Ivan Bagramyan conflict Eastern Front (World War II)
World War II
Ukraine
In June 1941, Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union. Unlike many of the border troops who were caught off guard by the offensive, Bagramyan and his commander, General Mikhail Kirponos, believed an invasion by Germany was inevitable. However, Kirponos chose to ignore Bagramyan's belief that the German offensive would employ the Blitzkrieg-like tactics like those seen in the campaigns in Poland in 1939 and western Europe in 1940. Since the winter of 1939–40, Bagramyan had been busy devising a battle plan that would counter threats from the direction of western Ukraine, which was approved after numerous revisions on 10 May 1940.On the morning of 22 June, he was tasked with the overseeing of a transfer of a military convoy to Ternopil. While his column was passing the Soviet airfields near the city of Brody, German air strikes hit the aircraft on the ground. Several hours later, they arrived in Ternopil, having been strafed twice by the planes. Three days after the invasion, the plans for the counter-offensive were implemented, but disorder engulfed the troops, and the counter-attack collapsed. Bagramyan took part in the great tank battles in western Ukraine and the defensive operation around Kiev, in which Kirponos was killed and the entire Front captured by the Germans. He was one of a handful of senior officers who escaped from the encircled Front.Bagramyan was then appointed chief of staff to Marshal Semyon Timoshenko and along with future Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev, then a political officer, coordinated the fighting around Rostov. In his memoirs, Khrushchev described Bagramyan as a "very precise person who reported on everything just as it was. How many troops we had, their positions, and the general situation."Khrushchev went on to detail an account where Marshal Semyon Budyonny, sent by the chief of the operations department from Moscow as a representative of Stavka, arrived in Kiev to preside over Bagramyan's court-martial. Bagramyan protested vigorously and said that if his competence was in question, then he should instead be given a field unit to command. To Bagramyan's incredulity, Budyonny went on to attempt to convince him to agree to his execution. Khrushchev remarked that the argument was sparked arbitrarily and had taken place after an "abundant feast with cognac" and that "in those days we didn't take that kind of conversation seriously." According to him, at the time, however, the Soviet military was especially suspicious of the men in its ranks, itself judging that there were "enemies of the people...everywhere, especially the Red Army."Bagramyan was instrumental in the planning of two Soviet counter-offensives against the Germans, including the major push made by Soviet forces in December during the Battle of Moscow, and for this was promoted to the rank of lieutenant general. In the same month, he was made the chief of staff of a military operations group that would oversee three Army Groups: the Southern, the Southwestern and Bryansk Fronts. In March 1942, he accompanied Khrushchev and Timoshenko to Moscow to present the plans of a new counter-offensive in the direction of Kharkiv to Stalin. Stalin, impressed with his plan, approved the operation and on 8 April, promoted Bagramyan as chief of staff of the Southwestern Front. On 12 May 1942, armies of the Southwestern Front attacked Kharkiv but the launch of the offensive came at an inopportune moment since they were attacking from the Barvenkovo Salient, a region that German forces were near closing.While Soviet forces were initially successful in recapturing Kharkiv, they found themselves trapped by the German Army after the closing of Barvenkovo. On 18 May, Bagramyan asked Timoshenko to alter the plans but Timoshenko along with Stalin refused to approve his request. Soviet losses were heavy as the 6th, 9th and 57th armies (approximately 18–20 divisions) comprising a large portion of the Southwestern Front, were all destroyed and Bagramyan was removed from his post on 28 June by Stavka. According to Khrushchev, Bagramyan was so devastated by the immense loss of men that after the operation was called off: "he burst into tears. His nerves cracked...He was weeping for our army." Held responsible for the failure of the operation and "poor staff work", he was demoted to chief of staff of the Soviet 28th Army. Several days later, he wrote a letter to Stalin asking to "serve at the front at any capacity, however modest." British military historian John Erickson contends that Bagramyan was unfairly scapegoated by Stalin in his attempts to "hunt for [the] culprits" of the mismanagement of operations.The 16th Army
Though he had never led a fighting unit prior to the war, he was given his first command of an army in the Western Front as his superiors, and particularly Marshal Zhukov were impressed with his skills and capabilities as a staff officer. Zhukov, with the approval of Stavka, appointed him commander of the 16th Army (2nd formation), (July 1942 – April 1943) replacing its former commander, Konstantin Rokossovsky who had been sent to command the Bryansk Front. The 16th Army transferred its troops to the 5th Army, and its command and staff were moved to the second echelon of the Western Front where the Army took up command of part of the 10th Army's troops, and its defensive positions. On 11 August, however, German forces mounted a surprise offensive on the southern flank of Western Front, splitting the 61st Army from the 16th Army which was not taking part in the Rzhev-Sychevka Offensive operation. The German forces threatened Bagramyan's left flank as he quickly moved his forces to counter their movements and halted them from advancing further on 9 September.With the rest of the Eastern Front battles almost entirely focused on Stalingrad and the Germans' attempts to advance into the Caucasus, the 16th Army was not called up to action until February 1943. By then, the German 6th Army besieged in Stalingrad had been encircled and surrendered. The 16th Army at the time was composed of four divisions and one infantry brigade and in light of the new offensive, Bagramyan's force was given two extra divisions, an infantry brigade, four tank brigades and several artillery regiments.
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