Donbass, August 13th, 1943
The Soviet Southwestern Front under Rodion Malinovsky went to the offensive. Within three days it would be joined by the Southern Front increasing the number of Soviet troops involved in the attack to over a million men.
Tirana, August 15th, 1943
An independent Albanian kingdom was proclaimed with German support in the capital of Albania. In the end fear of Greeks and Serbs had been the deciding factor for Albanian nationalists who feared Greek and Yugoslav victory would cost Albania the territorial gains made in 1940-41 and even lead to dismemberment of the country. Albanian help had allowed the Germans advancing from the south to meet the Greeks advancing from the south much faster than the Greeks had hoped, but neither this nor
Balli Kombetar throwing its lot with the Germans stopped the Greek. Argyrokastron, Gjirocaster for the Albanians had been liberated already from August 11th and the Greeks were steadily advancing north. By now they had been joined by over 50,000 Italian soldiers, the German attempt to disarm the Italian army had failed spectacularly, out of the 117,000 Italian troops in Albania, 43,000 had been evacuated by the Italian navy, 22,000 disarmed with a few joining the Germans and the rest had thrown their lot with the Allies.
Diyarbakir, August 15th, 1943
The city fell to the British 9th Army much to the joy of its Kurdish and the dismay of its Turkish inhabitants. To its north two German corps, were holding the line and the path to the all important Ergani chrome mines. Much further west De Lattre's French were pushing north along the railroad towards Malatya while a handful of Morrocan goumiers tried to secure the passes of the Taurus and the road to Cilicia one ravine at a time. Turkish and German casualties were already over 31,000 men since the start of the offensive and keeping to mount...
Katerini, Macedonia, August 16th, 1943
The soldiers of the 143rd Gebirgsjäger Regiment had boarded trains in Erzurum a week earlier for the long journey west, to join the fighting in Macedonia. The Turkish general staff was not entirely happy over removing the 6th Gebirgs division, the last major German unit in the Caucasus front. But the front was quiet for the past several months with Soviet probes easily beaten back and reinforcements were sorely needed in Macedonia, which was just one of the major crises the German army had to deal with...
Peenemünde, August 17th, 1943
560 RAF bombers hit the rocket base. Extensive damage would delay rocket launches for two months and force the Germans to disperse rocket production. But unfortunately for the Allies, or perhaps fortunately given the huge amounts of resources funneled to it, the German ballistic missile program went on.
Lisbon, August 17th, 1943
The Portuguese government publicly announced it would allow Allied naval and air forces to use the Azores islands. It was a step short of joining the war, which the Salazar government was not inclined to do as long as the civil war went on in Spain. When the war was over? It would have to be seen. But it did not look as if it would take very much longer for the question to arise. The Spanish provisional government by now controlled two thirds of Spain and its army held an almost two to one numerical advantage over the Falangists.
Olympus, August 18th, 1943
A night attack by the 2/39 Euzone regiment drove the 99th Gebirgsjäger Regiment out of Sarantaporon in vicious close quarter fighting with grenade and bayonet. The Germans would counterattack at dawn but by then the Greeks had been reinforced by the French 5e Demi-Brigade de Chasseurs Alpins and beat the Germans back. The road to Macedonia was nearly but not quite yet open. But the Germans and the Bulgarians would continue to contest the ground step by step despite mounting casualties, it would take more than a week before the Allies managed to reach Servia and the Aliakmon river.
Kastoria, Macedonia, August 20th, 1943
The men of the Acqui division, were forced to retreat towards the town. The Italian divisions prior to the armistice had been pulled out of the front ostensibly at the request of general Ambrosio, in order to be moved back to Italy. It had proven... inconvenient after the armistice as the Italian 2nd Army in Macedonia had no direct link to the Allied forces in Thessaly. But if the Germans had hoped that this meant the Italian units would be easy prey they had been sorely disappointed. Further north in Yugoslavia the Italian 11th Army had been mostly disbanded with relative ease, even though nearly 24,000 men had managed to join the partisans. But in Greece after some initial incidents of the Germans forcibly disbanding or outright attacking Italian units, 113,000 out of the 2nd Army's 208,000, including entire divisions in some cases had openly declared for the Allies and fought back. Now the question was whether they would be able to hold out till the Allies attacking from the south managed to link with them. But Free Italians had no intention of surrendering. Not after a counterattack by the Alpini of the Taurinense division had recovered the bodies of over a thousand Italian soldiers who had earlier surrendered and the Germans had executed...
Kharkov, August 23rd, 1943
Soviet soldiers raised the red banner over Dzerzhinsky square. The fourth and last battle of Kharkov was over with the city at last liberated.
Chita, Trans-Baikal, August 24th, 1943
The men of the 209th Rifle Division begun boarding the trains, for the journey west. It would take almost two days just to reach Irkutsk 900 km to the west and much more to reach the final destination of the division in Armenia. It was hardly the only units that had received marching orders west. Over 130,000 men from the Far East were to reinforce Triandafilov's Caucasus front...
Albania, August 26th, 1943
The Greek army crossed the pre-war Greek-Albanian border capturing Tepelene. The Allied advance was faster in the centre of the front compared to the flanks, on the western coast the Germans and Albanians still held Himara despite what amounted to all out revolt from the local Greek population and naval support, but no matter delays was steadily gaining ground.
