A.V.
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http://www.historynet.com/the-greatest-german-general-no-one-ever-heard-of.htm
December 1942 was a time of crisis for the German army in Russia. The Sixth Army was encircled in Stalingrad. Gen. Erich von Manstein, the commander of Army Group Don, planned to break the siege with a dagger thrust to the Volga River from the southwest by the Fourth Panzer Army, supported by the XLVIII Panzer Corps to its immediate north attacking across the Don River. But before the two German units could link up, the Soviet Fifth Tank Army under the command of Gen. P. L. Romanenko crossed the Chir River, a tributary of the Don, and drove deep into German lines.
The XLVIII Panzer Corps was suddenly threatened with annihilation. Its only significant combat power was the 11th Panzer Division, which only days before had been operating near Roslavl in Belorussia, some four hundred miles to the northwest. Still strung out along the line of march and arriving little by little, the 11th Division faced what amounted to mission impossible. But arriving with its lead elements was the division commander, Hermann Balck, who was about to execute one of the most brilliant performances of battlefield generalship in modern military history.
December 1942 was a time of crisis for the German army in Russia. The Sixth Army was encircled in Stalingrad. Gen. Erich von Manstein, the commander of Army Group Don, planned to break the siege with a dagger thrust to the Volga River from the southwest by the Fourth Panzer Army, supported by the XLVIII Panzer Corps to its immediate north attacking across the Don River. But before the two German units could link up, the Soviet Fifth Tank Army under the command of Gen. P. L. Romanenko crossed the Chir River, a tributary of the Don, and drove deep into German lines.
The XLVIII Panzer Corps was suddenly threatened with annihilation. Its only significant combat power was the 11th Panzer Division, which only days before had been operating near Roslavl in Belorussia, some four hundred miles to the northwest. Still strung out along the line of march and arriving little by little, the 11th Division faced what amounted to mission impossible. But arriving with its lead elements was the division commander, Hermann Balck, who was about to execute one of the most brilliant performances of battlefield generalship in modern military history.
