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The Caucasus 1942-43: Kleist's race for oil (Campaign), by Robert Forczyk
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Much has been written of the titanic clashes between the Wehrmacht and the Red Army at Stalingrad, but this volume tells the other, equally important half of the story of Fall Blau (Case Blue). Learning from their experiences during the sweeping advances of Operation Barbarossa a year before, Wehrmacht commanders knew that Nazi Germany's lack of oil was a huge strategic problem. Seizure of the Caucasus oilfields, which were responsible for 82% of the Soviet Union's crude oil, would simultaneously alleviate the German army's oil shortages whilst denying vital fuel resources to the Red Army. While Army Group B advanced along the Volga towards Stalingrad, Army Group A, spearheaded by Ewald von Kleist's elite Panzerarmee 1 was to advance into the Caucasus to seize the oilfields of Maikop, Grozny and Baku. Featuring full-color artwork, archival photos and detailed analysis, this book follows the vicious, intense fighting that characterized one of the most important campaigns of World War II.
- Sales Rank: #422998 in Books
- Brand: Osprey
- Published on: 2015-05-19
- Released on: 2015-05-19
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.85" h x .31" w x 7.27" l, .81 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 96 pages
About the Author
Robert Forczyk has a PhD in International Relations and National Security from the University of Maryland and a strong background in European and Asian military history. He retired as a lieutenant colonel from the US Army Reserves having served 18 years as an armour officer in the US 2nd and 4th infantry divisions and as an intelligence officer in the 29th Infantry Division (Light). The author lives in Laurel, MD.
Most helpful customer reviews
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful.
Hitler's Gambit for Seizing the Soviet Oil Fields Falls Short
By Edmund P. Leigh
Robert Forczyk provides an excellent overview of a Hitler's Thrust for the Caucasus Oil Fields in the 1942- 1943 time period in this 100 page history book on this important but little reported chapter of WW II of the Eastern front. This history is known as the German Army Group A's thrust to deny the Soviets their main supply of oil while hoping to gain the same for the Germans and its Axis allies.
He uses well his familiar formula of an objective analysis of both sides in this conflict using concise summaries, review of the commander leaders in this series of battles, equipment of each side such as tanks, personnel carriers, artillery and machine guns used, tactics, levels of training, men, morale, logistics and resources especially fuel available. Also the salient advantage of aircraft such as the Ju-87 Junkers dive bombers as the main weapon to destroy defensive lines. Additionally he uses quite a few maps and excellent art work by Steve Noon to provide a vivid portrayal of the savage fighting scenes at key junctures in this titanic struggle for the majority of the oil fields of the Soviet Union. Even Soviet Marshal Timoshenko said after the war that this strategy of cutting the Soviet Union in two at the Volga (i.e Stalingrad) and seizing the oil fields in the Caucasus was the correct one if Germany was to win. It appears that Germany had victory within its reach but not its grasp and so lost the war here. The Soviet Union was on the ropes; but the Germans and their allies could not deliver the coup de grace.
One of the key facts that Forczyk provides is that Stalin's main intention in 1939 was that the Soviet Union provided 1 million tons of oil for Germany during Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact from August of 1939 to June 22 of 1941. Without this enormous amount of fuel that Stalin so generously provided it is doubtful whether Hitler could have defeated France in 1940. Hitler needed lots of fuel for his war machine. This enormous windfall allowed the Third Reich to defy the British blockade which was set up to cripple their need to prosecute the war against the Western Allies. Apparently Stalin wanted the Third Reich to attack the West and was providing the means to conduct the war effectively when his dupe or minion decided that Germany's real enemy was in the East. Also Stalin was extremely upset when France and its British partner collapsed in 7 weeks in the spring of 1940. (See Kruschev Remembers) It seems he wanted the Western forces to exhaust and weaken Germany so Germany would not invade eastward. As it has been said many times before........."There is no honor amoung thieves".........But back to the story of the series of Caucusus battles which decided Germany and its allies' fates. This book with its colorful and detailed maps provides the dates of the main lines between the adversaries as the Germans and their allies the Rumanians and Slovaks surge towards the Caspian Sea and then after the Stalingrad encirclement recede back to their starting pointing of Rostov on the Don. This retreat was apparently well done because Generaloberst Ewald von Kleist was promoted to a Field Marshal for his handling of it.
