Editing Semyon Timoshenko (section)

==== 1941–1942 ====
In the weeks before the [[Operation Barbarossa|German invasion of the Soviet Union]], Timoshenko and Zhukov were worried by reports that German planes were crossing the Soviet border at least 10 times a day, and on 13 June, they asked Stalin for permission to put the troops on the western border on high alert, but were overruled because Stalin was convinced that there would be no German invasion before spring 1942.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Pleshakov |first1=Constantine |title=Stalin's Folly, The Secret History of the German Invasion of Russia, June 1941 |date=2005 |publisher=Weidenfeld and Nicolson |location=London |isbn=978-0-297-84626-0 |pages=1–2}}</ref>

General [[Ivan Boldin]], deputy commander on the western front, recounted in memoirs published 20 years later that early in the morning of the invasion, on 22 June, when several towns in Belarus, including [[Grodno]], were being bombed, aircraft destroyed on the ground, troops were being strafed, and German paratroopers were landing behind Red Army lines, Timoshenko rang him with an instruction that "no action is to be taken against the Germans without our knowledge ... Comrade Stalin has forbidden to open artillery fire against the Germans".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Werth |first1=Alexander |title=Russia At War, 1941–1945 |date=1965 |publisher=Pan |location=London |pages=154–155}}</ref>
 
On 23 June, Timoshenko was named chairman of [[Stavka]], the Soviet Armed Forces High Command.<ref name="ZiemkeBauer1987">{{cite book|author1=Earl Frederick Ziemke|author2=Magna E. Bauer|title=Moscow to Stalingrad|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yjOxtqM8768C&pg=PA30|year=1987|publisher=Government Printing Office|isbn=978-0-16-080081-8|page=24}}</ref> In July 1941, Stalin replaced Timoshenko as Defense Commissar and Stavka's chairman. At the same time, the [[Western Front (Soviet Union)|Western Front]] was divided into three sectors, with Timoshenko put in command of the  [[Soviet Central Front|Central Front]]{{sfn|Glantz|House|2009|p=41}} to supervise a fighting retreat from the border to [[Smolensk]]. The Northern Front was commanded by Voroshilov, and the [[Southwestern Front (Soviet Union)|Southwestern Front]] by Budyonny, both of whom were removed by Stalin for incompetence after only a few weeks.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Montefiore |first1=Simon Sebag |title=Stalin, The Court of the Red Tsar |date=2004 |publisher=Phoenix |location=London |isbn=0-75381-766-7 |pages=388, 394–395}}</ref> Timoshenko was transferred to [[Ukraine]] in September to replace Budyonny and restore order at the gates of [[Kiev]]. On 23 October, the Soviets made Timoshenko command the entire southern half of the Eastern Front and [[Georgy Zhukov]] command the northern half.<ref>Archived at [https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211205/CjN6aybNbsQ Ghostarchive]{{cbignore}} and the [https://web.archive.org/web/20201101080915/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjN6aybNbsQ&gl=US&hl=en Wayback Machine]{{cbignore}}: {{cite web| url = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjN6aybNbsQ&t=631s| title = 113 – Martial Law in Moscow, but is the Cavalry coming? – WW2 – October 24, 1941 | website=[[YouTube]]| date = 24 October 2020 }}{{cbignore}}</ref> In November and December 1941, Timoshenko organized major counter offensives in the [[Battle of Rostov (1941)#Rostov Offensive Operation|Rostov]] region, as well as carving a bridgehead into German defenses south of [[Kharkiv]] in January 1942.{{sfn|Glantz|House|2009|p=41}}

In May 1942, Timoshenko, with 640,000 men, launched a counter-offensive (the [[Second Battle of Kharkov]]), which was the first Soviet attempt to gain initiative in the springtime war. After initial Soviet successes, the Germans struck back at Timoshenko's exposed southern flank, halting the offensive, encircling Timoshenko's armies, and turning the battle into a major Soviet defeat.

The fact that he was the most senior Soviet army officer with a front-line command during most of the first year after the German invasion turned Timoshenko, briefly, into an international celebrity, lionised in the US and UK in particular as a supposed military genius. According to an account written later in the war:

{{blockquote|Marshal Timoshenko flared up like a shooting star of unusual brightness against a sky that was more than commonly dark, and faded just as swiftly and unexpectedly. From June 1941 to about July 1942, so famous was he that foreigners, notably the Welsh and Irish, attempted to inch under his halo by finding their blood in him. The Welsh said that Timothy Jenkins was the Marshal's ancestor who had migrated to Russia to work as a mechanic and marry a Ukrainian girl. The Hibernians told a similar story about a certain Tim O'Shenko. In June 1942, an American humorist wrote: "I am waiting to hear from the Poles, the Czechs, the Brazilians and the Greeks. Everybody wants to be a winner." But just then, Marshal Timoshenko began his descent from glory.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Parry |first1=Albert |title=Russian Cavalcade, a Military Record |date=1944 |publisher=Ives Washburn Inc. |location=New York |page=222 |url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.$b86566&view=1up&seq=9 |access-date=22 November 2022}}</ref>|}}
 
General [[Georgy Zhukov]]'s success in defending Moscow during December 1941 had persuaded Stalin that he was a better commander than Timoshenko.{{citation needed|date=February 2017}} On 22 July 1942, Stalin replaced Timoshenko with [[Vasily Gordov]] as Commander of the [[Stalingrad Front]] due to his failures up to that point in the war,<ref>Archived at [https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211205/YAfo5mse-ag Ghostarchive]{{cbignore}} and the [https://web.archive.org/web/20200401163013/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAfo5mse-ag Wayback Machine]{{cbignore}}: {{cite web| url = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAfo5mse-ag&t=911s| title = Battlestorm Stalingrad E1 – The 6th Army Strikes! | website=[[YouTube]]| date = 7 October 2019 }}{{cbignore}}</ref> making him "Chairman of the High Command". He was called back into service as overall commander of the [[Northwestern Front]] between October 1942 and March 1943.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://generals.dk/general/Timoshenko/Semen_Konstantinovich/Soviet_Union.html|title=Biography of Marshal of Soviet Union Semen Konstantinovich Timoshenko – (Семен Константинович Тимошенко) (1895–1970), Soviet Union|website=generals.dk}}</ref>