Battle of Stalingrad (Essay Sample)

The Battle of Stalingrad
Strategic Lessons From the Battle Of Stalingrad
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Strategic Lessons From the Battle Of Stalingrad
The Battle of Stalingrad is considered as a core turning point in World War II and is often perceived as one of the bloodiest battles that have occurred in recent history as evidenced by the high number of casualties that occurred on both sides amounting to well over two million. The battle included the German siege of Stalingrad, the battle which took place inside the city and the Soviet counter offensive which ended in the destruction of the German Sixth Army. As a result of the Battle, the Axis powers lost over 850,000 people, about 25% of its power on the Eastern Front and a large amount of both supplies as well as equipment. It was difficult for Axis powers to regain their strength after this battle and eventually led to their decision to make a retreat from Eastern Europe. Aside from being a significant turning point in the war, Stalingrad also helped to reveal a significant amount of the discipline and determination of both the German as well as Soviet armies. This paper will therefore examine the Stalingrad Campaign looking at the strategic implications that were learned. First the manner in which the battle was conducted will be analyzed including the events that led up to it and those that immediately followed it. Thereafter the paper will examine the important consequences and lessons that were learned from it with a focus on the core strategic and operational mistakes that essentially led to the defeat of the Germans.
Stalingrad is significant in the fact that it marked a distinct turning point in the war that was being carried out on the Eastern Front. Whereas the ultimate outcome of the war effort that German engaged in was perhaps determined by the country’s failure to defeat the United Soviet Socialist Republic in the 1941 campaign referred to as Operation Barbarossa, Stalingrad was the essential mark of Germany’s advance eastward. After the defeat that it suffered in Stalingrad, Hitler and his government were unwilling to occupy as much Soviet territory as it had before since it was retreating.
Conduct of the Campaign
The Battle of Stalingrad came about a year after the German’s invaded the Soviet Union in an Operation termed as BARBAROSSA whose major aim was to launch a major surprise attack against the Soviet Union that would essentially capture the large majority of the territory located west of the Urals and therefore Moscow to surrender to Germany. BARBAROSSA did achieve a number of successes providing the Germans with the chance to move to Leningrad and Kharkov located in the South. In the process, they were able to surround and get rid of Soviet divisions. However, the Soviet’s Army’s resistance was far stronger than had been anticipated and the campaign dragged on for much longer than had been anticipated by the German. A soviet counter attack that was launched in December 1941 stopped their advance. The German advance was believed to be doomed from the start since Hitler made the decision to attack the Soviets across a broad front stretching from the Barents to the Black Sea which only reduced on the combat power of the German Army.
There were a number of critical outcomes of BARBAROSSA impacted on Germany’s efforts at war in the East with the first being that because the campaign failed to defeat the Soviet Union, the war continued in the East further compounding the challenges that the German military had on its resources. Moreover, the campaign cost Germany in terms of manpower and material, with the country incurring a large overwhelming number of casualties. However, the most critical aspect was that in failing to overcome the Soviets within the first year, Germany gave them the chance to mobilize more adequately. Consider that as the war moved on, the military capabilities of the Soviet Union grew and that of Germany declined.
In 1942, the German High Command made the decision to put in place a new offensive named Operation Blue which was much smaller in both its focus and scope as an answer to the losses incurred in the first year of its war. This campaign was largely aimed at taking control of Soviet oil resources and creating the stage for advance later into the Middle East. However, this only led to a wide range of negative consequences for Germany including a significant loss of military forces which the country could not afford. The loss demoralized German forces; the officers themselves had little confidence that they could win the war on the Eastern front and the German civilians no longer felt the war effort should continue.
Lessons from the Battle of Stalingrad
There were numerous lessons that could be taken from the Stalingrad campaign with some standing out not in terms of the overall outcome of the war but also with regard to contemporary military policy. One of the more important lessons learnt from the Battle of Stalingrad was the fact that Germans largely overstretched the military resources they had. This was an aspect that led them to fail to gather the requisite combat power that would have ensured they achieved their objectives. Hitler made the decision to divide the Army Group and move against Stalingrad and the Caucasus at the same time thereby reducing on the number of soldiers who were available for both campaigns. In addition, he ordered the capture of Stalingrad on top of capturing the Volga which also expanded on the mission of the Army without adding on the requisite forces. The end result was an Army that had fewer forces than it should have had in order to clearly and successfully executes its mission which in the end led to its defeat. If the Army group had not been divided, it would have been entirely possible that its forces would have concentrated defending themselves and the encirclement of the Army might not have occurred.
Another lesson was the need to avoid frontal assaults when they can be avoided since these types of assaults often provide the enemy with the chance to take advantage of the defense. Consequently history has proved that they are costly to the attacker as was evident in the Battle of Stalingrad which went on for two months with frontal assaults being carried out against the defensive line of the Soviets. The result was that the Army’s combat power was slowly drawn out and in the end it ran out of the requisite forces that would have ensured that a successful attack was carried out. A more preferable strategy would have been that of envelopment where the enemy would have been caught unaware and has therefore not prepared a deliberate attack since he expects the attack.
The Germans did not use the envelopment strategy effectively in the early stages of the war and especially not in the Battle at Stalingrad. Instead they mistakenly believed that the defense of Stalingrad was near to collapsing and that another big assault would help to defeat it. It might also be possible that Hitler believed that an envelopment of the City would have been too difficult. Whatever the case is, if the Germans had chosen to envelop Stalingrad, they would have been able to cut them off from their sources of supply and therefore succeeded in eliminating them.
Another lesson was in the need to ensure that plenty of reserves were available since this provides some type of support against any uncertainty in strategy. Clearly, there was such an uncertainty in the case of the Battle of Stalingrad which was expressed as early as July 1942 when concerns were brought forward regarding the splitting of the Army Group. It became more apparent when the battle for Stalingrad went into October and it was not clear that the Army would be in a position to capture the city. The German Army’s commander was urged to put in place a reserve in the instance that Russians went on the attack. However, the armies had no reserves which it could use to decisively and effectively influence the war that it had with the Soviet Army.
Reserves often serve two core purposes of providing the force with additional soldiers to deal with instances when unexpected attacks occur and they also ensure that the commander has the distinct ability to take advantage of any chance that occurs within the battlefield for instance an opportunity to penetrate the defensiv...