the soviet partisan movement 1941-1944 by edgar m. howell

130 THE SOVIET PARTISAN MOVEMENT
four fronts between the Crimea and the southern edge of the Pripyat
Marshes had been redesignated the First, Second, Third, and Fourth
Ukrainian Fronts, and during the first week in October these fronts
immediately began exploiting the river crossings they had seized. Taking
Zaporozhye on 16 October and Melitopol a week later, they broke the
Sixth Army's line from the Dnepr bend to the Sea of Azov and pushed
on. By the end of October Tolbukhin had cut off the Crimea and had
closed up along the river except at Kherson and Nikopol where the
Germans held onto small bridgeheads. On 17 October Konev attacked
out of his bridgehead at Kremenchug and swung to the south toward
the iron ore center at Krivoi Rog and the main rail line into the Dnepr
bend from the west. This threat forced the Germans to give up
Dnepropetrovsk, but the First Panzer Army was able to hold in front of
Krivoi Rog.
During October there was little Russian activity in the vicinity of Kiev
as the Soviets enlarged their crossing north of the city and gathered their
strength to assault it. Then early in November Vatutin broke his First
Ukrainian Front out of the bridgehead and attacked the city from the
north and west. Von Manstein, seeing his position was hopeless, evacuated
the stronghold and pulled back to the west. Exploiting his advantage,
Vatutin continued to drive. On 12 November he captured
Zhitomir, and five days later entered Korosten, a key communications
center on both lateral and east-west rail lines. Stung by this loss of
rail facilities, Von Manstein countered and before the end of the month
retook both cities.
During this same period the Soviets were able to make much less
impression on Von Kluge's defensive line in the central sector where the
Fourth Army contained five successive offensives along the Smolensk-
Minsk highway toward Orsha. Rokossovski was also repulsed before
Gomel, and only by placing tremendous pressure on the city was he
finally able to force the Germans to evacuate on 12 October.
On 3 October Yeremenko, with his Kalinin Front, had captured
Nevel on the northern edge of the sector and driven a 30 mile wide
salient between Nevel and Vitebsk, the anchor of the upper Dnepr line.
In conjunction with this attack, Sokolovski, continuing his offensive west
of Smolensk, made repeated attacks on Vitebsk in an attempt to envelop
it from the south. But the Germans hung on tenaciously, and despite
continued Soviet pressure, forced the fight into a stalemate. In January,
the Russians, balked by the stubborn defense and the difficult terrain
which heavily favored the Germans and which never froze over in an
unusually mild winter, abandoned the assault and attempted no further
major operations in the central sector during the remainder of the
winter.