Word: caucasus
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...objectives, the greatest gain for the Russians and the greatest loss to the Germans would be Kharkov, fulcrum of the entire Axis line lying between the Red armies in the south and the outer defenses of the Reich itself. Second in importance was Rostov-a vital gate to the Caucasus and the Crimea and a point which the Germans seized and lost once before...
...Caucasian Campaign was for oil, and last week the Germans lost Maikop, the only oil center they had captured. They also lost a controlling point (Tikhoretsk) on the rail line connecting Rostov with the Black Sea port of Novorossiisk, the Germans' only alternate way of retreat from the Caucasus, and that alternative was itself being threatened near Krasnodar. The Stalingrad area had been almost cleared (see below), releasing troops and freeing rail lines for the Rostov battles...
...victory meant much more than the destruction of a great army. It meant the complete failure of Hitler's 1942 strategy in Russia: to outflank Moscow from the south, render the Volga lifeline useless to the Russians and secure the German flank driving through the Caucasus toward Baku and the Middle East. It also meant that the Red Armies defending Stalingrad and the Volga were free to push west and join the armies smashing at Rostov and Kharkov...
...communications proceeded: the Russians retook the important railway center of Kamensk, Voronezh and pressed on Voroshilovgrad, advanced from north and south toward the German's pinion position at Rostov. The fall of Salsk and Armavir gave the Red Army a tighter hold upon the railways of the Caucasus, increased the prospect that the retiring Axis forces there can only retreat across the Black Sea into the Crimea. Ever nearer was a Russian thrust into the Germans' Kharkov line...
...major change in German strategy. Said the official German news agency: "The German High Command plans to shorten the whole of the Russian front and to build up a new main defense line." Broadcasters and communiqués admitted that the Germans were retiring from the Caucasus, that for the remnants of the once-great army at Stalingrad "there was nothing left but death...