War on the Eastern Front by James Lucas

Author:James Lucas
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473841222
Publisher: Frontline Books

15

The frustrating mud and the scouring dust

From the previous chapter it can be appreciated how the cold weather affected the nature of the campaign. But there was another product of the Russian climate which the German Army met as early as the opening weeks of the new war and whose grip, if not as iron as that of winter, was as tenacious. This condition was Russia’s oldest ally – mud.

The cold of winter killed quickly but mud broke men spiritually and emotionally. It destroyed mobility and the effect of mud produced by the rains of autumn and spring upon military operations on the Eastern Front cannot be too strongly emphasised. In the first months of the new war men of the German motorised columns became frighteningly aware that a few hours’ downpour of rain upon what was technically a main highway, reduced this to a slough of mire. The mud produced by a half day of rain was sufficient to immobilise whole columns of wheeled transport and even tanks were bogged down in the apparently bottomless slime. During the Kiev encirclement, which is dealt with in later pages, a thrust by one of the panzer battalions of the 3rd Panzer Division, was halted by mud and the machines were bogged down. Held immobile they were sitting targets for the Russian armour whose broader tracks coped more easily with the poor going and gave freedom of manoeuvre. It was only superior gunnery, better wireless communication and the small force of grenadiers which accompanied them that saved the German column from complete destruction, but so many vehicles were held fast at that place and at other places during the subsequent advance that Model’s panzer spearhead was reduced, at one time, to only three machines.

Although rain was liable to come at any time the wet season usually began during October and lasted for a month. This was then followed by a short windy period which dried out the ground surface and restored mobility until the onset of winter. Except for periods of thaw the ground then froze solid until the warmer weather of spring melted the snow blanket. The soil which remained deep frozen was unable to absorb the sudden and large amounts of water produced by the melting snow and as this could not drain rapidly away there was vast and severe flooding and a consequent increase in mud.

These weather conditions were not, of course, constant along the whole battle line. There was a lighter covering of snow and an earlier thaw in the temperate zone of southern Russia and as the ground was also not frozen to so great a depth there was less flooding than on the northern sectors with their harder frosts and deeper snow layer. In the central and northern regions of western Russia the already vast areas of swamp were extended by flood waters produced as a result of the thaw and even high summer did not always dry the ground sufficiently for it to be used by wheeled transport.

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