Refugees were posing an acute and growing problem in the south, as in the north. Large numbers of people from Augsburg and Ulm had moved in the direction of Stuttgart, and a rapidly increasing mass of frightened people was building up in the vicinity of Karlsruhe. The same sort of thing was also happening where crowds fleeing from Nurnberg and Wurzburg, augmented by refugees from smaller places, were bearing down on Mannheim. From the Frankfurt area there was a good deal of movement in the direction of Wiesbaden and Mainz. The general picture was one of a widespread and virtually uncontrollable flow from east to west, much of it on foot with possessions piled on vehicles drawn by animals or pushed or dragged by hand, with a chaotic jumble of motor vehicles of every description, more and more of them abandoned as petrol supplies gave out. At the Rhine crossings the pressure was tremendous; to keep the bridges open was putting increasing strain on Federal German police and territorial troops. Disorder was increased by determined Soviet air attack, both at low and medium levels, of which some at least always got through the defences. The importance of maintaining freedom of movement across the Rhine for the Allies, and of blocking it for the Warsaw Pact, was fully realized on both sides. By the fourth day some success began to attend the strenuous efforts of Federal German police and territorial troops to establish control over refugee movements and divert them into areas of open country east of the river. This did much to relieve pressure on the Rhine crossings but could not prevent serious interference with the movement of troops and other essential military traffic.
To the north of the Central Region AFNORTH was proving a tougher proposition for the Warsaw Pact than many in the West had expected, perhaps because few had much experience of the very great difficulty of movement from north to south in Norway. By 4 August the Allied Command Europe (ACE) Mobile Force of seven battalions with supporting troops had been put in by air and deployed north of Narvik. A Royal Marine Commando came in from Britain by sea and other Allied reinforcements arrived by sea and air to strengthen and support Norwegian national forces deployed in north Norway.
Advanced elements of a Soviet motor-rifle division crossed into Norway from the Kola peninsula on 4 August. A second was already moving westwards through Finnish Lapland, directed on Narvik. The fact that the Soviet and Finnish railway systems were integrated meant that no movement problem hampered the early follow-on of eight to ten more Soviet divisions. Soviet air superiority was complete.
The relative strengths of ground troops in AFNORTH did not, however, give a true measure of the Warsaw Pact advantage. It was less than it looked. The strength of the defence lay in the very great difficulty of deployment for offensive action, even with a favourable air situation. It was, in fact, only the action of a Soviet amphibious force in effecting a landing south of Bodo on 10 August that was to compel a southward redeployment of Allied forces to protect the land line of communication through north Trondelag and Nordland. By 15 August a firm Allied defence was based on Trondheim, which was unlikely to be seriously threatened so long as a delaying action continued to be successfully fought in the north.
To the south of the Central Region, HQ AFSOUTH, with a hastily put together Italian government in exile, had moved on 6 and 7 August to Spain. The Italian peninsula was now entirely under Soviet control, though with no great strength in Red Army troops.
The Italian and US air elements based in Italy constituting 5 Allied Tactical Air Force, after their initial operations, found themselves overtaken by the virtual disintegration of the NATO Southern Region. The wings and squadrons were faced with a fleeting chance and those aircrew who had serviceable aircraft took it by flying to Spain and the south of France where they were subsequently used as a general reserve of tactical air power for the central battle, chiefly in the south of the Central Region.
Holland came under Soviet occupation as far south as the River Maas by 10 August, the seat of government having removed to Eindhoven. The last remnants of a Dutch defence of the frontier had been dispersed in an action near Lingen on the 8th, and thereafter only floods caused by the opening of the dykes and an active civilian resistance had stood in the invaders’ way.
