Chapter 206
Taking the telescope from Arseni, Yuri stood on the river bank and looked across the river. Everywhere within his sight was covered with a faint white mist. Of course, that was not the mist in the morning light, but the exhaust gas and dust raised by tanks and other vehicles when they were moving.
In the field of view of the telescope, a large number of tanks and armored vehicles were moving rapidly westward on the plains, and the accompanying Soviet infantry were clinging to them like a colony of ants. In the sky were the buzzing formations of - half an hour ago, when it was just dawn, the combat aircraft of the 8th Air Force had launched a fierce battle with the German 4th Air Force over Artyomovsk. However, after more than ten minutes of exchange of fire, the German fighter planes were forced to withdraw from the battle, and the Soviet army completely controlled the air supremacy of the Artyomovsk front line.
On the other side of the river, on the embankment, tens of thousands of German prisoners were being taken to a floating bridge across the river. A 400-man Soviet supervision team was guarding the bridge foundation. They dragged out all the prisoners wearing SS uniforms and officers and shot them directly by the river. In the past two years of war, the German army would shoot all captured Soviet political commissars, and this task was carried out by the SS. The Soviet army's retaliatory measure was to shoot all captured SS members on the spot.
This is actually a vendetta between two races. There is no mercy and no one will show mercy. This can be seen from the corpses piled on both sides of the pontoon.
“Swoosh…”
With a sharp whistling sound, a shell landed on the river bank several dozen meters away. The dirt kicked up by the explosion splashed over and hit Yuri's coat, making a crackling sound.
Including Yuri, all the senior commanders turned a blind eye to this, and no one even retracted their necks.
To put it bluntly , most of the army-level commanders in the Soviet Army today have come through the trials of blood and fire. The world has only seen the alarming casualty rate of high-level commanders in the Soviet Army, but has not imagined that these commanders who survived the front-line command have grown rapidly in just over two years of war.
During the brutal Battle of Stalingrad, both Yuri and Chuikov always set up their headquarters on the battlefield on the west bank of the river. At the closest point, the German offensive was even less than a thousand meters away from the headquarters. The German army only needed a charge to wipe them out. As the supreme commander of the German Ninth Army, where was Paulus's headquarters?
Combat troops need to grow step by step in the war, and the same goes for commanders.
"Let's go to the other side of the river," Yuri handed the telescope to Arseni, turned around, smiled at the people gathered around him, and said.
The jeep convoy soon started moving again, running over a pontoon bridge and heading towards Artyomovsk on the other side of the river.
It has only been three hours and a quarter since the general offensive was launched at 4:20 a.m., and the Soviet offensive forces have ended the fighting in the city of Artyomovsk and advanced to the far southwestern suburbs.
The information received on the military radio showed that the offensive of the Third Ukrainian Front was not very smooth, especially the offensive of the 12th Army, which was stubbornly blocked by the German 4th Infantry Army and suffered heavy losses. On the southern front, the offensive of the 28th Army had broken through the defense of the German 9th Army and was advancing rapidly towards Amvrosyevka.
The so-called German Ninth Army, which was responsible for defending in the direction of the 28th Army's attack, was no longer the Ninth Army that fought hard under the city of Stalingrad. It was an army that was reorganized after the defeat in the Battle of Stalingrad.
Hitler painstakingly retained the 9th Army's designation, but was unable to restore its former glory and strength. The entire army had only more than 30,000 people, most of whom were new recruits, and there were less than 50 armored vehicles. It was a crippled army with a large appearance but a small size.
The Soviet 28th Army, which was facing it, was disbanded twice due to heavy losses. It was not until before the Battle of Stalingrad that it was rebuilt as an army for the third time. Most of the soldiers in its troops had participated in the brutal Battle of Stalingrad and had rich combat experience and were tenacious in fighting.
Therefore, within a few hours after the battle started, the Soviet army broke through the defense line of the German Ninth Army and cut the German army into two parts, north and south.
According to intelligence obtained from aerial reconnaissance, the German Ninth Army and the 29th Infantry Army both showed signs of retreat. It was estimated that their retreat direction and target area should be the Molochnaya River line.
In order to deal with this situation, Tolbukhin changed his deployment and ordered the Azov Fleet to cooperate with the 44th Army to launch an offensive against Osipenko from the sea and open up a front in the direction of the German 9th Army's retreat. At the same time, he ordered the 51st Army to transfer its 19th Tank Army to the 28th Army and quickly penetrate to the Molochna River line in order to encircle and annihilate the main force of the German 9th Army.
