Page:Robert M. Kennedy - German Antiguerrilla Operations in the Balkans (1941-1944) - CMH Pub 104-18 (1954).pdf/77

 66 communications system. The 1st and 6th Partisan Divisions were badly mauled in the fighting, suffering a total of 6,000 casualties, and an enormous stock of booty taken. Though not a fatal blow, the operation did achieve its purpose in that the Partisan chain of command was temporarily broken until Tito could establish himself on the island of Vis under British protection, and the heavy personnel and materiel losses forced the guerrillas to withdraw from operations in the area to reorganize and regroup. The German satisfaction over the results of the operation was somewhat tempered, however, with the losses inflicted on the attackers when United States and British aircraft surprised them in the process of combing and clearing the Hvar area.

Strong concentrations of Partisans in Montenegro made it necessary to plan another large-scale operation, called RUEBEZAHL. However, before RUEBEZAHL could be launched, the movement of Partisans toward the Macedonia region required immediate and effective action. Aware of the impending German withdrawal from. Greece and the Soviet advance to the west, the Partisans rushed the first of an estimated thirteen divisions in the direction of the strategic area north of Skoplje. Operation ROESLEIN cost the attackers almost a thousand casualties, but could not prevent a strong force from seizing a stretch of the highway north of Skoplje on 2 August; a hastily formed task force, with a reconnaissance battalion as its nucleus, managed to drive the Partisans off after heavy fighting. To the north, Operation FEUERWEHR inflicted more casualties on the Partisans, but could not prevent their movement into the upper valley of the Morava River.

On 12 August Operation RUEBEZAHL finally got underway, with the 1st Mountain Division and other German forces holding the major part of the advancing Partisan divisions and then driving them back across the Lim River. The results of the operation, though satisfactory in that the Partisans had been stopped from moving into Macedonia in force, were limited by the lack of a German parachute battalion, prevented by a shortage of gasoline from participating in the undertaking in its normal role. Also, the worsening situation with the Bulgarians and Romanians caused the German command to withdraw the 1st Mountain Division as soon as the operation had been completed, preventing exploitation of its success. Too, Partisan units that had managed to move to the east were now in position to threaten all road and rail transportation to the north and Belgrade. (Map 6.)

On 20 August the Russians launched a drive deep into Romania, and on 24 August another of Germany's allies went the way of the Italians a year earlier. The German military headquarters in Bucha