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Mountain Divisions on the Steppes of Ukraine y 201

eastern Carpathians formed a blunt wedge on the enemy’s side of the frontier. If many Soviet
troops were concentrated there for defensive purposes, even in peacetime, they would be sur-
rounded by the enemy on three sides. By using the plains farther to the south, and especially
more to the north of the eastern Carpathians, the enemy could strike at any time at the rest
of the troops deployed on the mountains, thereby cutting their supply lines. ird, in 1941,
there were too few enemy troops in the Carpathian Mountains to carry out an aggression,
and the Soviet High Command was fully aware of this. 12
e concentration of two Soviet mountain armies in the eastern Carpathians had cata-
strophic consequences. Nobody attacked these armies in the mountains. e German 1st
Tank Group carried out its strike in the plain to the north of the eastern Carpathians, bypass-
ing the mountains and cutting off the Soviet mountain armies from the main forces. e
Soviet command confronted a dilemma: should they leave the two mountain armies in the
Carpathian Mountains, where they would perish without a supply of ammunition and food,
or should they urgently be led out of that mousetrap? ey made the second choice. e two
mountain armies, unprepared to fight in the plains, having light weapons and a lot of equip-
13
ment useless in a flat area, fled from the mountains and immediately fell under attack from
the German tank units. Having easily destroyed the fleeing Soviet mountain armies, the 1st
Tank Group of the German army went ahead full speed and reached the rear of the Soviet 9th
Army and defeated it. Once the German troops had dealt with those armies, the road opened
to the totally undefended bases of the Soviet navy, to the Don basin, Kharkov, Zaporozhie,
and Dnepropetrovsk. ese were industrial regions of great importance. Once they were
lost to the Germans, the Soviet Union produced only 100,000 tanks for the rest of the war,
which was much more than Germany, but without the losses of these regions, the Soviet
tank production could have been several times higher. When the Germans broke through to
the south of Ukraine, the Soviet troops around Kiev found themselves in a very dangerous
position. e Germans had cleared the road to the Caucasus and to Stalingrad—the heart of
Soviet oil production.
e two mountain armies in the Carpathians in 1941 were completely unnecessary for
defense. ey were necessary only for offense. In early 1941, specially trained groups of rock
climbers appeared in the mountain rifle divisions. But in the eastern Carpathians, they had
nothing to do. Soviet troops had to be moved west by several hundred kilometers. e same
factors that made the Carpathians unsuitable for aggression from west to east made them very
suitable for aggression from east to west. As the troops moved ahead into the mountains, their
supply lines remained on Soviet territory, mainly on very flat terrain. e eastern Carpathians
jutted far out into the west and cut the enemy grouping in two. is was a natural spring-
board which, if heavy forces were built up on it in peacetime, positioned them as if they were
in the enemy’s rear. ey only had to advance, threatening the enemy’s rear and thus compel-
ling its troops to withdraw along the whole front.
Only negligible enemy forces were located in the Carpathian Mountains. e Soviet
High Command knew this, and that was precisely why they had concentrated two armies
there. e only way to use these armies in war was to move them forward. Two mountain
ridges spread from the Carpathians: one went west toward Czechoslovakia, the other south
toward Romania.