Author guest post from Nik Cornish.

The Red Army’s Summer Offensive of 1944 was codenamed Operation Bagration after a hero of the Patriotic War of 1812, as the French invasion of Russia was known, General Bagration. It began on 22-23 June 1944 and officially ended on 29 August.

1943 had witnessed the destruction of Germany’s Sixth Army as well as the Italian, Hungarian and Romanian forces on its flanks at Stalingrad and the failure of Operation Citadel around Kursk. The series of Soviet counter-offensives aimed at Germany’s Army Group Centre (AGS) and Army Group South (AGS) that followed their victory at Kursk confirmed the Red Army’s grip on the strategic initiative on the Eastern Front.

Throughout the late summer, autumn and winter of 1943 AGS was pushed back across the Ukrainian steppes with barely a respite until logistical demands called a halt to the advance in the spring of 1944. However, operations against AGC had been less successful due in part to the more defensible terrain with its rivers and forests that hampered mobile warfare. Operations were halted at roughly the same time as in the south. The front line now formed a half H from the Baltic Sea shore south and then west and then south again to the Black Sea coast, this line’s central horizontal ran west following the line of the Pripet Marshes south of Minsk. AGC occupied what became known as the Belarusian Balcony and it was to be the target of the first phase of Bagration.

Soviet planning for Bagration had begun in April 1944 and was largely in place within a couple of weeks. Red Army operations were scheduled to begin on 19 June but would be preceded by a wave of partisan attacks across the rear of AGC to disrupt the movement of reinforcements. The tactical methodology was to breakthrough German defences, then unleash armoured and mobile units to dash ahead and seize river crossings and other strategic points of keeping the enemy off balance by speed and the violence of the attacks as their forces were encircled. The goal was to liberate Belarus and pave the way for the next phase – the drive to the Baltic Sea, Poland and the Balkans. It was nothing if not ambitious and secrecy was paramount, information was kept on a strictly need to know basis.

At Hitler’s HQ the Eastern Front was of secondary importance after Italy and the long anticipated invasion of Western Europe. AGC was ordered to focus its efforts on a series of fortified cities such as Vitebsk, Orsha and Mogilev. These so called Fester Platz (fortified places) would hold up any Soviet advance, gaining time for the movement of reserves to counter attack whilst bleeding the Red Army of men and materiel. Stripped of the majority of its armoured formations AGC was not expected to give ground without permission from the Fuhrer. AGC’s armour had been allocated to Army Group North Ukraine (AGNU), the renamed northern sector of AGS that was believed to be the target of the anticipated Soviet summer offensive. The Soviets encouraged the Germans to think this was their plan by brazenly moving men and armour in that direction while all the while moving them into position around the Belarusian Balcony.

For logistical reasons Bagration began 3 days late although the partisan’s began on time. However, when it did begin the immediate successes were greater than anticipated. Unable to retire without permission from on high the German defenders soon found themselves surrounded whilst trying to hold almost indefensible positions in the face of overwhelming air superiority, artillery bombardment and armoured attack. Rapidly, almost too rapidly for their own logistical support to keep up, the four Fronts (Soviet Army Groups) found themselves needing to update their plans. Whereas in similar circumstances, for example during early 1942, their plans had been foiled by over ambitious objectives executed without logistical forethought Bagration proved how well the Stavka (Russia’s High Command) had learnt its lessons and could now put into practice what it been taught at such great cost.

Soviet combined cavalry, motorized infantry and armoured units pushed through and into the rear areas of AGC as its formations began to break up and fall back despite a series of orders from their commander in Minsk who attempted to make some sort of order out of the chaos that was growing by the hour.

Finally, Hitler’s staff realized that this series of attacks was not an attempt to distract their eyes from what they believed would be real offensive against AGNU and began to move reinforcements from AGNU to prop up the rapidly dissolving defences of AGC.

Unfortunately for the men of AGC fighting desperate rearguard actions, avoiding partisan ambushes, hiding from the Red Air Force’s semi-continual ground attacks was their reality.

As their HQs fell back so German command and control gradually fell apart and the men were left to rely on their immediate superiors to get them through alive to the next day. As June came to an end immense German traffic jams built up along the roads and tracks leading to the river crossings leading to the west. Broken units and rear echelon troops clung together in what became known as ‘Wandering Pockets’ mixed in with fleeing collaborators heading to the west and apparent safety was now all that mattered not the last man, last bullet heroics of an order exhorting them not to let their general or nation down.

The Fester Platz had fallen in quick succession, nor was there a strong defensive line along the Berezina River as many had believed. Despite Field Marshal Model, a specialist in defensive tactics, taking over AGC and the arrival of significant reinforcements nothing could stem the Soviet tide. Minsk, itself a Fester Platz, fell, with hardly a shot in its defence, at 1300hrs on 3 July.

As Model desperately scrambled to shore up the centre of the Eastern Front Stalin and his staff considered what their next major objective should be.

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