ABSTRACT
The German offensive quickly gained momentum and by the end of the summer the Germans was swarming over the North Caucasus region in the south-east and had reached Volga to the north-east of that region. After the losses suffered by the Germans so far, and the Soviets' tenacious defence and troop mobilization, the German Army only had the strength to attack concentrated on the southern third of the Soviet-German front this summer. However, the easy German breakthrough in the South prompted the MI3(c) to revise its earlier estimates of the Soviet power of resistance. By mid-July of 1942, just as the German offensive had gained momentum, recent developments were commented on by the MI3(c). The Foreign Office (FO) received reports from the Czechoslovak Minister to the Soviet Union by the beginning of August, which stated that the Soviet regime would not collapse even in the event of the German offensive being very successful.
