Chapter 217
Over the past two years, Yuri has commanded countless battles, both large and small. The troops he commanded have grown from a battalion to an army front, and he has been growing as a whole. Along with the growth of his abilities, his strong self-confidence has also increased - this is true for people who have been in high positions for a long time, they are full of self-confidence.
Although being a front commander requires strong abilities and a lot of affairs to deal with, and he is not very familiar with many aspects at first, Yuri believes that he can do it, it just takes some time.
Accompanying Yuri this time were the Front Military Commissar Shatenko, Chief of Staff Biryuzov, and two special figures, namely Semyon Mikhailovich Budyonny and Alexey Alexandrovich Grechkin.
At the same time as the Battle of Melitopol was launched, the last battle of the Caucasus Campaign launched by the North Caucasus Front in the Caucasus direction also came to an end. In the vast area from Novorossiysk to Taman, the North Caucasus Front commanded by Petrov crushed the German army's attempt in the Crimean Peninsula to advance towards the Transcaucasus direction and completely cleared the Taman Peninsula.
During the Caucasus Campaign, Budyonny was the representative of the General Staff stationed in the Caucasus Front, while Grechkin was the commander of the 9th Army.
With the end of the Caucasus Campaign, the headquarters issued a redeployment order. The North Caucasus Front was disbanded. Among the various armies under the front, the 9th and 12th Armies were disbanded, and most of the original troops were incorporated into the 56th Army; the 18th, 24th and 37th Armies were transferred to the headquarters reserve and redeployed; the front field command organization was reorganized, and on the basis of the original 56th Army, an independent coastal army was formed and placed under the unified command of the 4th Ukrainian Front.
The North Caucasus Front was disbanded, but the corresponding personnel still had to be arranged somewhere, so Budyonny came to the 4th Ukrainian Front, still as a representative of the headquarters, and Grechkin, who had performed well in the previous battles, was transferred to the 28th Army as commander. As for the former commander of the 28th Army, Gerasimenko, he was transferred away from the front-line troops because of the dirty things that happened in the German field hospital.
Today, Yuri came to the 28th Army Headquarters to announce the personnel transfer order and to send Grechkin to take office.
Grechkin was a veteran in the Soviet command system. He was a battalion commander during the Russian Empire, and at the beginning of the war, he was already a military district commander. Unfortunately, he made a small mistake at the beginning of the campaign, which led to his demotion. He only climbed back up a while ago.
Everyone has his or her own personality, but some people have weaker personalities, while others have stronger personalities. Grechkin is a person with a relatively strong personality. When he came to the 28th Army, he even applied to bring his military commissar, chief of staff and a group of staff.
This report was submitted to Yuri, who rejected it without hesitation. This was simply nonsense. The commander was transferred and asked to bring the chief of staff. Even bringing a staff officer was acceptable, but what about bringing a military commissar? Apart from anything else, if Yuri handed this report over without even reading it and sent it to Moscow, once it was seen by a guy like Mekhlis, it would be unlucky not only for Grechkin himself, but also for his military commissar.
Because of this report, Grechkin had a quarrel with him, and the two had hardly spoken to each other since he came back from the front headquarters.
Yuri didn't care what Grechkin thought. This white-haired old guy would understand his intentions sooner or later. As for now, he, as the commander of the front, had too many things to deal with. He had no mood to care about the old man's mood.
With the end of the Battle of Melitopol, the 4th Ukrainian Front had seized control of the lower reaches of the Dnieper River, including the entire northern Tavria region. As the 51st Army pushed the front to Kherson, the Soviets had controlled two passages in and out of the Crimean Peninsula, including the Isthmus of Lake Sivash and the Isthmus of Perekop. So far, the German 17th Army has been completely trapped on the Crimean Peninsula, and the 4th Ukrainian Front has achieved the ultimate goal of this campaign.
As the German troops on the Crimean Peninsula were completely isolated, serious differences arose in Moscow on how to deal with the German troops in the region.
According to Comrade Vasilevsky's opinion, the Fourth Ukrainian Front should continue to advance towards western Ukraine, using its main forces to launch an offensive to capture Nikolayev and Odessa, while using auxiliary forces to detour towards Kirovograd. As for the German troops in the Crimean Peninsula, they should only be besieged for the time being, and there is no rush to annihilate them.
