 joint discussions with his Service Chiefs only took place on 21 July and on 14 September, Goring being represented on both occasions by his Chief of Staff. To these may be added his conference with Brauchitsch and Raeder on 31 July. Otherwise, Hitler conducted interviews with his advisers individually, his intention being to co-ordinate strategy himself with the aid of OKW and to retain the formation of central policy firmly within his own hands.

[He held conferences on the invasion plans with Brauchitsch on 13 July, 14 Aug., 26 Aug., and 13 Sept.; and with Raeder on 21 May, 20 June, 11 July, 25 July, 13 Aug., and 6 Sept.]

It is to this fact that his Service Chiefs' weakness in achieving a balanced view of the general situation may primarily be attributed.

The Commander-in-Chief of each Service, aided by his Chief of Staff, was alone responsible for determining the attitude of his Service to any fundamental questions which might arise affecting the operational prospects of his Service in Sea Lion. Nothing in the nature of a combined operations staff with full powers was created to cope with the special problems which were liable to arise. Although the high commands of each Service had, early in July, to formulate and examine their detailed requirements separately, good liaison and good relations could have reduced much of the time spent on deciding the basic framework of the operation. In these circumstances, the four meetings between Brauchitsch and Raeder on 17 July and 5 August and between their Chiefs of Staff on 1 July and 7 August were quite inadequate.

[Meetings between Goring and Jeschonnek and the other Service representatives appear to have been even rarer.]

The geographical separation of the various headquarters concerned indeed made liaison difficult. While Hitler, with Keitel and Jodl in attendance, moved between the Berghof in the Bavarian Alps and the Reich Chancellery in Berlin, the headquarters of OKM and OKH were respectively situated in Berlin and in Fontainebleau.

With the Luftwaffe General Staff at Potsdam, Goring held conferences at Karinhall, his luxurious palace 40 miles north-east of Berlin, and, in September, he established a forward headquarters of his Air Staff at Beauvais. The planned concentration of all these dispersed headquarters within 40 miles of the Führerhauptquartier at Schloss Ziegenberg, some miles north of Frankfurt-am-Main, would, it is true, have eliminated this particular difficulty once operations were due to start.

[See p. 37; and Greiner, op. cit., pp. 9, 10. Concrete huts had been built in the grounds during the previous winter, but Hitler had decided not to use this H.Q., as he had intended, during the Western offensive.]

Relations between the three Services were not good. They showed little comprehension of each other's capabilities and limitations, and much friction was evident. The General Staff had no idea of the scale on which the Navy could reasonably be expected to carry out a landing, and they continued to press their views regardless of the practicability of their demands.

Halder not infrequently complained, without justification, about the shortcomings of the other Services—as on 6 August: 'We are in the peculiar situation where the Navy has only obstacles to offer, the Luftwaffe is unwilling to start on a task which is theirs alone at the outset, and OKW, who for once are really faced with a Wehrmacht operation to direct, simply plays possum (sich tot stellt). The only driving force in the whole situation comes from us.' The Naval Staff, in their turn, were prompt to criticize the Luftwaffe for failing to begin the intensified air offensive, as they thought, without cause, and they considered air operations exclusively from the point of view of their own requirements.

[OKM was unable to fulfill the Army's requirements for a full-scale landing operation, and the strategic bombing offensive was therefore called on to produce extensive damage in a short time to enable the weakened plan to be carried out. Yet the Naval Staff war diary, on 10 and 12 Sept., blamed Goring for attacking London instead of continuing attacks on Portsmouth and Dover, and for conducting the air offensive in a way which was unrelated to Sea Lion.]

Disagreement over paratroop operations arose early in August between OKH and the Luftwaffe General Staff, and the Luftwaffe later showed small understanding of the Army's needs. The general impression formed by a representative of Luftflotte 3 of conditions at field level was that the General Staffs of all three Services had conducted their work 'without the mutual contact which is absolutely necessary for the success of this difficult operation'.

If the time taken to decide on the basic framework was not sufficiently important to preclude the start of the operation, it nevertheless caused much unnecessary confusion for staffs working under great pressure at field level.
[Warlimont ascribed the unsatisfactory conditions on 21 Sept. to late decisions 'on numerous open questions affecting the three Services ' rather than to enemy interference. See pp. 117-18.]

The labyrinthine complexity of the various records concerned bears eloquent testimony to this fact. A series of improvements and revisions in many detailed aspects of planning continued to be made with frantic haste until Sea Lion was finally cancelled that year, and the quality of the preparations suffered considerably.

[See pp. 105 and 115-16. 8th Infantry Division war diary (summary of activity in October); and 16th Army (Supply Section) war diary (entries on 8, 25, 28 Sept. refer to the issue of revised supply and loading instructions). These are only a few examples out of many.]

The opening battle of the First Sikh War in the small village of Mudki in northwestern India. With war winds blowing, the Sikh army, the Khalsa, led by Lal Singh and Tej Singh, crossed the Sutlej River into British territory on December 11. The Sikhs did not go on the offensive immediately. Seven days after crossing the Sutlej, on December 18, the Sikh army advanced against British forces at Mudki, where Lieutenant General Sir Hugh Gough, commander-in-chief in India, had about 10,000 troops assembled. At about 4:00 P.M., the Sikhs opened fi re and an artillery duel ensued. Then, after the Sikh cavalry was repulsed, the British infantry, 12 battalions in all, went on the attack and pushed back the Sikh army. The battle continued into the night and confusion reigned. Death by friendly fire was not uncommon. The British had 870 casualties, 215 killed and 655 wounded; the Sikhs lost an estimated 300 killed. Although not a decisive win, the British considered Mudki a victory.