Tolbukhin attached great importance to this local battle because it had high political significance: the German Ninth Army was once an elite force, but it was surrounded and annihilated by the Soviet army at the gates of Stalingrad. Afterwards, Hitler rebuilt the organization of this army. Now, if the Fourth Ukrainian Front surrounded and annihilated it again after a few months, it would definitely cause a certain degree of sensation.
It is normal that senior generals like Tolbukhin not only consider victory or defeat on the battlefield when formulating combat plans, but also political issues.
The operational plan to change the deployment was opposed by Yuri at the beginning, but Tolbukhin was unwilling to give up. He submitted a report directly to the base camp, which was eventually approved.
Although Tolbukhin's actions essentially tricked Yuri and made him, the representative of the headquarters, lose face, in reality, who would suffer in the end would only be clear after the battle was over.
According to the original combat purpose, the main offensive direction of the 51st Army was Stalino. The army's task was to advance in the direction of Volnovaha after capturing Stalino, threatening the flank of the German 9th Army and forcing it to retreat voluntarily, rather than encircling and annihilating the German troops.
Why did they only force them to retreat instead of actively pursuing the encirclement and annihilation of the German troops? The reason is very simple, because the purpose of the entire battle is to push the front line to western Ukraine, that is, Romania, in the shortest possible time, and cut off the retreat of the German 17th Army on the Crimean Peninsula.
In other words, the ongoing battle at this time actually served the later Crimean Peninsula Campaign. The real purpose of the headquarters, in addition to realizing the intention to bomb the Romanian oil fields, was to use this battle to provide the prerequisites for the subsequent encirclement and annihilation of the German 17th Army.
The German 17th Army, entrenched in the Crimean Peninsula, is one of the few reorganized armies in the German system. It has five German divisions and seven Romanian divisions, with a total strength of nearly 200,000. Among the five German divisions, there are four field infantry divisions, including the 111th Infantry Division, the 50th "Archer" Infantry Division, and the 73rd "Kleist" Infantry Division, all of which are elite infantry divisions of the German Army.
Once the German 17th Army in the Crimea is annihilated, the German forces on the southern front will become even more stretched. By then, in order to resist the Soviet offensive in the direction of Romania, the German High Command will have to withdraw troops from the Center Army Group to replenish the southern front, which will create favorable conditions for the next Soviet Belarusian Campaign.
Therefore, this was a strategic offensive that concerned the overall situation. Tolbukhin's lack of overall vision and strategic thinking were fully exposed here. He bypassed Yuri and submitted this modified deployment battle plan to the headquarters. Although it was finally approved and seemed to have obtained Stalin's approval, it is certain that his own ability deficiencies would also be remembered by Stalin.
If this campaign goes smoothly and eventually achieves the intended campaign objectives, Tolbukhin will certainly be rewarded, but he will definitely not be in charge of future wars, especially in key battle commands. On the contrary, if the campaign does not go smoothly or even fails, he will bear the main responsibility. A good result is being hidden, and a bad result... is hard to predict.
…
The city of Artyomovsk had almost become a pile of ruins. Everywhere within sight were broken walls and broken bricks. Destroyed artillery, tanks and armored vehicles could be seen almost everywhere. In some piles of rubble, the half-buried bodies of German soldiers could be seen.
The German troops responsible for defending the city of Artyomovsk were the 298th Infantry Division of the 17th Army. This was a veteran infantry division, which had been crippled and rebuilt several times during the two and a half years of war. As early as the Volynsky Battle at the beginning of the war, it was defeated once by the Ninth Assault Army commanded by Potapov.
Today, this veteran infantry division was filled with a large number of 18- or 19-year-old recruits and foreign soldiers from Bulgaria and Romania. In the brutal street fighting, they were quickly defeated by the Soviet attack. They surrendered in large numbers without even fighting a breakout.
The song of "The Internationale" resounded throughout the ruined city. Under the protection of the guards, Yuri walked into the Soviet office building which was almost in ruins. This seven-story building constructed of bricks, stones and reinforced concrete was once the symbol of Artyomovsk, but now half of it has collapsed, and the remaining half is already in danger.
As the battlefield advanced, the 4th Ukrainian Front moved its temporary command post here.
