-
Operation ‘Barbarossa (1941)
Hitler’s surprise attack on the USSR was the most devastating victory of the whole war; as a battle it covered the largest area. The Wehrmacht’s first objective was achieved: the rapid destruction the Red Army in western Russia. -
Operation ‘Torch
The Allied landings in Morocco and Algeria were an easy battle: Vichy French troops were the original opponent, and they quickly changed sides. But ‘Torch’ was the first successful strategic offensive, and American troops crossed the Atlantic for the first time. -
Stalingrad, November 1942 to January 1943
The three-month battle is often seen to be the war’s turning point. After Stalingrad the Wehrmacht would make no further advances in the USSR. The mid-November 1942 mobile operation to cut off the city demonstrated for the first time the skill of the rebuilt Red Army. -
Briansk-Orel/Belgorod-Kharkov, July-August 1943
The Battle of Kursk (July 1943) is commonly regarded as one of the three great Soviet victories, and the first achieved in the summer (unlike Moscow and Stalingrad).
Hitler’s offensive against the Kursk salient (Operation ‘Citadel’) was indeed halted, but it had had only limited objectives, and the Soviets suffered higher losses. More significant were the counter-offensives that followed ‘Citadel’: north of Kursk (Briansk/Orel – Operation ‘Kutuzov’) and south of it -
Operation ‘Bagration’, June–July 1944
Surprised by the location of the attack, the Germans were then overwhelmed by the pace and uninterrupted nature of the advance – within six weeks an entire army group had been destroyed, most of Soviet territory had been liberated, and spearhead units had advanced as far as central Poland. The pressure of ‘Bagration’ aided the British-American advance from Normandy. -
Normandy, June–July 1944
To many people in the UK, D-Day (6 June) and the following six weeks of fighting in Normandy is the most obvious ‘significant battle’: it allowed the rapid liberation of western Europe.