Briansk–Vyazma encirclements. After having been stopped for a month east of
Smolensk by Hitler's order,
Field Marshal Fedor von Bock's Army Group Centre resumed its advance eastwards on 2 October 1941. Bock's next objective was now
Moscow, 350 km. (217 mi.) away; and he had more armour than in the earlier operations, Third and Fourth Panzer Groups and the Second Panzer Army (formerly also a group). On the Soviet side, three army groups,
Konev's West
front (seven armies) in the north,
Eremenko's Briansk
front (three armies in the south and
Budenny's Reserve
front (five armies) at the rear, covered the approaches to the Soviet capital.
The Fourth Panzer Group drove deep along the West
front–Briansk
front boundary, diverting columns to the left and right to meet Third Panzer Group and Second Panzer Army spearheads coming from the north and south. An encirclement closed in the north at Vyazma on 10 October, and another closed in the south around Briansk three days later. Konev's and Eremenko's main forces were engulfed in the pockets, which yielded 663,000 prisoners.
Zhukov took over the remains and Reserve
front on 10 October, but the panzer formations pressed ahead without a pause, aiming towards and around Moscow. Hitler, like the American and British military attachés in Moscow, believed the war's end was near. On 18 October, panic and looting broke out in the capital. However, rain that had intermittently slowed movement since 10 October was turning the whole landscape into a quagmire impassable to both tanks and infantry. See also
BARBAROSSA and
German–Soviet war.
Earl Ziemke