Stalin himself also favored this plan. For him, nothing was more tempting than liberating the entire Ukraine as soon as possible.
However, Comrade Zhukov, who had a great influence on Stalin, did not agree with this suggestion. He insisted that the Fourth Ukrainian Front should concentrate all its efforts on crushing the German forces in the Crimean Peninsula first, while the Third Ukrainian Front's combat focus should be shifted to the south, and it should launch an offensive campaign against Nikolayev and Odessa.
Which of these two suggestions seems to be more beneficial to Yuri?
At first glance, Comrade Zhukov must be a good friend. According to his suggestion, this big piece of fat meat on the Crimean Peninsula will belong to the front commanded by Yuri. There are more than 200,000 German heavy troops there. Once this German force is crushed, real military merit will be pocketed.
What about Vasilevsky? This guy is really a jerk. He left a big piece of fat meat for Yuri to command the 4th Ukrainian Front to attack Odessa. In this way, not only can they not eat the fat meat, but they also have to face the threat of the German army in the Crimean Peninsula in the rear. Maybe there will be trouble at any time.
But Yuri's views are not so superficial. He has a clear mind and knows very well what these people are thinking.
Neither of these two guys is a good person, and neither of them really cares about him.
If he followed Zhukov's suggestion, Yuri would have to stay and command the 4th Ukrainian Front to attack the Crimean Peninsula. This battle would be difficult to fight, but what was worse was that after the battle, the 4th Ukrainian Front would be at the rear of the battlefield. At that time, the 3rd Ukrainian Front would be directly in front of it, and the 2nd Ukrainian Front would be on the right wing. The 4th Ukrainian Front under his command would have nowhere to go.
What would happen if such a situation occurred? Undoubtedly, the 4th Ukrainian Front would be abolished, the field command organization would be disbanded on the spot, and the subordinate units would either be added to the 3rd Ukrainian Front or assigned to the reserve of the headquarters. When there was a gap on the offensive front, the headquarters would reorganize a new front to deal with it, but that had nothing to do with Yuri.
Therefore, according to Zhukov's suggestion, Yuri will withdraw from the front-line command again after commanding the Crimean Peninsula campaign and return to Moscow to serve as his chief of operations. If he is lucky, he will be promoted to a higher rank at the end of the campaign, and will most likely remain idle as a general until the end of the war.
On the other hand, was Vasilevsky's suggestion for his own good? Maybe, but more importantly, he was considering himself.
As a representative of the headquarters, Vasilevsky's current job is to coordinate the combat cooperation between the Third Ukrainian Front and the Fourth Ukrainian Front. He certainly hopes that the two major fronts can advance in parallel.
People's thoughts are always so complicated. When the war is difficult, everyone can unite as one and work together to overcome the difficulties. But once the war situation is reversed and the dawn of victory appears, all kinds of power struggles will come into being.
Of course, Yuri is also a human being, and he is the same. Just like a year ago, when the war was difficult, no matter which battle he commanded, he did not think about how to get more military merits, how to be more beneficial to himself, and so on. But now? He is also thinking about these issues, and thinking a lot.
By the way, if Yuri were allowed to choose, whose opinion would he agree with?
There is no doubt that he would support Comrade Zhukov's opinion, because he knew very well that when the Crimean Peninsula Campaign ended, with the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian Fronts advancing westward, the entire German Army Group South would be defeated. When the front line continued to push towards the Romanian border, the German Army would draw troops from the Central Army Group to support the southern front, and the famous "Belarusian Balcony" would also appear.
At that time, Comrade Stalin will pick up the "five-strike" operational plan that he originally submitted, and the ironclad evidence will tell everyone how profound his vision was when he formulated this operational plan.
At the same time, all fighting on the southern front will stop, and the focus of the war will shift to the Central Front's combat area. The combat units under the Fourth Ukrainian Front will be redeployed to Belarus to strengthen the Soviet forces in that direction.
Yuri did not expect to be able to personally command the Belarusian campaign , but he believed that it should be no problem to take the identity of a representative of the base camp. Zhukov could not argue with him about this matter, otherwise the old man's greed would be too ugly. After all, it was no secret that he had a bad relationship with Rokossovsky.
