Yelnya - Zhukovs Assault

From July 24th to August 8th, German mobile divisions held off all of Timoshenko's attacks on the Yelnya salient. On the 8th, Army Group Center successfully eliminated all Russian opposition in the Smolensk pocket, just to the rear of the …

1941-09-01

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From July 24th to August 8th, German mobile divisions held off all of Timoshenko's attacks on the Yelnya salient. On the 8th, Army Group Center successfully eliminated all Russian opposition in the Smolensk pocket, just to the rear of the salient. The Soviets no longer had any reason to break through and rescue their isolated troops, so the attacks stopped. But when the Soviets realized the Germans had diverted Army Group Center's armor south toward Kiev, General Zhukov's Reserve Front was immediately given the task of renewing attacks on the salient. Army Group Center found itself manning a thin defensive line against wave after wave of Soviet attacks. German positions were poorly located, undermanned, undersupplied, and often thinned to the breaking point around the salient's limits. Some divisions held frontages of twenty miles, and Hitler's insistence that the salient be held resulted in the powerful 10th Panzer Division being attached to the salient as a mobile reserve. However, the stabilizing intervention of the 10th Panzer Division only brought temporary relief and on September 5th, the Germans began pulling out of the salient. Zhukov's unrelenting assault and deep penetrations into the salient had far reaching consequences. By tying down German units in the salient, the Russians delayed the movement of forces to support offensive thrusts to the north and south. Zhukov's assault left Army Group Center depleted of resources and with a shortage of experienced officers it never recovered from.

Yelnya, Russia

The Yelnya Offensive was a military operation by the Soviet Army during the Battle of Smolensk during Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union, which began the German-Soviet War. The offensive was an attack against the semi-circular Yelnya salient which the German 4th Army had extended 50 kilometres (31 mi) south-east of Smolensk, forming a staging area for an offensive towards Vyazma and eventually Moscow. Under heavy pressure on its flanks, the German army (Heer) evacuated the salient by 8 September 1941, leaving behind a devastated and depopulated region. As the first reverse that the Heer suffered during Barbarossa and the first recapture of the Soviet territory by the Red Army, the battle was covered by Nazi and Soviet propaganda and served as a morale boost to the Soviet population.

Wikipedia: Yelnya Offensive

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