Chapter 211
Just as Yuri was heading to the 51st Army Headquarters in Gorlovka, to the west, less than 200 kilometers away in Zaporizhia, a German military plane flying from Rastenburg landed at a temporary military airport on the outskirts of the city.
When the plane landed, the German commanders who came to greet it included almost all the important personnel of the Southern Army Group Headquarters, including Field Marshal Manstein.
That’s right, the person on the military plane that arrived at Zaporizhia in the middle of the night was Hitler himself. He was here to inspect the war situation on the southern front.
The defeat in the Battle of Kursk dealt a heavy blow to the German army. Not only did the empire lose the strategic location of Kursk, but it also lost part of eastern Ukraine. Most importantly, on the front line where the Soviet army had ceased fire, the German army did not build a solid defense line, and there were loopholes everywhere.
What's even more terrible is that the Allied offensive in the Mediterranean is becoming more and more fierce. They have captured the southern region of Italy and are advancing towards Rome. At the same time, the political situation in Italy has begun to become turbulent. Intelligence shows that anti-Mussolini forces are rapidly increasing, and the Italian royal family and the forces controlled by the military Marshal Badoglio have shown a tendency to surrender.
At present, the German army deployed less than 400,000 troops in Italy, and the number of tanks and artillery was pitifully small. Therefore, von Kluge proposed to Hitler that he hoped to withdraw troops from the southern front to strengthen the military strength of the Italian peninsula to deal with any accidents that might occur there at any time.
In fact, just half a month ago, Manstein, commander of the Southern Army Group, had made suggestions to Hitler, believing that the more than 80 troops deployed on the southern front were a bit bloated. He believed that some of them should be withdrawn and supplemented to the Italian Peninsula, which was seriously short of troops.
But just half a month later, when Hitler met Manstein again in Zaporizhia, the latter completely changed his mind.
Manstein gave a detailed introduction to the current situation on the southern front. His final conclusion was that the situation on the southern front was precarious and the Soviets should be preparing to fight a large-scale battle on this front.
In addition to external threats, Manstein also mentioned the serious problems existing within the German army. The lack of tanks and aircraft and poor logistical supplies are only minor problems. The biggest problem is the military's wavering morale. The troops have lost confidence in whether they can win the war.
Just three days ago, the 13th SS Division mutinied, Muslim volunteers from Sarajevo, Yugoslavia, and several German officers were killed. Although the mutiny was quickly quelled, the unit could no longer be used, which made the defense of the Stalino Line even weaker.
At present, Manstein has focused his defense on the second line of defense, that is, the Dnieper River defense line. He has no hope for the battle on the left bank of the Dnieper River. Therefore, he suggested abandoning the defense of Donbass and withdrawing the main forces to the fortified area on the right bank of the Dnieper River. At the same time, part of the troops on the Crimean Peninsula will be transferred to the fortified area on the right bank of the Dnieper River to make up for the shortage of troops there.
Hitler did not fully accept Manstein's proposal. He approved the proposal to evacuate Donbass, but required that all major coal mines in the region be destroyed before evacuation. As for the issue of withdrawing troops from the Crimean Peninsula, Hitler did not approve it. After all, the strategic significance of the Crimean Peninsula is very important, and the Soviet Black Sea Fleet and Azov Sea Fleet can pose a threat to the peninsula at any time.
Hitler did not stay in Zaporizhia for too long. After all, the air supremacy on the entire southern front had been controlled by the Soviet army, and the temporary airport might be bombed by Soviet fighter planes the next day. Therefore, he left Zaporizhia that night and returned to Rastenburg.
At this time, Hitler probably could not have imagined that this would be his last time entering Soviet territory. Of course, what he could not have imagined was that in Rastenburg, there was an even more infuriating news waiting for him - on the day he went to Zaporizhia, in Italy, King Emmanuel III conspired with Field Marshal Badoglio to imprison Prime Minister Mussolini and announced Italy's surrender to the Allies.
In just one night, nearly three million Italian soldiers laid down their arms and refused to continue fighting for the Allied forces. The next day, the news reached the Eastern Front. A Romanian division stationed in Polnovana either lost confidence or heard Italy's surrender as Romania's surrender, and surrendered to the Soviet army without firing a shot.
On the southern front, the German defense collapsed further and a forced retreat began.
Four days after Italy surrendered, the First Ukrainian Front liberated Konotop, the most important railway hub in eastern Ukraine. Two days later, the Second Ukrainian Front liberated Poltava. On the same day, the 46th and 57th Armies of the Third Ukrainian Front surrounded the 40th Infantry Army of the German Army in Lozovaia. Two days later, the Ninth Guards Army advanced to the suburbs of Dnepropetrovsk.
