Operation Bagration
Operation Bagration (Russian: Операция Багратион, romanized: Operatsiya Bagration) was the codename for the 1944 Soviet Byelorussian strategic offensive operation[a] (Russian: Белорусская наступательная операция «Багратион», romanized: Belorusskaya nastupatelnaya operatsiya "Bagration"), a military campaign fought between 22 June and 19 August 1944 in Soviet Byelorussia in the Eastern Front of World War II,[16] just over two weeks after the start of Operation Overlord in the west, causing Nazi Germany to have to fight on two major fronts at the same time. The Soviet Union destroyed 28 of 34 divisions of Army Group Centre and completely shattered the German front line.[17] It was the biggest defeat in German military history, with around 450,000 German casualties,[18] while 300,000 other German soldiers were cut off in the Courland Pocket.
On 22 June 1944, the Red Army attacked Army Group Centre in Byelorussia, with the objective of encircling and destroying its main component armies. By 28 June, the German 4th Army had been destroyed, along with most of the Third Panzer and Ninth Armies.[19][20] The Red Army exploited the collapse of the German front line to encircle German formations in the vicinity of Minsk in the Minsk Offensive and destroy them, with Minsk liberated on 4 July. With the end of effective German resistance in Byelorussia, the Soviet offensive continued on to Lithuania, Poland and Romania over the course of July and August.
The Red Army successfully used the Soviet deep battle and maskirovka (deception) strategies for the first time to a full extent, albeit with continuing heavy losses. Operation Bagration diverted German mobile reserves to the central sectors, removing them from the Lublin–Brest and Lvov–Sandomierz areas, enabling the Soviets to undertake the Lvov–Sandomierz Offensive[21] and Lublin–Brest Offensive.[22] This allowed the Red Army to reach the Vistula river and Warsaw, which in turn put Soviet forces within striking distance of Berlin, conforming to the concept of Soviet deep operations—striking into the enemy's strategic depths.[23]
Background[edit]
Germany's Army Group Centre had previously proven tough to counter as the Soviet defeat in Operation Mars had shown. But by June 1944, despite shortening its front line, it had been exposed following the defeats of Army Group South in the battles that followed the Battle of Kursk, the Battle of Kiev, the Dnieper–Carpathian offensive and the Crimean offensive in the late summer, autumn, and winter of 1943–44. In the north, Army Group North was also pushed back, leaving Army Group Center's lines protruding towards the east and at risk of losing contact with neighbouring army groups.[24]
The German High Command expected the next Soviet offensive to fall against Army Group North Ukraine (Field Marshal Walter Model), while it lacked intelligence capabilities to divine the Soviet intentions.[25] The Wehrmacht had redeployed one-third of Army Group Centre's artillery, half of its tank destroyers, and 88 per cent of tanks to the south.[26] The entire operational reserve on the Eastern front (18 Panzer and mechanised divisions, stripped from Army Groups North and Centre) was deployed to Model's sector.[27] Army Group Centre had a total of only 580 tanks, tank destroyers, and assault guns. They were opposed by over 4,000 Soviet tanks and self-propelled guns. German lines were thinly held; for example, the 9th Army sector had 143 soldiers per km of the front.[4]
A key role in the subsequent collapse of Army Group Center during Operation Bagration was being played by the Soviet Dnieper–Carpathian offensive in Ukraine.[28] The success of this Soviet offensive had convinced the Oberkommando des Heeres (Army High Command, OKH) that the southern sector of the Eastern Front would be the staging area for the main Soviet summer offensive of 1944.[29] As a result, German forces stationed in the south, panzer divisions in particular, received priority in reinforcements. Furthermore, during this Soviet offensive in the spring of 1944, aimed at the city of Kovel, Army Group Center was significantly weakened by being forced to transfer nine divisions and numerous independent armored formations from its main front to its far right flank, located deep in the rear at the junction with Army Group South.[30] These forces would then be attached to Army Group North Ukraine, the successor to Army Group South. This meant that Army Group Center was effectively deprived of well over 100,000 personnel[31] and 552 tanks, assault guns and self-propelled guns[32] at the start of Operation Bagration.
Operation Bagration, in combination with the neighbouring Lvov–Sandomierz offensive, launched a few weeks later in Ukraine, allowed the Soviet Union to recapture Byelorussia and Ukraine within its 1941 borders, advance into German East Prussia, but more importantly, the Lvov–Sandomierz Offensive allowed the Red Army to reach the outskirts of Warsaw after gaining control of Poland east of the Vistula river. The campaign enabled the next operation, the Vistula–Oder Offensive, to come within sight of the German capital.[33] The Soviets were initially surprised at the success of the Byelorussian operation which had nearly reached Warsaw. The Soviet advance encouraged the Warsaw Uprising against the German occupation forces.
The battle has been described as the triumph of the Soviet theory of the "operational art" because of the complete coordination of all the strategic front movements and signals traffic to fool the enemy about the target of the offensive. The military tactical operations of the Red Army successfully avoided the mobile reserves of the Wehrmacht and continually "wrong-footed" the German forces. Despite the massive forces involved, Soviet front commanders left their adversaries completely confused about the main axis of attack until it was too late.[34]
Media related to Operation Bagration at Wikimedia Commons