After The Operation
The Battle of Smolensk was another severe defeat for the Soviets in the opening phase of Operation Barbarossa. However, this Axis victory did not come without strategic implications. For the first time, the Soviets tried to implement a determined coordinated counterattack against a large part of the front, although its main immediate result was that the battle did not end even more badly. Nevertheless, the increasing resistance showed that the Soviets were not yet defeated, and that the Blitzkrieg towards Moscow was not going to be an easy task. This exacerbated a division between the German high command and political leadership. The leaders of the General Staff, Franz Halder and Walter von Brauchitsch, and frontline commanders like von Bock, Hoth, and Guderian counseled against dispersing the German armored units and to focus directly on Moscow. Hitler reiterated the lack of importance of Moscow and strategic encirclements, and ordered a concentration on economic targets such as Ukraine, the Donets Basin, and the Caucasus, and more tactical encirclements to weaken the Soviets further. As a result, the German offensive effort became more fragmented, leading to the battles at Kiev and Uman. Those battles were also German victories, but also cost them vital time, men, and materiel on their approach towards Moscow, allowing the Soviets time to prepare the defenses of the city.
Read more about this topic: Battle Of Smolensk (1941)
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“Human knowledge and human power meet in one; for where the cause is not known the effect cannot be produced. Nature to be commanded must be obeyed; and that which in contemplation is as the cause is in operation as the rule.”
—Francis Bacon (1560–1626)