Excerpts of Stalingrad [ 3 ]

"...the fighting at Voreonezh was part of a phase for the Red Army of concentrating defence on cities, not arbitrary lines on the map. The new flexibility had allowed Timoshenko's armies to pull back, avoiding encirclement, but they had already been so badly mauled that on 12 July a new army group command-the Stalingrad Front - was established by Stavka directive. Although nobody dared voice the defeatist suggestion that the Red Army might be forced back as far as the Volga, a suspicion began to grow that this was where the main battle would have to be fought." page 75

"These seemed glorious days for German front-line regiments. "As far as the eye can see", wrote and observer, "armoured vehicles and half-tracks are rolling forward over the steppe. Pennants float in the shimmering afternoon air." Commanders stood fearlessly erect in their tank turrets, one arm raised high, waving their companies forward. Their tracks stirred up dust and propelled it outwards like smoke clouds in their wake." page 75

"Struck by the limitless horizon and expanse of sky, and perhaps also influenced by the sight of vehicles swaying crazily in and out of potholes like ships in a heavy swell, the more imaginative saw the steppe as an uncharted sea. General Strecker described it in a letter as "an ocean that might drown the invader." Villages became the equivalent of islands. In the sun-backed steppe, they also offered the most likely source of water. But a panzer commander might spot and onion-domed church tower in the distance, then on arrival, find beside it the rest of the village destroyed, perhaps with timbers still smouldering. Only the brick chimneys remained standing. The carcasses of horses and livestock lay around, their bellies swollen in the heat forcing their legs grotesquely in the air. Often, the only sign of life would be the odd cat, miaowing in the ruins." page 76

Beevor, Antony. Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege: 1942-1943. Penguin Books: New York, New York, 1998.