LINK

FURTHER READING: Bruce, George. Six Battles for India: The Anglo-Sikh Wars, 1845-6, 1848- 9. London: Arthur Barker, 1969; Cook, Hugh. The Sikh Wars: The British Army in the Punjab, 1845-1849. London: Leo Cooper, 1975; Crawford, E. R. "The Sikh Wars, 1845-9." In Brian Bond, ed. Victorian Military Campaigns. New York: Frederick A. Praeger Publishers, 1967; Farwell, Byron, Queen Victoria' s Little Wars. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1972.

Stalin had a number of strategic options in the summer of 1944. He appointed Timoshenko and Shtemenko to consider them, and they concluded that the first objective must be to destroy Army Group Centre: attacks to the north or south ran the risk of counter-attack against their flanks by that force. The Red Army now had better techniques for concentrating forces, and through April tanks and artillery were moved to the central sector for Operation Bagration. Diversions began in the north on 9 June. Then, on the third anniversary of Barbarossa, Bagration itself began. Some 166 divisions, with 2,700 tanks, were deployed against the 38 divisions of Army Group Centre. The Germans were anticipating an attack further north. The first Soviet breakthrough was towards Minsk, and two German armies were encircled. Within a week Army Group Centre lost nearly 200,000 men and 900 tanks.

A great gap had been opened in the German eastern front. Hitler appointed his favourite ‘fire-fighter’, Model, to try to stabilise the situation. He could not prevent the rapid advance of Rotmistrov’s tanks to Minsk. Forty thousand died trying to break out; those who remained surrendered on 11 July. The Stavka had already started planning for its next objectives, and by 10 July Vilnius had fallen and the first Soviet soldiers, from the 3rd Byelorussian Front, had entered German territory, in East Prussia. On 13 July Konev’s 1st Ukrainian Front attacked the old fortress city of Lvov. It fell on 27 July and by the end of the first week in August, Soviet forces were on the Vistula south of Warsaw, and had crossed the Niemen and the Bug to the north of the Polish capital. These Soviet advances were to trigger one of the great tragedies of a tragic war.

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Soviet offensive that destroyed German Army Group Center. Since Stalingrad (autumn 1942–spring 1943) and Kursk (summer 1943), the Red Army’s offensive momentum had been against German Army Group South. Soviet success resulted in a salient held by Field Marshal Ernst von Busch’s Army Group Center (replaced by Field Marshal Model, 29 June, also commanding Army Group North Ukraine).

The front line was 15–60 kilometers east of Polotsk- Vitebsk-Orsha-Mogilev-Bobruisk-Pripiat Marshes-Kovel. Army Group Center and flank forces numbered 63 divisions and three brigades, totaling 1.2 million men, 17,000 guns, 1,500 tanks and assault guns, and 2,100 aircraft. Wehrmacht fortifications and defensive lines were built to a depth of 250–270 kilometers.

Soviet planning to destroy this force, Operation BAGRATION, began in April 1944. Soviet forces comprised 166 divisions, 12 tank and motorized corps, and 21 infantry brigades, totaling 1.5 million men, 31,000 guns, 5,200 tanks and assault guns, and 5,000 aircraft. The Red Army built up manpower and material superiority along the breakthrough sectors.

BAGRATION began with a massive partisan sabotage campaign (led by Byelorussian Communist Party secretary P. K. Ponomarenko), 19–22 June, to disrupt German logistics. Air strikes were launched against the German rear (21 June). The 1st Baltic Front (General I. Bagramyan) and 3d Byelorussian Front (General I. Chernyakhovskii) attacked Wehrmacht forces around Vitebsk as part of a deception regarding the main direction of attack (beginning 10 June on the Finnish border), and to encircle and destroy them.

On 23 June the assault groups/forward detachments of the 3d and 2d (General G. Zakharov) Byelorussian Fronts attacked to encircle and destroy Wehrmacht forces around Orsha- Mogilev and Bobruisk. The main offensive developed from 24 June as pincer movements by the 3d and 1st (General K. Rokossovskii) Byelorussian Fronts to capture Minsk (4 July).

The 1st Ukrainian Front (Marshal Konev) drove toward Lvov (13–27 July) and Lublin (18–23 July) to bar retreat of Army Group Center. The 2d and 3d Ukrainian Fronts (Generals Malinovskii and Tolbukhin) attacked Romania, capturing Ploesti (30 August) and Bucharest (31 August).

BAGRATION propelled the Red Army 550–600 kilometers (roughly, Tartu-Riga-Warsaw-Bucharest), destroying 17 German divisions and 3 brigades, reducing another 50 divisions to half-strength. While the Red Army halted its offensive to regroup and reinforce, the Wehrmacht stiffened its defense of Warsaw, the gateway to Berlin.

References and further reading:
Erickson, John. Road to Berlin: Stalin’s War with Germany. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999.
Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union, 1941–1945: A General Outline. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1974.
Overy, Richard. Russia’s War: Blood upon the Snow. New York: Penguin Putnam, 1997.
Werth, Alexander. Russia at War, 1941–1945. New York: Carroll & Graf, 2000.
Zaloga, Steve. Operation Bagration 1944. New York: Osprey Trade Editions, 2000.