As late as 2 December, Hoepner urged his troops forward stating that "the goal encirclement of Moscow can still be achieved". The next day, he warned Kluge that failure to break off the attack would "bleed white" his formations and make them incapable of defence. Kluge was sympathetic since the south flank of the 4th Army had already had to retreat under Red Army pressure and was on the defensive. Hoepner was ordered to pause his attack, with the goal of resuming it on 6 December. In a letter home, Hoepner blamed Kluge for the inability to seize Moscow, "I alone came to within thirty kilometres to Moscow ... It's very bitter ... in the deciding moment to be left in the lurch and forced to resignation". Such "blinkered thinking" on Hoepner's part was common among the German commanders in charge of the operation, which in Stahel's opinion "even before it began, made little practical sense". On 5 December 1941, with orders to attack the next day, Hoepner called a conference of chiefs-of-staff of his five corps. The reports were grim: only four divisions were deemed capable of attack, three of these with limited objectives. The attack was called off; the Red Army launched its winter counter-offensive on the same day.