Page 239 - The Chief Culprit

200 y e Chief Culprit

None of the experiments were needed for defense. If the Carpathian passes had to be
defended from the enemy, then speed was not needed: the soldiers simply had to stay where
they were and not let the enemy pass.
In the 12th Army, as in all other Soviet armies, things were not called by their real
names. In January 1940, the 96th Rifle Division was reorganized into a mountain rifle di-
vision. In May 1941, three more rifle divisions (the 44th, 58th, and 60th) were converted
into mountain rifle divisions. At the same time, the recently formed 192nd Mountain Rifle
Division was also added to the 12th Army. What did one call the 13th Corps, which had two
divisions and both were mountain rifle ones? What did one call the 17th Corps, in which
three out of four divisions were mountain rifle ones? What did one call an army, which out
of its three corps had, in fact, two mountain rifle corps, and in which the mountain rifle divi-
sions were a solid majority? I would call the corps “a mountain rifle corps” and the army “a
mountain army.” But the Soviet High Command had reasons for not doing this. e corps
continued to be called, as before, the 13th and 17th Rifle Corps, while the army was simply
called the 12th Army.
e mountain rifle divisions were given their official name on June 1, 1941, while
the order was issued on April 23, 1941; the actual transformation of the divisions from
“rifle” into “mountain rifle” divisions was going on as early as the autumn of 1940. e
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12th Army also influenced adjacent armies. e 72nd Mountain Rifle Division under the
command of Major General P. I. Abramidze had been trained in the 12th Army and was
transferred to the adjacent 26th army. Lieutenant General I. S. Konev’s 19th Army, which
was being transferred from the northern Caucasus, was then secretly deployed behind the
12th and 26th armies. It also had mountain rifle divisions, for instance, the 28th Division
under the command of Colonel K. I. Novik. It was at this time that deployment of yet an-
other army, the 18th, began in the area between the 12th (mountain) and 9th “super-shock”
armies in the eastern Carpathians. ere are sufficient documents to infer that the original
idea was that the 18th Army would be a carbon copy of the 12th (mountain) Army, although
like the 12th it did not bear that name. Any researcher who studies the archives of the 12th
and 18th armies will be surprised by their absolute similarity in structure. It is a most un-
usual example of twin armies.
e mountain rifle divisions were reinforced with specially selected and trained sol-
diers. ese divisions were transferred to a special personnel composition, very different from
the regular rifle divisions; they received special weapons and equipment. Just before the war
began, a school for mountain training was established in the Caucasus. It trained the best
Soviet mountain sportsmen and climbers to be military instructors. Once fully trained, these
instructors were sent to the Soviet western frontier, since it was precisely here, and not in
the Caucasus or Turkestan, that in June 1941 a great number of mountain rifle troops were
concentrated.
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It is time to ask: for which mountains? ere is only one comparatively small moun-
tain range on the Soviet western frontier. e eastern Carpathians resemble gently sloping
hills rather than mountains. ere was no point in having a powerful defense in the eastern
Carpathians in 1941. First, that area of the Carpathians was dangerous and unfavorable for
an aggressor coming from west to east. e enemy would come down from the mountains to
the plains, and its army would have to be supplied across the whole of the eastern Carpathian,
the Tatry, the Erzgebirge, and the Sudeten mountains. Second, the northern slope of the