Operations Uranus and Mars: World War II Russian Strategies - Essay Example

Operation Mars has been labeled a “failure,” by historians, and it has largely been obliterated from the documented histories of the events of 1942 on the Russian-German front. Even a book about the rise and fall of the Russian officer in charge of Operation Mars never uses the words “Operation Mars.”iii This raises the curious question of why Operation Mars has been so noticeably left out of the accounts of the history of that turning point during the winter of 1942 when the Russians defeated the Germans.

This essay is an examination of Operations Mars and Uranus in an effort to better understand what these military operations involved, and why Mars has been deemed a failure to the extent that historians acknowledge it at all. To thoroughly investigate and understand, we’ll have to begin in Germany prior to the invasion of Russian in 1942. We’ll look at what was the attitude of the German military, what was their force strength, how they approached that Russian campaign. Of particular interest will be the German position, and strategy at the time and place when Operation Mars has deemed a failure, as compared to that position and strategy when Operation Uranus was deemed a success.