The Road to Berlin by John Erickson

Author:John Erickson [Erickson, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Europe, Former Soviet Republics, Military, World War II
ISBN: 9780300078138
Google: 6UaU6ZLqK4UC
Amazon: 0304365408
Publisher: Cassell
Published: 1999-11-14T16:00:00+00:00

Map 11 The Soviet drive into the Baltic states, July–November 1944

Even before Fedyuninskii was halted in his tracks, it was plain that the attempt to take Riga by direct assault could not succeed. Maslennikov and Yeremenko were pinned down by heavy German attacks, their progress drastically reduced. Though Bagramyan had fought his way to the southern outskirts of Riga (Soviet units were only about fifteen miles from the city), to assault the city while the Germans held the right bank of the Dvina and the coast covered from the east by the lower reaches of the river Aa presented formidable problems. Schörner, while pulling his Army Group back to the final defence lines, smashed into the Soviet positions with two major counter-blows from the region of Baldon itself and once again in the area to the south-west of Dobele. On Bagramyan’s left flank, in the Dobele area, the newly constituted Third Panzer Army (moved from Army Group Centre) hurled a dozen motorized battalions and almost 400 tanks into fierce attacks which lasted for a full five days, hammering at Bagramyan’s flank armies (51st Guards and 5th Tank Army). From 16–22 September German tank units fought furiously to stave in the Soviet defences but only managed to dent the lines held by 6th Guards Army south of Dobele, all at the cost of 131 tanks and 14 assault guns. The German attacks did nevertheless prevent Bagramyan loosing his second assault group in a northerly attack from Jelgava towards Kemeri (to the west of Riga) and the Gulf of Riga.

The main assault group from 1st Baltic Front (43rd Army and 4th Shock Army) had already run into more German attacks in an effort to close the gap opening up on the southerly approaches to Riga. In the area of Baldon 14th Panzer Division put in yet another appearance, supported by two divisions pulled out of Group ‘Narva’. Beloborodov’s 43rd Army on the left flank took the brunt of these attacks mounted by at least six German divisions, but by the evening of 22 September Soviet divisions were still pushing on to a point not much more than ten miles from Riga. Bagramyan’s progress with the 1st Baltic Front could not, however, hide the obvious fact that German forces still held substantial areas of the Baltic states. Destroying the enemy north of the Dvina was evidently beyond the capacity of the 2nd and 3rd Baltic Fronts until they were reinforced and regrouped. The slow rate of advance allowed the German command to make systematic and orderly withdrawals, falling back on Riga to turn it into a key fortified area; possession of Riga and the Moon islands also gave German warships freedom of the gulf of Riga and the middle reaches of the Baltic. Schörner still disposed of a formidable force on the northern bank of the Dvina—up to seventeen divisions—and drawing them into a much shorter line on this northern arc enabled him to start moving larger contingents into Courland and western Lithuania,

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