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In late January the Stavka exploited its successes by ordering the Southwestern
and Voronezh Fronts to mount two new offensives toward Khar’kov and into the Donbas
region, and to capture Kursk as well. Initially, the two fronts recorded spectacular
success. The Southwestern Front’s forces crossed the Northern Donets River in early
February, captured Voroshilovgrad on 14 February, and approached Zaporozh’e on the
Dnepr River by 18 February (the Donbas operation). The Voronezh Front’s forces
captured Kursk and Belgorod on 8 and 9 February and Khar’kov on the 16th (the
Khar’kov operation). Swept away by a wave of unbridled optimism, and assuming that
the Germans were about to abandon the Donbas region, the Stavka assigned its forces
ever-deeper objectives, even though Red Army forces were clearly becoming ragged and
overextended and were outrunning their logistical support.
In the midst of these Red Army offensives, Manstein orchestrated a miraculous
feat that preserved German fortunes in the region. Employing forces withdrawn from the
Caucasus and fresh forces from the West, on 20 February he struck the flanks of the
exploiting Southwestern Front’s forces as they neared the Dnepr River. Within days, the
entire Soviet force collapsed, and German forces drove Red Army forces back to the
Northern Donets River in disorder. In early March Manstein’s forces then struck the
Voronezh Front’s forces and recaptured Khar’kov and Belgorod on 16 and 18 March. In
addition to thwarting the Soviet’s ambitious offensive, Manstein’s counterstroke
produced utter consternation within the Stavka. To forestall further defeat, the Stavka
transferred fresh forces into the Kursk and Belgorod regions, which, with deteriorating
weather, forced Manstein Germans to postpone further action. During this period the
Germans also abandoned their Demiansk and Rzhev salients in order to create a more
defensible front. The legacy of combat during this period was the infamous Kursk Bulge,
which protruded westward into German defenses in the central sector of the Soviet-
German front.
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So described, the conventional view of the winter campaign of 1942-43 includes the
following major military operations:
q The Soviet Stalingrad Offensive, Operation Uranus (19 November-1942-2
February 1943)
q Soviet Operation Little Saturn (16-30 December 1942)
q The Krasnodar-Novorossiisk Offensive (11 January-24 May 1943)
q The Soviet Kotel’nikovskii Defense and Offensive (12-30 December 1942)
q The Soviet Siniavino Offensive, Operation “Spark” (12-30 January 1943)
q The Soviet Ostrogozhsk-Rossosh’ Offensive (13-27 January 1943)
q The Soviet Voronezh-Kastornoe Offensive (24 January-5 February 1943)
q The Soviet Donbas Offensive (1-20 February 1943)
q The Soviet Khar’kov Offensive (2-26 February 1943)
q The Soviet Rostov Offensive (1 January-18 February 1943)
q Manstein’s Donbas and Khar’kov Counterstokes (20 February-23 March
1943)
q The Demiansk Offensive (15 February-1 March 1943)
q The Rzhev-Viaz’ma Offensive (2 March-1 April 1943)