Tag: 1921

‘Nevertheless, the fact that Russia had “allies” – or rather, one major ally, Britain – and that America was going to “help” was of some psychological importance to the Russians, they did not feel entirely alone, and soon after the invasion the thought had become deeply ingrained that the war would be won, no matter how terrible and how long it was. Much was, of course, made of minor military successes, such as the slowing-down of the blitzkrieg at Smolensk (which, curiously, created for several weeks almost a feeling of euphoria, at least in Moscow), and of the small Russian counter-offensive at Yelnya, south of Smolensk in September 1941, when a few hundred square miles were recaptured from the Germans – the first to be recaptured anywhere in Europe since the beginning of the Second World War. At that time, in bombed and half-devastated Vyazna, the future Marshal V. D. Sokolovsky made to the foreign press the significant remark that, fearful as the war was, the Russians were “gradually grinding down” the German war machine, and that in any case Moscow would not be lost.’