Yelnya offensive

The Yelnya offensive (August 30 – September 8, 1941) was a military operation by the Soviet Army during the Battle of Smolensk during Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union, which began the German-Soviet War. The offensive was an attack against the semi-circular Yelnya salient which the German 4th Army had extended south-east of Smolensk, forming a staging area for an offensive towards Vyazma and eventually Moscow. Under heavy pressure on its flanks, the German army (Heer) evacuated the salient by 8 September 1941, leaving behind a devastated and depopulated region. As the first reverse that the Heer suffered during Barbarossa and the first recapture of the Soviet territory by the Red Army, the battle was covered by Nazi and Soviet propaganda and served as a morale boost to the Soviet population. The town of Yelnya was located 82 km south-east of Smolensk situated near heights deemed strategic by General Heinz Guderian, commander of the 2nd Panzer Group, as the springboard for further offensive operations towards Moscow. The 2nd Panzer Group took the heights on 19 July 1941, but ran out of fuel and almost ran out of ammunition. The extended flanks of the bridgehead were subject to frequent counter-attacks of the Red Army while the Army Group Center paused operations in late July to rest and refit. On 1 August, Stavka (Soviet High Command) authorised formation of the Reserve Front, led by Marshal Georgy Zhukov, with several new armies under his command. These formations were generally poorly trained and had few tanks and artillery pieces. Two of the new armies—the 24th Army under the command of Major General Konstantin Rakutin and the 43rd Army under Lieutenant General Pavel Kurochkin—were to support the Western Front under the command of Semyon Timoshenko. The two formations were to destroy the German forces at Yelnya and advance across the Desna River to retake Roslavl, which had been lost to the 2nd Panzer Group in early August.