After mid-month, however, Hitler, Bock, Kluge, and Hoth were most preoccupied with the task of sealing off and destroying the almost encircled forces of 16th, 19th, and 20th Armies, which still clung resolutely to their defenses around the Smolensk “pocket.” Bock at Army Group Center, Kluge at Fourth “Panzer” Army, and Hitler’s own staff wanted to destroy as many of the newly located Soviet units as possible. Hoth, whose panzer group was split between the front northward from Dukhovshchina and Iartsevo and the northern and eastern flanks of the pocket, wanted link-up and destruction so as to release forces to man his increasingly threatened “eastern” front. By contrast, Guderian, who was still hoping to continue his advance on Moscow without delay, had already dispatched Schaal’s 10th Panzer Division of Vietinghoff’s XXXXVI Motorized Corps eastward to secure a bridgehead over the Desna River at El’nia. This bridgehead he thought would form an ideal jumping-off position for a subsequent advance on Viaz’ma and the grand prize of Moscow. Schaal’s panzers and panzer grenadiers did so on 19 July. As it turned out, however, the violent Soviet attacks that continued against the two panzer groups’ flanks finally convinced Guderian that he had enough force available to either hold on to El’nia or bottle up Soviet 16th Army east of Smolensk, but not both.

Despite these problems, the encirclement battle commenced on 16 July and would last until after month’s end. Although Funck’s 7th Panzer Division of Schmidt’s XXXIX Motorized Corps captured the key road junction of Iartsevo, 50 kilometers northeast of Smolensk, late on 15 July, the encirclement sack around Timoshenko’s 16th, 19th, and 20th Armies was not firm. By this time, Schmidt’s corps had portions of Stumpff’s 20th Panzer Division protecting Funck’s left flank east of Iartsevo and Zorn’s 20th Motorized Division closing in on Smolensk from the northwest, along an extended front from the Liozno region, 40 kilometers southeast of Vitebsk, northeastward to Demidov, 56 kilometers north of Smolensk. Overnight on 15-16 July, the 20th Motorized Division shifted eastward to form the northern ring of the encirclement, while Harpe’s 12th Panzer Division took over its positions east of Liozno, thus forming a nearly continuous encirclement ring around the northern half of the Smolensk pocket.

See Map 16, Army Group Center’s situation late on 16 July 1941.

However, although Schmidt’s corps of Hoth’s panzer group managed to form a fairly solid ring around the northern circumference of the pocket, Lemelsen’s XXXXVII Motorized Corps of Guderian’s panzer group, whose 29th Motorized and 18th and 17th Panzer Divisions were still locked in heavy fighting at Smolensk, Krasnyi, and the Orsha region to the west, was unable to link up with 7th Panzer Division, leaving a gap along the swampy banks of the Dnepr River south of Iartsevo. Thus, the only exit for the Red Army’s nearly encircled forces was a narrow corridor of ground extending eastward from the pocket through the village of Solov’evo, 15 kilometers south of Iartsevo.

After seizing Iartsevo, Funck wheeled his 7th Panzer Division toward the west to block any Soviet withdrawal from the Smolensk pocket to the east. Since he had to hold the 19 kilometer-wide sector from east of Dukhovshchina to Iartsevo with his panzers and two motorized infantry battalions, his forces were spread thin. Nevertheless, the shock and the impending catastrophe were enormous for Timoshenko’s Western Direction Command, as evidenced by a message the Germans intercepted from Timoshenko to the commander in Smolensk, which read, “Your silence is disgraceful, when will you finally understand? They are concerned about your health. Give your assessment of the overall situation forthwith,” and “hold Smolensk at all cost.”³⁹ This the Soviet soldiers would do, partly because they obeyed orders, but partly because they could do nothing else.