On the second day after Italy announced its surrender, the German 9th Tank Army took the initiative to break contact with the Soviet 9th Assault Army and quickly retreated towards Zaporizhia. The Soviet 9th Guards Army and the 51st Army advancing to the south encircled part of the German 17th Infantry Army in the suburbs of Gorlovka.
On the coast of the Sea of Azov, the 2nd Guards Army and the 28th Army, with the cooperation of the Azov Fleet, made rapid progress. In less than a week, they pushed the front line nearly 300 kilometers westward and reached the outskirts of Melitopol.
However, the German retreat was not a rout, but an orderly retreat. During the retreat, they destroyed railways, roads, and bridges along the way, and blew up factories, coal mines, and railway hubs. This caused the Soviet army to lose sufficient logistical support in subsequent offensives, and the speed of advancement had to gradually slow down.
…
Off the coast of Azov, the light cruiser "Red Crimea" cut through the blue waves and quickly headed towards the port of Osipenko.
Accompanied by the sea breeze, the red Guards warship flag fluttered in the wind on the flagpole at the top of the communication tower.
The Red Crimea light cruiser was built at the St. Petersburg Shipyard . It was originally named "Svetlana" and later renamed "International Red Labor Union". It was not until the end of 1939 that it was changed to its current name.
After the outbreak of the Soviet-German War, the ship participated in important battles such as the Battle of Odessa and the Battle of Sevastopol. During this period, it was attacked by the German Air Force more than 200 times, but was never sunk, as if it was protected by divine light.
On the bow of the ship, Yuri, wearing a brand new military coat, was looking at the not-so-distant coast through the telescope in his hand.
He has been a little depressed recently. Who could have thought that at the critical moment of the battle, Italy suddenly surrendered, so that the German tank 9th Army, which attempted to encircle and attack the 9th Army, took the initiative to retreat, and the originally precarious battle situation suddenly improved.
This made his original concerns become groundless worries, and Tolbukhin seemed very wronged. After all, the final facts proved that the command of the former front commander was correct. He concentrated the mobile forces on the coast of the Sea of Azov, pushing the Soviet army to rapidly expand its results in the area, creating the most favorable conditions for the subsequent cutoff of the German Crimean Group.
However, the battlefield is ever-changing, and no one can be sure what impact those external factors will have on the war itself. No one knows what the external factors will be and when they will appear.
Yuri's caution was not wrong, especially since the situation at the time was very bad, so the headquarters did not change the deployment, but continued to let him command the 4th Ukrainian Front.
But then again, Yuri is still under a lot of pressure at the moment. He has snatched the position of commander of the front from Tolbukhin. If he cannot achieve the headquarters' combat objectives in the next battle, his personal future will be greatly affected.
What was the headquarters' subsequent combat objective? It was simple: to annihilate the German army group on the Crimean Peninsula, which meant that there would be a series of tough battles to fight later.
During this period, the various troops concentrated on the southern front were frequently changing their deployments. Chuikov's 9th Guards Army was assigned to the 3rd Ukrainian Front, while the 9th Guards Army was assigned to Yuri. In addition, the headquarters strengthened the mobility of the 44th Army and added nearly 200 tanks to the 19th Tank Army and the 28th Army under the 51st Army.
Today, the 4th Ukrainian Front has the 2nd and 3rd Guards Armies, the 9th Assault Army, the 28th, 44th and 51st Combined Arms Armies, and the 9th Air Force Army. In addition, the Black Sea Fleet Air Force and the Azov Sea Fleet are currently under the command of the 4th Ukrainian Front Field Command.
In total, the Fourth Ukrainian Front has a strength of nearly 400,000 troops, more than 5,000 artillery pieces of various types, nearly 500 tanks and self-propelled artillery, and more than 1,000 combat aircraft. It is a truly huge corps. At the same time, it is also the largest corps Yuri has commanded since the outbreak of the war.
There is no doubt that commanding such a large-scale legion is a test of the commander's ability. It is impossible to say that Yuri is not a little nervous . But compared with this nervousness, he is more looking forward to it and is still full of confidence, because only by taking this step can he leave his name in the history of world wars.
“Woo…”
A dull whistle sounded from the cruiser. The port of Osipenko, which was almost completely destroyed by the war, was already within reach. Somewhere in this port city, Vasilevsky, who had just arrived from Moscow, was waiting for him.
