May 1, 1944. Marshal of the Soviet Union Ivan Stepanovich Konev had a right to be pleased with himself and his men as he gazed at the maps spread before him.

Born in a small village in the province of Northern Dvina, Konev was conscripted into the Tsarist Imperial Russian Army in April 1916, but saw little action during World War I. During the Russian Civil War he served with distinction, becoming a political commissar. Graduating from the prestigious Frunze Military Academy in 1926, Konev served as a divisional and corps commander, escaping the massive purges that decimated the Red Army during 1930s.

Soon after the German Invasion of the Soviet Union, Konev took command of the Western Front (the approximate equivalent of a German Army Group, containing anywhere from five to 12 armies). For the next two and a half years, he led various fronts in the war against Hitler, participating in the gigantic battle at Kursk and liberating cities of Belograd and Kharkov. For his part in the encirclement and destruction of German forces in the Korsun-Cherkassy Pocket in February 1944, he was promoted to the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union. Now after years of bitter fighting, his 2nd Ukrainian Front stood poised in the Western Ukraine, ready to strike what was hoped to be a knockout blow against German forces in Southeastern Europe.

Konev had 10 armies – the 27th, 40th, 52nd, 53rd, 4th Guards, 5th Guards, 7th Guards, 2nd Tank, 6th Tank, and 5th Guards Tank – at his disposal. His armored forces numbered 630 tanks and self propelled guns. On March 5, 1944, the 2nd Ukrainian Front launched an offensive against the German 8th army northeast of Uman. The massed tanks and infantry of the 4th Guards, 5th Guards Tank and 2nd Tank Armies had little difficulty in slicing through the thinly held German line. Other Armies soon followed, flooding through the breached German defenses.


When Uman fell on March 9, Konev ordered his forces to keep going towards the Bug River, giving the retreating Germans little chance to organize a defensive river line. His armies kept up the pressure, severing the 8th Army’s tenuous connection with the 1st Panzer Army. Other units, composed of mixed groups of tanks, infantry, and engineers, kept up their advance toward the Bug.

On March 11, elements of General S.I. Bogdanov’s 2nd Tank Army’s 16th Tank Corps (Maj. Gen. Dubovoi) reached Dzuhlinka and crossed the river, dashing any German hopes of holding the southern bank. A few hours later, the 29th Tank Corps (Lt. Gen. Kirichenko) of General A.G. Kravchenko's 6th Tank Army took the river crossing at Gayvoron. With the main crossing clogged with armored vehicles and trucks, following Soviet infantry units confiscated boats or built rafts to get to the opposite shore. Once across, they spread out behind the mobile forces that were already heading for the next objective - the Dniester River.

By March 15, Dubovoi's corps had severed the Zhmerinka-Odessa rail line at Vapnyarka, a mere 30 miles from the Dniester. Two days later, Kirichenko's corps reached the river and immediately established a bridgehead on the other side. Other units soon followed, and by March 21 the Soviets had firm control of the western bank.

For the next two days, Konev's forces spread out through the Romanian countryside, however heavy rain began to fall, turning the ground and dirt roads into a brown quagmire that virtually stopped the Soviet mobile units dead in their tracks.

For Adolf Hitler, the "muddy season" meant that he would have time to stabilize his forces in Southeastern Europe. He was concerned about his wavering allies, Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary, which watched the Soviet advance with growing apprehension. On March 18, Admiral Miklos Horthy, the regent of Hungary, succumbed to pressure from Hitler and allowed German troops to pour across the German-Hungarian border in what was essentially an invasion. Hungary's oil fields were now under German control, but a larger prize lay in Romania.

The Ploesti oil fields, located about 30 miles north of Bucharest on the Wallachian Plain, were the center of Romania's oil-refining industry. Without the fields, Germany would be hard pressed to find an alternative petroleum source for her industry and her military. Marshall Ion Antonescu, the head of Romania's government, sent Hitler a pledge of loyalty on the day that German forces invaded Hungary. Some of Romania's military leaders, however, were already in contact with the Soviets, hoping to negotiate a separate peace. The stalled Soviet offensive meant that more German troops could be sent to bolster Romania's wavering military and to preempt any planned coup.

Hitler also planned to put a new, more loyal core of commanders in charge of his southeast flank. His personal airplane arrived at Field Marshal Ewald von Kleist's Army Group A headquarters on March 30. With von Kleist on board, the Focke-Wulf Condor aircraft then flew on to the city of L'vov to pick up Field Marshal Erich von Manstein, commander of Army Group South. The two men had borne the brunt of the Soviet assault in the Ukraine and Romania, and Hitler was furious so much territory had fallen into Soviet hands.

Arriving at Hitler's retreat in the Obersalzburg, von Manstein and von Kleist were brought before the Fuhrer, who awarded both men the swords to the Knight's Cross. He then relieved them of their commands. Newly appointed Field Marshal Walter Model replaced von Manstein, while Ferdinand Schorner, who would be promoted to colonel general on April 1, took command of Army Group A.

Before diminishing von Kleist, Hitler told him that the Soviet offensive had run its course and that he was certain the Red Army was exhausted. The Fuhrer also said that after his forces in France threw the expected Allied invasion back into the sea, those divisions stationed in France would be sent to the East to reclaim the territory that had been lost during the previous year. In return, von Kleist simply told Hitler that the time has come to make peace with Stalin before the Eastern armies were totally destroyed.

When the new commanders arrived at their new headquarters, the following order from Hitler, dated April 2 awaited them.


It was a tall order for the Germans and Romanians who had been so severely mauled by the Soviets only a few weeks before. Schorner's command, which had been renamed Army Group South Ukraine on April 5, stretched from the Central Carpathian Mountains to the Black Sea in a line that was almost 300 miles long. His mixed bag of troops consisted of two Romanian Armies (3rd and 4th) and two German Armies (6th and 8th).

Schorner was aware of the disparity in the armaments and fighting abilities of the German and Romanian troops under him, as well as Hitler. In his April 2 order, Hitler said, “Romanian forces will be disposed in accordance with the terrain so that primarily German troops occupy the sectors in danger of enemy tank attack.” He also ordered that German gun crews man the heavy antitank guns that were to be distributed to Romanian forces.

“Thank God for the mud,” was the phrase that passed the lips of generals and privates alike as they struggled to from a cohesive line. What the field commanders did not know was that Hitler had been partially right in his assessment of the Soviet’s offensive capabilities.

The problem was one of logistics. In a three-month period, Soviet forces had liberated most of the Ukraine, pushing the Germans back 250 to 300 miles in the process. Konev and the other commanders on the Southern sector had simply outrun their supply lines. There was also the matter of replacing the heavy troop losses that had been incurred during the offensive. This was partially overcome by simply drafting the male peasants in the liberated areas, but it would take time to turn them into soldiers.

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