Was Odessa a victory or failure?

It's known that the Romanian army suffered casualties on a 2:1 ration and it took the 4th Army a considerable amount of time to capture the city despite the fact that the romanians easily outnumbered the soviets. And in the end it wasn't even captured because the defending troops were evacuated and when the romanians made their way inside Odessa it was already empty. In this regard Odessa was more "given away" than captured.

The troops retreated from Odessa because of the ones that were siegieng right outside If you read about the Odesas campaign you will notice the romanian army did manage to inflict important losses to the soviets and get close to the port-town.

Ofcourse romanians had high losses - they were attacking and the russians were defending in well fortified positions.

Odessa needed to be captured even with high losses, so its capture cannot possibly be a failure.

This post has been edited by D13-th_Mytzu on June 05, 2006 06:42 am

Hi dmw,

Odessa was a clear success, but a Pyrrhic one.

For a start, the Romanian siege was a bonus that Germans had not initially planned for. It saved them exertions they thought they would have to make themselves. However, it was also something the Romanians had not planned for and were not properly equipped for. This partially accounts for their high losses.

Odessa was the seventh largest city in the USSR and as large as contemporary Bucharest. It was a big prize. (Its capture made Mussolini furious as he had nothing similar to show.)

The Romanian siege of Odessa had positive impacts elsewhere for the Axis. Soviet losses were high amongst the garrison and it drew in tens of thousands of reinforcements, including at least one complete division, from as far away as the Caucasus. As a result the Soviet defence of the Crimea was weakened considerably. It was only by a narrow margin that the Germans managed to break into the Crimea. If the Soviet garrison of Odessa had been present they would probably have failed to break into the Crimea in 1941.

It should be pointed out that the Soviet evacuation, although impressive, was not the immaculate operation their propaganda claimed. For example, they left some 7,000 prisoners and photographs show that much military equipment was destroyed and abandoned in Odessa docks.

The Red Army, although it several times came close to collapse, performed very well at Odessa. The Germans were to find that under similar circumstances they had similar problems against it. Sebastopol held out against them (and the Romanians) for over half a year. A large Soviet beachead west of Leningrad held out for several years and was never captured. The Germans also found it impossible to eliminate the "Little Land" beachead opposite Novorosiisk. The outcome at Odessa is not so surprising if one looks at similar actions elsewhere and takes into account the limitations of the Romanian Army.

Cheers,

Sid.

A big if, that seems to assume the Odessa garrison would have been made available for defending Crimea while the (freed) Romanian 4th would not assist in the attack.

The Russians defense in Odessa was IMO optimal use of limited ressources to tie down Axis forces. The Russians knew a port city of such size (with sea resupply capacity) could not be simply bypassed as it would constitute a dangerous threat to the logistical tail of AGS.

This post has been edited by Chutzpah on June 06, 2006 09:03 am

Hi Chutzpah,

Not such a big "if".

If you read Manstein's account of his breakthrough of the Perekop Isthmus into the Crimea you will see that it was a close run thing. The leading elements of the evacuated Soviet garrison of Odessa were actually on the march across the central Crimea towards the isthmus when the Germans finally broke through.

The only element of 4th Army that is known to have been allocated to action further east than Transnistria was the armoured division (really brigade). This became tied down at Odessa after heavy tank losses in August. Otherwise, 4th Army was operating at the extreme limit of its logistical possibilities at Odessa.

Furthermore, even had 4th Army moved on east, the Perekop Isthmus was extremely narrow and there was no room to deploy additional Romanian forces on it.

I would agree that the Red Army made very good use of limited resources at Odessa. However, the siege of Odessa had wider positive outcomes for the Axis.

I think there is a good case that although the siege of Odessa didn't do the Romanians much good, it was very useful to the Germans.

Cheers,

Sid.

Romanian troops were already deployed at Genicesk (east of Perekop, where railway entered Crimea) before the german attack at Perekop istmus.

This post has been edited by D13-th_Mytzu on June 06, 2006 11:46 am

If you read Caesar at the Sabis, you will see he saved Rome singlehandedly during the closest fight a Roman army ever fought. Hint...

Just kidding. Yes I read Manstein, a long time ago. Not without it's problems but all in all fairly interesting memoirs. The best I've read from any German general. Well perhaps because he was the best German general

Thank you for your insight Sid. I haven't read Lost Victories so I wasn't aware that the Wehrmacht's breaktrough in the Crimea was such a tight call.

You could also read about this issue in "Romanii in Crimea". Manstein's book could be also bought in romanian - I got it some time ago.

Afaik the Soviets only left Odessa to get more troops into Sevastopol for defence.

Thus, they did not leave because of the Siege of Odessa. Thus, the siege of Odessa 1941 was a failure even w/o thinking about the huge losses on the Romania side.

Hi Yogy,

No. The garrison of Odessa was withdrawn to better defend the Crimea at Perekop, not specifically Sevastopol. Sevastopol came under siege because the Perekop position fell before the Odessa garrison could reach it.

Cheers,

Sid.

Well, in order to answer the question one has to decide:

- was there an established time limit for the capture of Odessa?
- was the goal to capture and occupy the city or to capture/destroy the defending troops?

If these things are clarified, then it is easy to decide if it was mission accomplished or failure. Just my 2 cents.

take care

The target of beleaguring a city is always to
a ) capture it was fast as possible:
b ) destroy / capture all troops stationed there
c ) with minimal losses
These were targets here, otherwise romanians wouldn't have attacked .

None of these targets was achieved:
A ) The Soviets hold out as long as THEY wanted; only external reasons made them leave Sewastopol (german threat on Crimea) and tehy coudl move out at their will.
B ) most of the soviet troops were able to escape
D ) romanian losses were huge, see above.
And even after Odessa was axis territory, everybody in the Wehrmacht tried to evade it because it was totally "infected" with partisans who lived in the underground. The partisans btw. were found to be equipped mainly with german weapons which they took from killed soldiers.

--> The Odessa operation was definitely NO success.

This post has been edited by yogy on July 24, 2006 12:29 pm

Hi Yogy,

I have little time to reply except to say that the Odessa partisan story has only a small grain of truth. A few partisans hid out in the catacombs but caused little damage. The stories about hundreds of undergound partisans, subterranean hospitals, etc., is largely a Soviet propaganda creation. A book by Alexander Dallin effectively demolishes the partisan myth. In fact the whole of Transnistria was notable for its passivity. It has even been suggested that Stalin punished Odessa for its passivity under the Romanians by deliberately putting it low on the post-war reconstruction priority list. (See Alexander Weth).

Cheers,

Sid.

Not necessarily in the case of b ). An avenue of retreat can be allowed for the forces stationed there in order to avoid a prolongued and costly "to the death" fight in an urban environment.