After the Stavka formed the Central Front on 23 July, reorganized Bogdanov’s Front of Reserve Armies into two reserve groups on 25 July, and then converted Bogdanov’s front into a Reserve Front on 30 July, Stalin spent the last few days of July and the first few days of August shaking up the Western Direction Command’s senior command cadre. First, acting on Zhukov’s recommendation, on 3 August the Stavka replaced Kalinin as commander of 24th Army with Konev and, on the same day, transferred 34th Army from the Reserve Front’s control to the Northwestern Front.⁴¹ Still later, on 4 August, the Stavka assigned Kachalov’s 28th Army to Zhukov’s Reserve Front, apparently in the hope Zhukov could reinvigorate its advance from Roslavl’ region toward Smolensk.⁴² In the meantime, while the Stavka reorganized its forces in preparation for yet another round of offensive operations, the Germans set about reducing the Smolensk pocket, in the process initiating five days of intense and often desperate fighting as the two Soviet armies in the Smolensk pocket fought their way out of encirclement to the east.

Thus, although the Western Front’s counteroffensive really consisted of a hastily conducted series of partially coordinated counterstrokes, the effort placed immense pressure on overextended German panzer and motorized units and caused frightful casualties on both sides. Although they failed because they were badly coordinated and lacked adequate fire and logistical support, nevertheless, the cumulative effect of these actions deprived Army Group Center of its operational flexibility and seriously eroded its offensive strength. As a result, the struggle convinced Hitler and many other senior German commanders that it would perhaps be prudent to halt direct offensive action along the Smolensk-Moscow axis and instead mount a major offensive drive into the seemingly more vulnerable Ukraine. But first, Army Group Center had to rid itself of the vexing Smolensk pocket once and for all.

The Struggle for the Smolensk Pocket, 24–31 July

While Timoshenko’s operational groups pounded Army Group Center’s forces northeast, east, and southeast of Smolensk region, the surviving forces of the nearly encircled 16th, 19th, and 20th Armies, operating under General Kurochkin’s overall command, fought desperately to maintain their grip on the northern part of the city of Smolensk and their defensive positions north and east of the city, all the while keeping an escape hatch open to the east. At the same time, from 24 through 26 July, Zorn’s 20th Motorized Division of Third Panzer Group’s XXXIX Motorized Corps and Thoma’s 17th Panzer Division of Second Panzer Group’s XXXXVII Motorized Corps continued their determined efforts to slam closed the narrow Solov’evo corridor, which linked the forces of the three encircled Soviet armies with Timoshenko’s main defensive lines east of Smolensk. Try as they did, however, the two German panzer divisions proved unable to close the escape route, largely due to the diversionary assaults launched by 24th Army at El’nia and by Group Rokossovsky at and south of Iartsevo. This failure, however, also resulted from the acute shortage of panzer grenadiers in virtually all German panzer divisions.

See Map 26 and Map 30. The Smolensk encirclement late on 26 July 1941.

By this time, the infantry divisions of Ninth Army’s V and Second Army’s VIII Army Corps were pressing Kurochkin’s forces into an ever-shrinking pocket northeast and east of Smolensk. As the pocket shrunk, Bock was able to take forces dedicated to the encirclement battle and dispatch them to other more threatened sectors of the front. For example, between 22 and 24 July, he diverted 263rd and 292nd Infantry Divisions of Second Army’s IX Army Corps, which had previously been en route to the southern flank of the Smolensk pocket, to the southeast to help block Operational Group Kachalov’s advance, which had reached the Pochinok region only 50 kilometers south of Smolensk. Most important, XX Army Corps’ 129th Infantry Division marched southward and relieved Harpe’s 12th Panzer Division on the northern flank of the inner encirclement ring, increasing the number of infantry divisions pressing the northern half of the pocket from three to four. This permitted Harpe to deploy his division eastward to reinforce the hard-pressed defenses along XXXIX Motorized Corps’ “eastern” front between 7th and 20th Panzer Divisions. The 12th Panzer also took control of 900th Motorized “Lehr” Brigade, which, worn down in its defensive battles, welcomed 12th Panzer’s arrival.