Allied Commanders of World War Two/Marshal Zhukov, Part Three

"Georgi Zhukov" Part 3

As Chief of the Soviet General Staff Zhukov faced a daunting task, as German, Rumanian, Hungarian, Finnish, Italian and Slovak forces penetrated deep into Soviet territory, encircling large numbers of Soviet troops and inflicting staggering casualties on the Red Army. Zhukov's problems were complicated by the fact that he not only had to combat the Axis invaders, but he also had to contend with Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, who ordered counterattacks with little knowledge of the actual situation at the front, or with little preparation to give the attacks a chance to succeed. After strenuous arguments, Stalin relieved Zhukov at the end of July 1941, giving him command of a "front."* After some success at slowing the German onslaught in his sector, Zhukov was sent northward to keep Leningrad** from falling to the Germans. Defensive measures were implemented, including minefields, to slow the German advance. Generally small counterattacks sapped the strength of the German and Finnish forces and brought the situation to a stalemate. The Germans had to content themselves with besieging the city until they could bolster their forces for an all out attack, but this opportunity never came.

In the fall of 1941, Zhukov was shifted to the defense of Moscow to halt the German advance bearing down on the capitol. Winter weather and stubborn Soviet resistance brought the German attack to a halt with some German troops actually able to see the spires of the Kremlin off in the distance. A Soviet counteroffensive only a few days later threw the Germans back, but failed to achieve a decisive victory. Still, Moscow had some breathing room and the Germans took up defensive positions. As with Leningrad, the Germans had the idea of renewing the attack when the situation proved more favorable. But also as with Leningrad, the favorable situation never presented itself. The action now shifted to southern Russia and a decisive battle on the Volga River.

Next, the final installment on Marshal Zhukov.

* What the Russians called a "front" was what was termed an "army group" by western Europeans and Americans. An army group or a front was literally a "group of two or more armies serving in the same general area."

** Leningrad was the Soviet-era name for the northern city of Saint Petersburg, which had served as the capitol of Tsarist Russia since the times of Peter the Great, who had had the city built at great cost, including in lives. The Soviets returned the capitol to Moscow. With the fall of the Soviet Union came the renaming of the city as Saint Petersburg, but Moscow remains the capitol.

WORD HISTORY:
Yeoman-First the "yeo" part of this compound; the specifics for the "man" part will be covered in the next article. The ultimate origin of "yeo" is uncertain, but Old Germanic had "gawjan," which seems to have denoted a "piece of land near water; thus land ready for settlement and cultivation." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "gea," which meant "village, region of inhabitants." This then produced "geaman," "a settler, villager," and from this it later took on the meaning "a person who cultivates the land, a farmer." As large landowners became more common, the term was applied to "a common farmer who worked the land on a large estate." This association then led to "a person in the service of a noble." The term is rare in American English, but it is more common in British English, especially because of military units: "Yeoman Cavalry," which were volunteer cavalry used for the defense of England. Later the spelling was "yoman/yeman," depending upon dialect, before the modern spelling. "Yeo" still has some living relatives in other Germanic languages: German has "Gau," an old word for "an administrative region or district, like a county," dating back to Charlemagne (Karl der Grosse, in German), and resurrected by the Nazis for "an administrative district in the Nazi political system, both before and after they took power." It is pretty much confined to use in historical texts now; Dutch has "gouw," "a region or administrative district;" West Frisian was "gea," which means "region."