This month, seventy years ago, the Wehrmacht’s Army Group Center, under the command of Field Marshal Fedor von Bock, renewed its assault on the Soviet capital. After the stunning successes of the Summer and early Fall, the Axis leadership thought that the Red Army must be on the verge of collapse and that one more good push would surely capture the Soviet capital. And certainly the capture of the Soviet capital by Army Group Center would be quite an accomplishment for its commander.
    However, in retrospect, the tide was beginning to turn against the Axis. The Fall rains had turned the roads into rivers of mud. Efforts to move equipment under these conditions significantly increased fuel consumption, thereby further straining the already overstretched German supply system. The supply lines from the Fatherland stretched more than a thousand miles. The new T-34 tanks were beginning to appear on the battlefield in significant numbers and were almost impervious to everything but the 88s. Panzer commander, General Heinz Guderian, said that, “Our Mark IVs (the Germans’ heaviest tank), with their short 75mm guns, could only disable a T-34 by hitting the engine from behind,” and with wider tracks, the T-34s were able to move more easily in the muddy conditions than the German tanks. Partisan activity was beginning to be felt.  The German tanks and other equipment were worn out after six months of campaigning. Fresh Soviet troops continued to appear.
    The German effort to conquer the Soviet capital was called Operation Typhoon and began October 1. The effort would involve more than 1,000,000 soldiers, 1700 tanks and 14,000 guns. From Army Group North, 4th Panzergruppe, commanded by Erich Hoepner, was added to Army Group Center for the final push. In addition to 4th Panzergruppe, the Army Group included: Second Army, commanded by Col. Gen. Reichsfreiherr Maximilian von Weichs; Second Panzerarmee, commanded by Col. Gen. Guderian; Fourth Army, commanded by Field Marshal Günther von Kluge; Ninth Army, commanded by Col.Gen. Adolf Straub; and 3rd Panzergruppe - after November 16, Third Panzerarmee - commanded by Georg-Hans Reinhardt. The Luftwaffe’s Luftflotte 2, under the command of Field Marshal Albert Kesselring was attached to the Army Group. But Luftflotte 2 was down to only 549 planes.
    To oppose the offensive, the Soviets assembled 1,250,000 soldiers, 1000 tanks and 7600 guns. The Voenno-Vozdushnye Sily - VVS - had 936 aircraft.
    Soon after the Operation began, Hitler said, “After three months of preparations, we finally have the possibility to crush our enemy before the winter comes. All possible preparations are done. Today starts the last battle of the year.”  Except that winter comes very early there. And the German soldiers had no winter clothing and the German equipment had not been built to withstand the kind of prolonged cold that it would soon encounter.
    Although the Red Army had suffered devastating defeats, what it had done was buy time. With that dearly bought time, the Soviets had constructed several bands of defenses around the capital. Trenches were dug. Defenses were constructed. Barricades were built. Bunkers were erected. 3,000,000 cubic meters of earth were moved - by hand. And General Winter would soon arrive.
    On October 3, Orel was captured. The first snow fell on October 7. Now, having been brought from Leningrad, on October 10, was General Georgii Zhukov, to command the defense of Moscow. He was aided by his brilliant Chief-of-Staff, Vasili  Sokolowski, and future Marshals Ivan Koniev and Andre Yeremenko.
    Stalin ordered the Communist Party, the General Staff and the civil government to evacuate from the capital on October 13. Muscovites called this “The Great Skedaddle.” The “Boss” asked Zhukov if the city could be held and told him to, “...speak honestly, like a communist.” The general replied that it was possible - with reserves. Stalin was scheduled to depart on the evening of October 16. His train was at the station, ready to depart. The Soviet dictator never arrived. That was the turning point in the war. If Stalin had left, Moscow would have fallen. And if Moscow had fallen, the war would have been lost.
    By October 20, 500,000 of Moscow’s citizens - 75 percent of them women - had dug 5000 miles of trenches and anti-tank ditches and strung 185 miles of barbed wire - all during the rain. The Wehrmacht was only 65 miles from the Soviet capital. It had already conquered 600,000 square miles of Soviet territory with a population of 65,000,000 and taken more than 3,000,000 prisoners.
    But the mighty Wehrmacht was wearing down. The infantry divisions were operating at 65 percent effectiveness while the effectiveness of the panzers was far less. Of the 31 daily supply trains needed by Army Group Center, half were arriving.
    On November 7, 1941, the Soviet Union staged its annual parade, led by General Pavel Artemyev, in Red Square, celebrating the anniversary of the October Revolution - with the Wehrmacht mere miles from the city. The reason the October Revolution was celebrated in November was because after the Revolution, the U.S.S.R. had joined the rest of the world in using the Gregorian calendar instead of the Julian calendar. The change moved the celebratory date to November 7.
    As the troops passed in review, before Stalin, in Red Square, they continued marching straight to the front. In his remarks, that day, the Soviet leader predicted disaster for the German Wehrmacht. November 7 was the date which Field Marshal von Bock had set for the capture of the Soviet capital. The boom of the guns, at the front, could be heard in the city.
