Conclusions

In addition to liquidating the persistent threat to Army Group Center’s southern flank, the capture of Gomel’ helped precipitate the collapse of the entire Soviet defensive system west of the Dnepr and Desna Rivers. Within days, in part due to the loss of Gomel’, Colonel General Kirponos’s Southwestern Front was compelled to withdraw its 5th Army from its lodgment west of the Dnepr River at Korosten’ and its 26th Army from its bridgehead on the western bank of the Dnepr River south of Kiev. As a result, by 24 August First Panzer Group’s 11th Panzer Division succeeded in crossing the Dnepr River north of Kiev, and, roughly 645 kilometers farther south, First Panzer Group’s main body also crossed the Dnepr River at Dnepropetrovsk and Zaporozh’e. In this sense, part of what Hitler scheduled as a follow-on phase to the battle of Gomel’ simply fell into his hands as Army Groups Center and South finally linked their flanks together on the western bank of the Dnepr River. Combined with Army Group South’s victories farther south, the fall of Gomel’ also dispelled any lingering doubts Hitler may have harbored about the wisdom of the “southern turn” he postulated in his Directive No. 34.

Thus, by 20 August the Stavka realized the measures it had taken to halt Guderian’s southward advance had proved ineffective. With Gomel’ in German hands, the Central Front essentially hors de combat, and Guderian’s panzers edging southward relatively unimpeded, the Stavka’s strategic defenses along the western axis were in jeopardy of collapsing unless Guderian could be halted.

However, on the positive side of the ledger, Timoshenko’s Western and Zhukov’s Reserve Fronts had fought Bock’s army group to a standstill in the Smolensk region, where they were still pounding the Germans’ defenses and inflicting substantial casualties. Therefore, with sizeable strategic reserves still at his disposal, Stalin decided he had no other recourse but to unleash even more massive counteroffensives, first with the Western and Reserve Fronts, and ultimately with all three fronts subordinate to Timoshenko’s Western Main Direction Command.