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The Battle of the Caucasus was a series of Axis and Soviet operations in the Caucasus as part of the Eastern Front of World War II.On 25 July 1942, German troops captured Rostov-on-Don, opening the Caucasus region of the southern Soviet Union to the Germans and threatening the oil fields beyond at Maikop, Grozny, and ultimately Baku.
By February 1942 the German Army High Command had begun to develop plans for a follow-up campaign to the aborted Barbarossa offensive – with the Caucasus as its principal objective. On 5 April 1942, Hitler laid out the elements of the plan now known as "Case Blue" ( Fall Blau ) in Führer Directive No. 41 .
In preparation for Case Blue, the 1942 campaign in southern Russia and the Caucasus, Army Group South was split into two army groups: Army Group A and Army Group B. [3] Army Group A was ordered south to capture the oil fields in the Caucasus. In February 1943, Army Group Don and the existing Army Group B were combined and re-designated Army ...
First Rzhev–Sychyovka offensive 30 July – 1 October 1942; Sinyavino offensive 19 August – 10 October 1942; Kozelsk offensive 22 August 1942 – 9 September 1942; Axis Operation Braunschweig 23 July 1942 – Axis Operation Edelweiss 23 July – 21 August 1942; North Caucasian strategic defensive 25 July – 31 December 1942
It was a definite success for the Germans who, thanks to a "commando" action of the Brandenburg Regiment, took the bridges over the Don, the Bataysk Bridge and the dike to the south of the city and prevented the flooding of swamp, which allowed them to continue their progress towards the Caucasus. [1]
In Führer Directive No. 45, dated 23 July 1942, Adolf Hitler [3] outlined new goals for Operation Braunschweig. The German forces were to advance towards the Caucasus (Operation Edelweiss) and Stalingrad (Operation Fischreiher). [4] Hitler had personally intervened in the plans for this operation, and ordered a split in Army Group South. This ...
This allowed for a Soviet offensive that drove the remaining Axis forces out of the Caucasus region, effectively defeating the Axis Caucasus campaign. [8] The "A" group of armies lost about 100,000 troops in the operation. [9] Soviet losses to the Caucasus Front in 1942 totaled about 140,000 irrecoverable losses and 170,000 sick and wounded. [10]
The Caucasus campaign comprised armed conflicts between the Russian Empire and the Ottoman Empire, later including Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, the Mountainous Republic of the Northern Caucasus, the German Empire, the Central Caspian Dictatorship, and the British Empire, as part of the Middle Eastern theatre during World War I.