The essence of Germany\u2019s Barbarossa<\/a> plan had been to conduct a war of movement. The original intention had been for full-scale fighting in the Soviet Union to last only a couple of months. Under the overall command of Field Marshal Walther von Brauchitsch, three army groups would advance to the line of the Daugava and Dnieper rivers, 350 miles into Soviet territory, and still about 300 miles west of Moscow. The Red Army was expected to be concentrated in these western borderlands; there it was to be crushed. Stunning successes were indeed achieved in June and July, but the Soviets were able to deploy reserves of troops and equipment in a second line of defence. And there was no political collapse. At the end of July, Hitler had to make decisions about a deeper advance, beyond the Daugava-Dnieper line. Brauchitsch and his senior generals preferred to drive directly towards Moscow with Army Group Centre. Against their advice, the f\u00fchrer used his panzer forces against Kiev in the south and Leningrad in the north.<\/p>\n On 6 September, with Kiev looking set to fall into German hands and the siege of Leningrad about to commence, Hitler finally gave in to his generals. He agreed to concentrate forces for a direct strike towards Moscow. Three weeks would be required to assemble forces within Field Marshal Fedor von Bock\u2019s Army Group Centre. The operation was given the codename Typhoon. The target was the main body of Red Army troops positioned on a north-south line about 150 miles from Moscow, roughly between the towns of Vyazma and Bryansk. The Germans knew this force as \u2018Heeresgruppe [Army Group] Timoshenko\u2019, after the Soviet marshal who had commanded these forces for several months.<\/p>\n The Typhoon directive stressed that speed was still essential: \u201cThe army group must be defeated and annihilated in the limited time which remains before the winter weather breaks.\u201d (In fact, Marshal Timoshenko had recently been transferred to Ukraine, and the forces under attack were actually three army groups, of which the most important was the Western Army Group of General Ivan Konev.)<\/p>\n The battle of Moscow was a long one, lasting four months and falling into several phases. The first phase, which began on 30 September, was later known by the Soviets as the battle of Vyazma-Bryansk. They were caught by surprise, and the order to pull back to avoid encirclement came too late. Some 64 rifle divisions (out of 95) and 11 tank brigades (out of 13) were caught behind the pincers of three panzer groups. A million Soviet soldiers were lost; around 600,000 of them became prisoners of war.<\/p>\n With this success, Typhoon seemed to have achieved its objective. At a news conference on 9 October, Reich press chief Otto Dietrich actually declared that victory had been attained: \u201cThe campaign in the east has been decided by the smashing of Heeresgruppe Timoshenko.\u201d The V\u00f6lkischer Beobachter, the Nazi party newspaper, carried a banner headline: \u201cThe great hour has arrived: the campaign in the east has been decided!\u201d Early on 8 October, General Georgy Zhukov, Konev\u2019s replacement as commander of the Western Army Group, described the situation over the telephone to Stalin. \u201cThe main danger now is that nearly all routes to Moscow are open,\u201d he said. \u201cThe weak covering forces on the Mozhaysk Line cannot be a guarantee against the sudden appearance of enemy tank forces in front of Moscow.\u201d The city of Tver (then known as Kalinin), which lay only 101 miles north-west of the capital, fell on 14 October. The next day, Stalin ordered the evacuation of government institutions from Moscow.<\/p>\n Against expectations, however, the Germans were not able to follow their victory with a continued drive on Moscow. The enemy forces surrounded at Vyazma and Bryansk had to be dealt with. The Wehrmacht\u2019s transport system was already overstretched. Especially telling was the onset of the season of autumn mud and rain, known as the rasputitsa, which made rapid movement impossible. All the same, Hitler remained confident. In a speech to the Nazi party\u2019s old guard in Munich on 8 November, he announced that the Red Army had lost 8\u201310 million soldiers in the war so far: \u201cNo army in the world can recover from this \u2013 not even the Russian one.\u201d<\/p>\n It was not until 15 November, a month after the victory at Vyazma-Bryansk, that\u00a0the second phase of the battle of Moscow began. The worst of the rasputitsa was over; the weather was getting colder, but the ground began to harden. A top-level meeting of Wehrmacht leaders overseen by General Franz Halder, chief of the German General Staff, had been held just behind the front. Despite the misgivings of some generals, Halder\u2019s plan for a further attack prevailed; he was supported by Field Marshal von Bock. The aim now was to envelop Moscow. Pincer columns \u2013 the three panzer groups \u2013 would advance north and south of the city. Yet two weeks of battle did not bring any major German successes. Von Bock was now requesting a halt, in view of the exhaustion of his men and the lack of reserves. He even suggested pulling back a short distance to a readily defensible position. Halder insisted, however, that the Russians had exhausted their reinforcements. \u201cThe expenditure of strength worries us too,\u201d he admitted. \u201cBut one must summon one\u2019s last strength to bring the enemy down.