Most Important Battles Challenge (7)

I actually found that this is my eighth battles challenge, not seventh. Battle of StalingradYear: 1942 to 1943Armies: Germany and other Axis Nations (Freidrich Paulus) vs. Soviet Union (Vasily Chuikov)The BattleWhat started a small battle led to the most important battle of World War 2. In 1942, the German 6th Army made up of 270,000 men was sent to attack Stalingrad, a Soviet city named after the nation's leader near the Volga River. The small amount of Soviet defenders did their best to stop the German army and soon the city was deadlocked for months. German and Soviet troops fought around the wreckage of the city. Soon the Germans and Soviets had millions of troops in and around the city. By late 1942, the Soviets launched Operation Uranus which was an operation involving massive amounts of soldiers surrounding the Axis troops. The German commander, General Friedrich Paulus, asked Adolf Hitler allow a withdrawal, but Hitler refused. The Luftwaffe (German air force) tried to re-supply the 6th Army from the air, but failed. Two German Panzer divisions under the command of General Erich von Manstein were sent to try to breakthrough the Soviet troops, but failed. Eventually, the 6th Army was forced to surrender. ImportanceEvery user with an interest in history knows about the Battle of Stalingrad. Had the Germans won and been able to stop the Soviet counter attack, they would have had a free hand in taking the oil fields in the Cacuses, which were of paramount importance. Hitler's oil reserves were running out and his Italian allies along with his Afrika Korps had been ground down in North Africa and were unable to take the British oil fields in the Middle East. This meant that taking the Soviet Union's oil fields was the last hope for Germany to continue the fight. If Germany takes the oil fields, then Hitler can support his gigantic war machine as the Germans advance on all fronts into Leningrad, Moscow, and soon Soviet Central Asia. Chances are, the Soviets would be too demoralized to fight any longer even with their large population. Stalin would be very frustrated with the loss of his city. If the USSR surrenders, then the Americans and the British are stuck in a very dangerous position. Likely their best chance of victory would be to race use atomic bombs on Germany. An invasion into France with German reinforcements on the Atlantic Wall would be a total disaster. Keep in mind, that the Germans would accelerate progress on the their own V2 rockets and their jet fighters and bombers giving them a stronger advantage over the Royal Air Force and the United States Air Force. The primary reason the Allies would have a highly difficult time is because most German soldiers were overwhelmingly in the east. The two-front war was obviously Hitler's greatest blunder because the powerful German war machine was forced to fight in the east and in the west. This battle was critical in turning back the Germans. The Sixth Army and many other forces were forced into Stalingrad which could be considered a pit for German troops. Meanwhile the Soviets took advantage of the open flanks. Historian Max Hastings has written:"The Germans lacked strength adequately to man their enormous front. There was a 300-mile gap between the Second Army at Voroneh on the upper Don and the Fourth and Sixth Panzer Armies southeastwards at Stalingrad. Short of manpower, von Wiechs, the army group commander, deployed Hungarian, Italian, and Romanian formations to cover the flanks of the Sixth Army: German intelligence failed to identify powerful Soviet forces massing against the Romanians. On 19 November Zhukov opened his offensive, hurling six armies against the northern Axis perimeter, followed by a thrust westward the next day by the Stalingrad front south of the city. " [1]Sources1. Hastings, Max. Inferno: The World at War, 1939-1945. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011. Print.