BATTLE OF RUSSIA: Wounded Giant

In torment Russia lashed out on the Moscow front like a wounded giant beating a beast that gnaws his vitals. Stalingrad’s peril was so great that distraction was necessary. For the desperate offensive, handsome, hard-eyed General Georgy Zhukov chose the Rzhev region, where the German lines bent within 130 miles of Moscow. One morning, early in August, deep-throated Soviet artillery opened up in the birchwood and meadow land around Rzhev. It concentrated first on Nazi battery positions, then on German division headquarters, finally on communications and transport centers. Ground-strafing Stormoviks joined the fray, followed by waves of tanks and infantry. Within a few hours hundreds of square miles were flaming with battle.

In one day the Red Army advanced six miles near the confluence of the Gzhat River and the mighty Volga’s headwaters. Bridgeheads were established across the Gzhat. The Russians met terrific resistance from Germans holding a railway line until a simultaneous frontal and flank assault forced a Nazi retreat. Day after day the Russians hammered forward across the Volga and into the outskirts of Rzhev. House by house the Germans defended the city which had been their most advanced headquarters on the northern front. Churches and other thick-walled structures had been turned into small fortresses, with mortars and machine guns on the street level, tommy guns poking from every opening in the upper stories. Slowly the Red Army pushed on, clearing out every gun-bristling nest, every German battery station. After 19 days Rzhev was largely in Russian hands, its fall seemed near.

Last year the recapture of Rzhev would have filled Russia and her allies with rejoicing, for then Moscow was in deadly danger and it would have signaled relief. This year the danger was even graver because in the south Russia’s industrial guts were being eaten away. As yet the Rzhev offensive had done little to lessen Russia’s agony.