Forczyk has the master's touch for explaining the complex. Also he doesn't hesitate to criticize both the Germans and the Soviets for dubious choices in this massive conflict which decided the fate of the Third Reich. The Soviets tend to be very unpredictable in whether they panic or defend fiercely their lines. There are many books the German Army Group B effort at Stalingrad and the Volga front but the majority of the German forces of Operation Blue were concentrated in the Group A advance to seize the Soviet oil fields of Maikop, Grozney and Baku. Maikop was siezed and Grozney was bombed when Hitler decided that if he could not have that oil field then neither would the Soviets but Baku was beyond reach.
Also mentioned is Stalin's notorious Order 227 which forbade retreat and which condemned at least a million of Soviets to a awful fate of being a traitor if captured by the German and this included prison camp for the prisoner's Soviet family as well. In Stalin's view there were no Soviet POW's; they were all traitors to be treated accordingly. Of course, many of these unfortunate Soviet souls were given the choice between starvation or serving in the German army as willing helpers or Hiwis. Approximately 50,000 of these Hiwis died in the Stalingrad cauldron (not in this book). Hiwis knew that if recaptured by the Soviets they would be summarily executed so according to Alexandre Solzhenitsyn in his book The Gulag Archipalego noted that Sovet Hiwis tended to fight to the death because they knew the Soviet system of punishment.
Highest recommendation for this book. A great addition for understanding the 1941-1945 Soviet Germany conflict. Very well done.
17 of 18 people found the following review helpful.
An Excellent Overview of this Campaign
By Yoda
Any review of this book would have to start out by pointing out that it is part of Osprey Publishing’s “Campaign” series. Hence it is relatively short, at only 96 pages in length (about a third or so of which consist of illustration of one type or another). Hence if one is looking for a detailed academic tome, like Dr. David Glantz’s multi-volume studies of campaigns like Stalingrad or Barbarossa, one will be disappointed. Then again it really would be unfair and unjustifiable to expect such a tome considering the limitations of the format imposed by the Campaign series. The relevant question to really ask is how well does the book do considering the format it is part of? The answer is very, very well.
The book does an excellent job at all aspects that the Campaign series consists of, from the section on the strategic picture at the beginning of the campaign, through the commanders, how the campaign progressed, the aftermath and the battlefield today. The book starts off with the very important impetus for this campaign – Hitler’s desire for oil. The text’s first sentence is the following quote from Hitler: “If I don’t get the oil of Maikop and Grozny then I must liquidate the war”. Dr. Forzyk then delves into the commanders on both sides. In short and in a nutshell the German leadership, in the form of List, was a grave mistake. Not that he was a bad leader. He was not. The problem was that he was the wrong type of leader. He was an infantry leader with not enough understanding or experience commanding mechanized forces. This was a serious problem considering that the campaign was of a blitzkrieg nature plus had to be won in a very short time before the weather in the region put an end to fighting and without adequate forces. In addition, List misused the resources he was given. He used important elements of his mechanized forces in mountainous areas and used infantry, instead, in wide open areas where the benefits of maneuver that mechanized forces could have brought were squandered away. In addition, List, placed too much emphasis on protecting flanks, chasing ancillary goals and expending far too many troops (whole corps) on Russian troops already trapped. These doomed the campaign. That is not to say that Hitler’s usually meddling did not cause enough damage (i.e., changes in campaign priorities, not delivering promised forces to List, especially a number of mountain divisions that may have made a difference, etc.). From the Russian side, the most important negative was that those on top of the hierarchical command heap were the usual bunch of political cronies, albeit the lower level commanders were more experienced and better (as were lower level Germans like Kleist).
With respect to the how the campaign played out, in a nutshell, the Germans started out quite well. Even though they did not bag as many troops as in previous campaigns they still did very well initially. Unfortunately they eventually came up to mountainous regions, stronger soviet defenses and bad weather. As a result the Germans never were unable to conquer the oil producing regions they so desired. Plus they were not even able to get more than an inconsequential trickle of fuel out of thea oil producing regions they did manage to conquer. Thus there were initial tactical and operational successes followed by strategic defeat.
Overall an excellent book and highly recommended. It should also be emphasized that the book is not just a re-tread of already existing secondary literature. The author has made extensive use of primary sources, in particular German language.
