On 12 May 1942 the Soviet Southwestern Front of Marshal Semyon Timoshenko attacked toward Kharkov in eastern Ukraine, out of the Izium bulge. A German counterstroke from 17 May trapped the attacking armies, and German reports counted about 240,000 prisoners. Also on 12 May, in 1864, Union troops stormed the Mule Shoe at Spotsylvania, Virginia.
Second Battle of Kharkov
12 May 1942 · 84 years ago
Two plans for one salient
By the spring of 1942 the front south of Kharkov bulged into the German lines around Izium. The U.S. Army's official history, by Earl Ziemke and Magna Bauer, and a 2025 study by the Ukrainian historians Iryna and Oleksandr Avtushenko, who call the bulge the Barvenkovo salient, describe the Soviet plan as a main attack out of the bulge and a secondary one from the area of Volchansk.1
The two accounts differ on who pressed for the attack. Ziemke and Bauer cite Vasilevsky's memoirs: Boris Shaposhnikov, chief of the General Staff, pointed out the risks of attacking out of a pocket like the Izium bulge, but Timoshenko convinced Stalin that the operation would be a "complete success". The Avtushenkos write that the final decision was taken at Stalin's personal insistence and, citing Zhukov's memoirs, that he rejected Shaposhnikov's warning about the lack of reserves.2
Army Group South, under Field Marshal Fedor von Bock, was preparing its own attack on the bulge, Operation Fridericus.3
The first days
On the morning of 12 May, Ziemke and Bauer write, the Soviet Sixth Army, the Bobkin Group and Twenty-eighth Army went over to the offensive; the Avtushenkos give the same date. Halder's entry for that day reads: "Heavy enemy attacks at Volchansk and in VIII Corps sector against Sixth Army, objective Kharkov. The enemy used 100 tanks in each attack and has scored considerable initial successes". Halder noted the same day that the 23rd Panzer Division had been released for the front, and Ziemke and Bauer write that Bock gave it to the hard-pressed Sixth Army.4
The Soviet Short History, as Ziemke and Bauer report it, gives the attackers only a 3:2 advantage in infantry and 2:1 in tanks at the points of attack. The Avtushenkos, citing A. Galushko and M. Kolomiets, give the Southwestern Front 1.5 times the enemy's manpower and more than twice his tanks.5
Yet the tank corps Timoshenko held back to exploit a breakthrough were not sent in during the first days: Ziemke and Bauer write that he did not commit them on 14 May, and the Avtushenkos that he ordered them in only for dawn on 16 May and that they failed to reach their start lines in time. On 14 May Bock asked for divisions from Kleist's group to patch up the front south of Kharkov, and Halder recorded that the proposal was disapproved: "The situation can be restored only by an attack from the south".6
Fridericus strikes
On the morning of 17 May, Ziemke and Bauer write, Timoshenko committed his second-stage forces and Kleist began Fridericus; the Avtushenkos put the German attack at 6 a.m., with 400 aircraft in support. Halder wrote that Kleist's offensive "has got off to a good start", adding: "We cannot be too sure that we are past the crisis entirely, but it very much looks that way".7
"Let everything remain as it is"
Ziemke and Bauer write that an order to stop the offensive went out to Sixth Army and the Bobkin Group on the evening of 19 May; the Avtushenkos write that it came only in the second half of that day, with Stalin's personal agreement.8
Who was to blame was argued for decades. Looking back in 1956, Nikita Khrushchev, who had been a member of the front's Military Council, told the 20th Party Congress that he had telephoned Stalin, who would speak to him only through Malenkov. "After 'listening' in this manner to our plea," Khrushchev said, "Stalin said: 'Let everything remain as it is!'". Zhukov, quoted by Ziemke and Bauer, wrote that "The version about the military council of the theater sending alarming reports to Stalin is not true". Their verdict: "No matter where the responsibility rested, with Stalin, with the military council of the theater, with Timoshenko, or with all three, Southwest Front had indeed been kept on the offensive south of Kharkov too long".9
The trap closes
The German pincers met behind the bulge near Balakleya: Ziemke and Bauer write that German armor made contact with Sixth Army there on 22 May and that two panzer divisions met west of the town early on the 23rd, and the Avtushenkos place the link-up on 23 May south of Balakleya. Halder wrote on the 23rd: "The Izyum pocket is firmly closed".10
Ziemke and Bauer write that the battle ended on the morning of 28 May, and Halder's entry for that day reads: "The battle at Kharkov and on the Donets is brought to a close with a large take of prisoners and booty". The Avtushenkos date the operation 12 to 29 May.11
Counting the prisoners
The figures given here are German claims. According to Ziemke and Bauer, Armeegruppe Kleist and Sixth Army, after counting for some more days, found they had captured 240,000 prisoners, over 1,200 tanks and 2,600 artillery pieces; the Avtushenkos, citing K. V. Bykov, give German figures of about 240,000 prisoners and of 1,249 tanks and 2,026 guns destroyed and captured.12
The road to Stalingrad
Ziemke and Bauer judge that however well the Kharkov battle went, "it was going to be a dead end for the Russians", since the German rear was filling with divisions for the summer offensive. Hitler, they write, took the speed of the victory as a reason to postpone that offensive, Operation Blau, for two new operations, Wilhelm and Fridericus II; Blau opened on 28 June. The campaign that followed is told in our article on the Battle of Stalingrad, and the wider war in the greatest battles of the Eastern Front.13
Second Battle of Porto, 1809: Wellesley's crossing of the Douro
12 May 1809 · 217 years ago
In the Peninsular War, Wellesley's British and Portuguese troops slipped across the Douro near Porto, where Marshal Soult's French were not watching. The French abandoned the city in disorder, and Soult escaped only through the mountains, leaving his guns behind.
Read the full story of Second Battle of Porto, 1809: Wellesley's crossing of the Douro ›Also on this day
1864: at dawn on 12 May Hancock's Union Second Corps stormed the Mule Shoe salient at Spotsylvania Court House, Virginia. Hancock reported that fog made him wait until 4.35 a.m.; Ewell, whose Confederate corps held the line, and the National Park Service give 4.30. His men, Hancock wrote, "rolled like an irresistible wave into the enemy’s works"; he claimed nearly 4,000 prisoners, Meade's report over 3,000. The National Park Service and the American Battlefield Trust count about 17,000 casualties on both sides in the fighting around the Mule Shoe. The battle is told on our page for 8 May, and John Sedgwick's death on our page for 9 May.14