\u201d Some progress continued to be made. On 30 November, elements of a panzer division reached Krasnaya Polyana, only 20 miles north of the Kremlin. In his war diary on 2 December, Halder noted: \u201cEnemy\u2019s defence has reached its height. No new [Soviet] forces.\u201d<\/p>\n The strength of the Red Army was a key issue. Especially important, in reality, was the Soviets\u2019 ability to mobilise reserves in quantities much larger than the Germans expected. In some respects, August had been a crucial period for the future battle of Moscow, because it was then that new divisions and brigades began to be formed deep in central Russia. Also important were fresh divisions moved from Siberia, although they would make up only 15\u201320 per cent of the force defending Moscow.<\/p>\n After 15 November, Stalin had to decide on a response to the renewed German offensive. Zhukov believed that the Germans were overstretched, Moscow could be held, and a counterattack mounted \u2013 provided he was given reinforcements. According to Zhukov, Stalin asked him: \u201cAre you sure that we can hold Moscow? I ask you with pain in my soul. Speak honestly, like a Communist.\u201d After Zhukov\u2019s guarantees, Stalin agreed to release a number of the reserve divisions that were being assembled east of Moscow. It was a life-or-death decision: if Moscow did fall, there would be no backstop. On 29 Novem- ber, assuring Stalin that the Germans were exhausted, Zhukov asked for and received permission to take action. Two newly deployed armies were transferred to him.<\/p>\n The culmination of the battle of Moscow came in the first week of December, as counterattacks by the Soviet forces \u2013 mainly by Zhukov\u2019s Western Army Group \u2013 intensified. Conventional accounts, both official and historical, usually depict 6 December as the moment of truth, but this is too precise. That Saturday was little different from the days just before and after it. There was no carefully calculated sudden strike, as occurred at Stalingrad 11 months later. An attack scheduled for 3 December was postponed. The first move by Red troops was actually made north-west of Moscow on the 5th, by the Kalinin Army Group. But day by day, the increasing pressure of Zhukov\u2019s forces drove the Germans back.<\/p>\n It was certainly some time before the Soviet leadership was confident that the tide had turned. Only on the 12th was Moscow finally prepared to announce the fate of the northern and southern wings of the German attack: \u201cAs a result of the counteroffensive that has begun, both these forces have been defeated and they are rapidly withdrawing, abandoning equipment and weapons, and suffering huge losses.\u201d A photograph of General Zhukov appeared on the front page of Pravda, the Communist party newspaper, the following day. The Germans were certainly not ready to publicly admit the crisis. On 10 December, Hitler had made a major speech in which he did not refer to setbacks; heavy fighting was not reported in the German media. But in reality the front-line generals, and their men falling back across the frozen battlefield, were aware of how desperate the position of Army Group Centre had become.<\/p>\n The army group must be defeated and annihilated in the limited time which remains before the winter weather breaks <\/blockquote> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n<\/div>
![\""Soviet\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/7\/2021\/12\/GettyImages-514698618sml-5dbe09c.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C408"\" "\\"\"Around\\"")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>A life-or-death decision<\/h3>\n
![\""Soldiers\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/7\/2021\/12\/GettyImages-2695406sml-00355d9-e1639045451280.jpg?quality=90&resize=605%2C413"\" "\\"\"Russia\u2019s\\"")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div> ‘Are you sure we can hold Moscow?’ Stalin pleaded with Zhukov <\/blockquote> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n<\/div>
![\""Anti-aircraft\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/7\/2021\/12\/GettyImages-170981974sml-1cac010.jpg?quality=90&resize=574%2C413"\" "\\"\"Anti-aircraft\\"")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>Damage limitation<\/h3>\n
![\""Equipment\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/7\/2021\/12\/GettyImages-522603482sml-5a554bd.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C404"\" "\\"\"Battle\\"")
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