    The German commanders met, on November 13 in Orsha. It is a 900-year-old city in Belarus, with a current population of 125,000. Prior to the war its population was 37,000. After extensive discussion, the decision was made to resume the assault. By then, the temperature had dropped to  minus 8 degrees F.
    The ground froze on November 15, allowing the offensive to pick up speed. Army General Staff Chief, Col.Gen. Franz Halder, wrote in his diary, on November 18, that the enemy, “...had nothing left in his rear, and his predicament probably is even worse than ours.” He was mistaken. An additional 100,000 soldiers, 300 tanks and 2000 guns had arrived to defend the capital, with more arriving daily.
    On a visit to the front, on November 20, Field Marshal von Bock was able to see the city with his field glasses.
    The 7th Panzer Division crossed the Moscow-Volga Canal on November 28. This was the last major obstacle before the Soviet capital and was less than 22 miles from the Kremlin. But the First Shock Army, commanded by Vasilii Ivanovich Kuznetsov drove it back. On December 2, another unit captured a bridge over the canal at the village of Khimki - five miles from Moscow. The spot is marked by a monument in the form of a giant tank trap on the road from Sheremetyevo Airport into the city. It was the high water mark of the Wehrmacht.  A band of hastily armed Soviet workers was rushed from the city and drove the Germans back across the canal. The same day, General Halder noted that, “...enemy defense has reached its peak. No more reinforcements available.”
    By now, the Soviet leader knew, through master spy Richard Sorge, that the Japanese were not going to attack the U.S.S.R., but rather were going to attack the U.S. and U.K. Consequently, the Soviets had quietly been moving divisions from the Far East and Siberia to the Moscow area. Many of these troops were Siberians acclimated to the cold, which was now as low as minus 31 degrees F. Snowdrifts reached five feet.
    On December 5, the Soviets launched their little winter surprise - 1,100,000 fresh soldiers - supported by 10,000 tanks and 8000 guns. By now, the Soviets’ historical ally - “General Winter” -  had arrived. The Wehrmacht reported 130,000 cases of frostbite. The lubricating grease in the machines froze. Telescopic sights were rendered useless by the cold. The metal in the weapons became so brittle it broke. If sentries fell asleep, they never saw the morning. The Luftwaffe disappeared from the skies.
    On December 10, Army Commander-in-Chief Field Marshal Walther von Brauchitsch suffered a heart attack and was relieved of command and replaced by der Führer, himself. Permission to withdraw was given by General Halder, on December 14. By then, the Red Army had pushed the Germans back 50 miles. Field Marshal von Bock was dismissed for “health reasons” on December 18 and replaced by Field Marshal von Kluge.
    On December 20, Hitler canceled the permission to withdraw and issued his famous “No retreat” order, which most say saved the German army from utter destruction. Most believe that if it had tried to retreat across the icy, barren, steppes of Russia, it would have suffered the same fate as Napoleón’s Grande Armée. When Generals Guderian, Hoepner and Strauss expressed their disagreement with the Supreme Warlord, they, too, were dismissed. In all, 35 senior generals were dismissed, including the commanders of the other two Army Groups - Field Marshals von Rundstedt and von Leeb.
    Although, Hitler’s “Stand Fast” order may have saved the army - this time - it laid the groundwork for its later destruction, when in the future, he thought he knew more than the generals and began to micro manage operations from 1000 miles away, restricting their ability to maneuver and most importantly to retreat - for any reason.
    After the New Year, the Luftwaffe was able to get into the air and the Red Army ran out of steam. By January 7, the situation had stabilized, but the Wehrmacht had been driven back 100 miles.
    On the other side, the Red Army’s success had a similar intoxicating effect on Stalin. Now, he thought he was a military genius and the Red Army would have to suffer a few more losses before he began to listen to its commanders.
    Casualties from this battle cannot be given with any precision. One reason for this is determining a beginning and an end. Suffice it to say that the minimum estimates are 650,000 Soviet and 250,000 German casualties. To put these numbers in perspective, American casualties for the entire war barely exceeded 1,000,000.
    Army Group Center’s Commander, Field Marshal von Bock, would later say that, “All along, I demanded upon the High Command the authority to strike down the enemy while he was wobbling.  We could have finished the enemy last summer. We could have destroyed him completely. Last August, the road to Moscow was open. We could have entered the Bolshevik Capital in triumph and in summery weather. The high military leadership of the Fatherland made a terrible mistake when it forced my Army Group to adopt a position of defense last August.  Now all of us are paying for that mistake.”
    Beginning May 1, 1944 the Soviet Government issued more than a million medals for the defense of Moscow. On the 20th Anniversary of Victory Day, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR honored Moscow with the designation of Hero City.
    The great Napoleón said that, “Strategy is the art of making use of time and space. I am less concerned about the latter than the former. Space we can recover - lost time, never.” During the summer, the Germans had squandered their time, and Moscow - and the world - had been saved.

NEXT MONTH: BLACK (AND RED) DECEMBER

Mr. Wimbrow writes from Ocean City, Maryland, where he practices law representing those persons accused of criminal and traffic offenses, and those persons who have suffered a personal injury through no fault of their own.