German Military Invasion of Ukraine: the Beginning of Phase Three (March 5 — late March 1918)

Abstract

It was a challenging task for the German Army to force Bolsheviks out of the Left-Bank Ukraine. The operation began on March 5, 1918. The Dnipro River was a formidable defensive line where Bolsheviks attempted to block German offensive and to oppose Central Rada as the government of Ukraine. Therefore, the principal task of Phase Three was to defeat Bolshevik forces along the line Bakhmach – Poltava – Dnipro bank up to Kherson and Mykolaiv. In case of success, this operation would have paved way to occupation of Donbas (establishment of the demarcation line between Ukraine and Russia), entry into Crimea, and seizure of Sevastopol – the main base of the Black Sea Fleet. Traditionally, these events were considered on the basis of Soviet publications relying on ideological dogmas instead of the trustworthy data. The Ukrainian historiography, in turn, tends to concentrate on operations of the Ukrainian Army, and often misinterprets the overall situation. The research works recently published in Ukraine (by V. Dornik, P. Liba, I. Mykulynskyi, etc.) and Poland (by V. Mȩdrzecki) do not provide an answer to several crucial questions and contain some mistakes. Therefore, it is important to discuss military operations in the Left-Bank Ukraine during March 1918 from the standpoint of the German High Command. During that time, the occupational forces became much stronger. Some valuable data were provided by the archival research considered in the works by V. Mȩdrzecki, V. Dornik, and P. Liba.This article discusses the initial period of Phase Three of the German military invasion of Ukraine (starting on March 5, 1918). On that day German units received respective orders to continue their operations in the Left-Bank Ukraine. By the end of the month Poltava and Bakhmach had been seized, and the Bolsheviks’ feeble defensive line along the Dnipro had been broken enabling further advance to the Russian border. At the same time, victories let German High Command take control over the Ukrainian State and demand food and raw materials supply to continue war on the Western front.