124 - Washington DC Abandons The Troops in the Field - WW2 - January 9, 1942

So they won’t get anyone there in time?

That sucks.

What did they say when you told them, what they said?

You didn’t? And you’re not going to?

But… why not? Ugh, no, no.

January 9, 1942 What do you do when your country has been

invaded, and you’ve lost men in the millions and land in the millions of square kilometers?

When you’ve lost virtually every battle and been repeatedly outclassed in the field?

Well, if you’re Josef Stalin, you fight back, and fight back BIG.

I’m Indy Neidell; this is World War Two.

Last week, the Allies declared a United Nations

to fight the Axis Powers. Their forces were pulling back, though, in both Malaya and the

Philippines, as were the Axis in North Africa. The fighting continued in the USSR, and is,

in fact, about to get more intense.

On the evening of the 5th, Stavka has a meeting of great importance: the gigantic Red Army

counteroffensive about to begin.

Georgy Malenkov and Lavrentiy Beria from the State Defense Committee are also present,

as is Army CoS Boris Shaposhnikov, and even Deputy Premier Nikolai Voznesensky, who ran

the military-economic program.

“In January 1942, the Soviet leader was incredibly overambitious and optimistic.

The contrast between the desperation of November and the success of December encouraged him

so much that he attempted to expand the counterattacks near Moscow into a general offensive to encourage

all of Army Group Center and much of Army Group North. Stalin became convinced that

the Germans were on their last legs and he attempted to rush into an exploitation without

concentrating his forces and eliminating bypassed German units.”

So, on the 7th, the Soviet offensive begins

along the entire front, mainly against AG Center, sure, but against German forces from

Leningrad to the Crimea. General Georgy Zhukov and company argue that this would dissipate

their strength too much, and that the attacks so far have worked because they used local

concentrations of force like tank and cavalry brigades and ski battalions, but these are

now under strength.

From the Moscow front, the Kalinin and Western Fronts are to attack Vyazema from north,

east, and south and surround the German forces. See, Ivan Konev’s Kalinin Front is to advance

through Rzhev and Sychevka toward Vyazema while the left wing of Zhukov’s Western Front

attacks Gunther von Kluge’s German 4th Army around Iukhov, and then reaches Vyazema from

the SW and links up with the Kalinin Front. Pavel Belov’s cavalry, reinforced with tank

brigades, is to try to break into the German rear and meet up west of Vyazema. Zhukov’s

master plan is to destroy the German 9th and 4th armies, and the 3rd and 4th panzer armies.

“The threat to the Germans was indeed real,