There is one particular weaknesses with the book though. That involves the Nazi leadership’s fantasy of being able to use this region, even if the military campaign was successful, as a means of fueling the German war machine (or a significant portion of it anyway). The problem was that just getting crude oil to the service is one (and only) step in obtaining useable fuel supplies. A second problem is that crude needs to be refined. Hence it also needs to be transported to refineries. It is inconceivable that the Germans could have built and operated a transportation infrastructure to transport so much crude oil back to refineries in axis territories (primarily refineries in Rumania). Even if they could transport it there was the question of whether or not the refining capacity existed to handle this crude. Unfortunately these key issues are not discussed in the book. They are what made Hitler’s dream nothing more than a Kafkaesque fantasy that made the military consequences of the campaign, to a very large degree, moot.
One last point this reviewer would like to make is that, as Dr. Forcyzk pointed out, German special forces were widely used in this campaign. For those interested in an in-depth role that these forces played this reviewer highly recommends David Higgins “Behind Soviet Lines – Hitler’s Brandenburgers Capture the Maikop Oilfields 1942” (part of Osprey’s “Raid” series). That book also has a more detailed discussion regarding the oil production issues and how they doomed the campaign from the beginning.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful.
A fine survey of Caucasus campaign
By F. Carol Sabin
The book covers, in a very clear manner (albeit not very in-depth, considering the book’s short length though this is not too much of a disappointment) the operations of the Axis Army Group A in Caucasus region.
As usually, Dr Forczik’s book is more aimed at the more serious student of the war than the novice, but it does offer all readers a unique perspective of how the Axis forces prepared for and invaded Caucasus region in 1942-1943.
The author does an excellent job in showing the origins of the campaign and the opposing forces & commanders. The author is extremely knowledgeable and the book reflects this. His experience as armored expert, both as on academic and practical level, is plenty shown in this book.
He offers in 60+ pages a detailed and well researched description of the campaign, focusing on the main phases and battles.
I was particularly impressed by the description of mountain troops’ capabilities and battles, in fact the only area in the USSR where the mountain warfare was fully experienced. In Romania we still have some veterans who fought in 2nd and 3rd mountain divisions in Caucasus and many books about their battles. As a small note I just want to mention that all four Romanian mountain divisions were quickly disbanded after the war by the Soviets.
In addition, the book is beautifully illustrated. The various schemes of maneuvers are wonderfully shown in 3-dimensional “bird’s eye views”. These illustrations, many times, are worth more than many pages of words.
The book does have a few observations that need to be mentioned however, concerning Romanian Army participation in this campaign. One minor is that it does not contain any reference about 3rd Romanian army commander (among other Axis Armies commanders), General Petre Dumitrescu, whose contribution in conquering the Taman peninsula was vital. Having in mind that ROU forces – 6-7 divisions – were more than a quarter of the forces involved, that is, a substantial war effort, I think he deserves a place among other armies’ commanders.
Other thing refers to the casualty figures mentioned at page 91:“The Romanian 3rd Army incurred about 45.000 casualties in this period-25 July 1942 to 30 January 1943-of which more than 12.000 were dead or missing”. In reality, the casualties were much lighter-no more than 10-15.000 personnel. (For example, the seizure of Nalchik by the ROU 2nd Mountain Division, plus German Stuka support, cost about 820 personnel, but capturing over 3000 Soviets).
According to some Romanian books the casualties were: “Between 1 July 1942 and 31 October 1942, the Romanian forces casualties engaged on Caucasus AND Stalingrad axis were 9.252 dead, 28.249 wounded and 1.588 missing”. So, we have about 40.000 in total, in two areas of operations. The Romanian forces in Stalingrad region supported the vast majority of the casualties during the analyzed period-cca. 25-30.000. In Stalingrad area, during Uranus and subsequent Soviet operations, ROU forces lost over 158.000 personnel.
Also, in the Kuban bridgehead, between 1 February 1943 to 2 October 1943, Romanian forces lost 1.598 dead, 7.256 wounded and 806 missing.
Lastly, it’s worth mentioning that ROU 3rd Army was transferred at the beginning of September 1942 in Seraphimovich and Kletskaya areas in order to take over the defense sector between Italian 8th Army and German 6th Army at Stalingrad. So, no more ROU 3rd Army HQs in Caucasus after September 1942! The remaining ROU divisions were divided between different German Corps HQs.
All of these observations, in aggregate, and considering the book’s short length, are really little more than minor however and do not deter from the book much.
This is a highly recommended book on the subject that provides much illumination on this campaign.
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