When we hear the word "battle", we mentally have a battle on some field, where during the day it is decided which of the rivals will be the winner. This terminology is familiar and understandable. But the Rzhev battle was different. It covered a colossal time span and was a series of battles over two years.
Rzhev-Vyazma operation
The generally accepted time frame that the Battle of Rzhev took (January 8, 1942–March 31, 1943). During these days, there were many periods of calm or trench warfare, when the troops did not attack.
In early 1942, the Soviet army succeeded in pushing back the Wehrmacht forces from Moscow. But the counter-offensive, which became one of the turning points of the war, continued. The bet demanded the greatest possible result. The German army of the Center group was located in this region.
Soviet forces on the Western and Kalinin fronts were supposed to dismember, encircle and destroy this force. In the first days of the January counter-offensive, starting on the 8th, everything went according to plan. It was possible to free Vereya, Kirov, Mozhaisk, Medyn, Sukhinichi and Lyudinovo. There were preconditions forto cut the "Center" into several isolated groupings.
Environment
However, already on the 19th, by order of Joseph Stalin, part of the attacking forces was transferred to other fronts. In particular, the 1st shock army of Kuznetsov was sent to the Novgorod region near Demyansk, and the 16th army of Rokossovsky was redeployed to the south. This significantly reduced the strength of the Soviet troops. The remaining units simply did not have enough resources to complete the operation. Initiative was lost.
At the end of January, the 33rd Army under the command of Efremov was sent to Rzhev. These units again tried to break through the enemy defenses, but in the end they themselves were surrounded. In April, the 33rd was destroyed, and Mikhail Efremov committed suicide.
The Soviet operation failed. According to official statistics, the losses amounted to 776 thousand people, of which 272 thousand were irretrievable. A few units from the 33rd Army broke through the encirclement, i.e. 889 soldiers.
Fights for Rzhev
In the summer of 1942, the Headquarters set the task of capturing the cities in the Kalinin region. First of all, it was Rzhev. The armies of two fronts again took up the matter - Kalinin (General Konev) and Western (General Zhukov).
July 30, another Soviet offensive began. It was extremely slow. Each passed and recaptured piece of land was worth thousands of lives. Already in the first days of the operation, only 6 kilometers remained to Rzhev. However, it took nearly a month to beat them back.
We managed to approach the city only at the end of August. It seemed that the Rzhev battle had already been won. Officials from the American president were even allowed to go to the front to glimpse the Soviet triumph. Rzhev was taken on 27 September. However, the Red Army lingered there for a few days. German reinforcements were immediately brought up, which occupied the city on October 1.
Another Soviet offensive ended in nothing. The losses of the Battle of Rzhev during this period amounted to about 300 thousand people, i.e. 60% of the personnel of the Red Army in this sector of the front.
Operation Mars
Already at the end of autumn-beginning of winter, another attempt was planned to break through the defenses of the "Center" group. This time it was decided that the offensive would take place in those sectors where it had not yet been undertaken. These were places between the rivers Gzhat and Osuga, as well as in the area of the village of Molodoy Tud. Here was the lowest density of German divisions.
At the same time, the command tried to misinform the enemy in order to distract the Wehrmacht from Stalingrad, where the decisive days of battles were coming these days.
The 39th Army managed to force Molodoy Tud, and the 1st Mechanized Corps attacked enemy tank formations near the town of Bely. But it was a temporary success. Already in early December, the German counteroffensive stopped the Soviet soldiers and destroyed the 20th Army. The same fate awaited two corps: the 2nd Guards Cavalry and the 6th Tank Corps.
Already on December 8, against the backdrop of these events, Georgy Zhukov insisted that Operation Mars (codename) resumed with renewed vigor. But none of the attempts to break through the enemy's line of defense ended in success. The troops under the command of General Khozin, Yushkevich and Zygin failed. Many again found themselves surrounded. According to various estimates, the number of dead Soviet soldiers during that period ranges between 70 and 100 thousand. The Battle of Rzhev in 1942 did not bring the long-awaited victory.
Operation Buffel
During previous battles, the so-called Rzhevsky ledge was formed, which was occupied by German troops. It was a vulnerable section of the front - it was the easiest to surround it. This became especially acute after the Soviet troops took the city of Velikiye Luki in January 1943.
Kurt Zeitzler and the rest of the command of the Wehrmacht began to strenuously ask Hitler to give permission for the withdrawal of troops. In the end, he agreed. The troops were to be withdrawn to the line near the city of Dorogobuzh. Responsible for this important operation was Colonel-General W alter Model. The plan was codenamed "Büffel", which means "buffalo" in German.
The capture of Rzhev
Competent withdrawal of troops allowed the Germans to leave the ledge almost without loss. On March 30, the last soldier of the Reich left this area, which had been attacked for more than a year. The Wehrmacht left behind empty cities and villages: Olenino, Gzhatsk, Bely, Vyazma. All of them were taken by the Soviet army in March 1943 without a fight.
Samefate awaited Rzhev. He was released on 3 March. The 30th Army was the first to enter the city, which spent a long time on this sector of the front and was manned almost from scratch after bloody battles. Thus ended the Battle of Rzhev 1942 1943. Strategic success led to the fact that in the Great Patriotic War the initiative again passed to the Soviet Union.
Chasing the enemy
The Soviet army left Rzhev behind and launched an accelerated offensive against the abandoned German positions. As a result, in March it was possible to move the front line to the west by another 150 kilometers. Communications of the Soviet troops were stretched. The avant-garde moved away from the rear and support. Progress was slowed down by the onset of a thaw and poor road conditions.
When the Germans entrenched themselves in the Dorogobuzh region, it became clear that an army of such density could not be defeated, and the Red Army stopped. The next significant breakthrough will take place in the summer, when the Battle of Kursk ends.
The fate of Rzhev. Reflection in culture
On the eve of the Great Patriotic War, 56 thousand people lived in the city. The city spent 17 months under occupation, during which it was completely destroyed. The local population either fled the day before, or did not survive the German authorities. When the Soviet army liberated the city on March 3, 1943, 150 civilians remained there.
As for estimates of the total losses of the Red Army for more than a year of battles, Marshal Viktor Kulikov called the figure more than 1 millionman.
The Rzhev battle left about 300 surviving households in the city, when there were 5,5 thousand of them before the battles. After the war, it was literally rebuilt.
Bloody battles and huge losses are reflected in the people's memory and many works of art. The most famous is the poem by Alexander Tvardovsky "I was killed near Rzhev." Tver region has many monuments. The Battle of Rzhev, the museum-panorama of this event - all this still attracts a large audience of visitors. In the city of the same name, there is also a memorial obelisk.
