Chapter 234
Yuri did not have many opportunities to meet Bulganin. In his opinion, this serious-looking guy was a legend. Later generations evaluated him as a Soviet state and party activist and military strategist. What does this mean? Undoubtedly, this means that this person is both a qualified official and a qualified soldier.
This man was not only a Soviet marshal, but also served as Chairman of the Council of Ministers. He was a guy who was truly influential in both the military and political circles, and such people were rare in the Soviet leadership system.
Looking through Bulganin's resume and his journey, you can see how remarkable this man is. He was a man of ordinary origin, but at the age of 36, he sat on the seat of Chairman of the Moscow Soviet. In his early 40s, he became Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Soviet Union, and concurrently served as the President of the State Bank. This position is equivalent to the Vice Premier of the State Council in charge of the central bank, and should be regarded as a vice-state-level cadre.
For such a person, others can slander his character or personal morality, but they cannot underestimate his ability. This is inevitable, so Yuri respects such people very much.
He walked quickly towards him, and when he was two steps away from Bulganin, Yuri first saluted while walking, and then extended his hand towards the other party.
"Hello, Comrade Nikolay Alexandrovich," Yuri said with a smile, shaking hands with the other party.
"Hello, Comrade Yuri Arkhipovich," Bulganin said with a smile on his serious face, "Thank you for your hard work."
Yuri smiled and nodded at the other party, then turned to Rokossovsky, shook the hand that Rokossovsky extended, and at the same time, hugged him, then turned around and hugged Malinin, then smiled and said: "I have read your latest battle report and sent a copy to Moscow. The situation is much better than previously estimated. I believe you will soon receive Comrade Stalin's congratulations."
This was a statement that the representative of the headquarters had to make, and it contained three meanings: first, the battle report had been submitted to Moscow; second, as the representative of the headquarters, the letter he copied to Moscow must have been praising the First Belorussian Front; third, the defeat in the Rogachev direction was irrelevant to the overall situation and there was no need to take it to heart.
The three of them were obviously satisfied with his words. Bulganin's smile became even wider. His gaze turned behind Yuri and fell on Filia who was trying to take a picture of them.
Although Filia changed into a military uniform and dressed like a female soldier, Bulganin could still see that she lacked the unique temperament of a soldier.
"Who is this..." After hesitating for a moment, Bulganin asked.
"Oh, this is the military reporter for Komsomolskaya Pravda," Yuri glanced back and introduced casually, "It's a good opportunity, let's take a photo together."
The battle was going smoothly and Yuri was in high spirits. He turned to Filia and said with a smile: "Come on, Comrade Filia, please take a picture for us."
None of the three people thought much about it. In fact, during each battle command process, there would be special war correspondents coming to take pictures. These photos were not only used for publicity, most of them would be archived.
The four men quickly stood in a row in front of the building covered with sandbags. From left to right, they were Malinin, Yuri, Bulganin and Rokossovsky. As a photographer, Filia also seemed very excited. For her, this was the highest-ranking group photo she had ever taken of commanders.
To be on the safe side, Filia took several photos in a row.
Just as she pressed the shutter for the last time, accompanied by the sharp and piercing sound of air defense sirens, dozens of Soviet soldiers ran out of several nearby buildings and rushed to the anti-aircraft gun positions set up on the school playground. The high-raised anti-aircraft gun barrels were slowly pulled up and quickly rotated to the northwest.
"What? The Germans have backup air support?" Yuri asked curiously, looking at the sky that was almost covered by thick smoke.
"That should be the case," Malinin answered first. "Since this morning, the number of German aircraft sorties has increased, but the intelligence department has not yet provided any specific information."
Yuri nodded. He had not received any corresponding intelligence information either, but this was normal. After all, the air force had strong mobility, especially in Belarus, where the German army had been operating for a long time. They had a large number of simple airports behind the defense line. Therefore, the German air force only needed to make a simple transfer to immediately take on the task of attacking.
The sound of the air raid sirens was shrill. Filia looked at the four generals standing there and talking as if nothing had happened, and she admired their calmness in her heart. However, she just didn't know that given Karpilovka's current situation, it was not a good target for an air raid at all. The thick smoke covering the entire city was the best defense barrier. It was difficult for aircraft to launch accurate and effective attacks in such an environment.
Yuri's purpose of rushing to the First Belorussian Front Command in Karpilovka this time was to coordinate the actions of this front with the Second Belorussian Front.
In view of the fact that the 48th Army's offensive in the Rogachev direction was not going smoothly, and the main offensive direction of the 9th Army was the Berezina River line, the two fists stretched out by the 1st Belorussian Front with Bobruisk as the target were equivalent to missing one fist.
At this time, in order to successfully encircle the German army group in the direction of Bobruisk, the Ninth Army's offensive direction needed to shift to the south, turn around at Kirovsk, and attack in the direction of the Olisa River. However, in this way, the right wing of the Ninth Army was exposed to the threat of the German army in Borovica and Liubonich, and was easily attacked by the enemy.
In order to solve this problem, Yuri's opinion was to transfer the 2nd Belorussian Front's offensive in the direction of the Drut River to the Starki line and develop the offensive in the direction of Batsevichi, so as to cover the flank of the 9th Army and contain the German army group in the direction of Borovica.
However, if the offensive is arranged in this way, in the subsequent battles, the offensive of the 2nd Belorussian Front will inevitably continue along the railway line from Zhilobin to Osipovichi, and the narrow strip of land between the Lich River and the Svisloch River will be included in the theater of operations of the 2nd Belorussian Front. This will also mean that in the Minsk Campaign to be launched later, the corps responsible for the frontal offensive will be mainly the 2nd Belorussian Front. It also means that the 1st Belorussian Front must allocate one or two army groups from the reserve and redeploy them to the sequence of the 2nd Belorussian Front.
Although there were four fronts participating in the Belarusian Campaign, the positions of these four fronts were not the same. The leading role, or the main force among the four fronts, was always the First Belarusian Front. Otherwise, why would it be ranked first?
The four men chatted for a while , and only walked into the command building after the air raid alarm stopped.
For safety reasons, the front's combat command post was located in the basement, which was the school's sports equipment room in the past. It was quite large and was now quite suitable for use as a combat command post.
In the combat command center, Yuri used the front's combat situation map to introduce the current offensive situation of the entire war zone. The most eye-catching performance here was the cooperation between the 1st Baltic Front and the 3rd Belorussian Front. Tens of thousands of German troops belonging to the 3rd Armored Group were surrounded in Vitebsk. This news was enough to cheer everyone up.
Afterwards, Yuri talked about his adjustments to the subsequent combat plan and stated that this was just a plan and needed to be approved by the front commanders before being submitted to the Moscow headquarters.
There is no doubt that Yuri's proposal would not be recognized by the front. Even Bulganin, who was in a relatively transcendent position, clearly expressed his opposition.
As the chief of staff of the front, Malinin introduced the latest battle situation of the front. In his words, the cavalry group assigned to the front had launched an offensive towards Voronovichi half an hour ago. In other words, they had pushed the front line to the outskirts of Bobruisk.
In the Rogachev direction, the 48th Army had broken through the German Dobozna River defense line and captured Krasnaya Bereg. The 9th Tank Army had advanced to the outskirts of Bortniki. The attacks in three directions could not only cut the German 9th Army in two, but it was only a matter of time before they were put into the pocket.
Of course, Yuri's so-called suggestion was not meant to be implemented vigorously. It was more like an implicit threat, and its purpose was to put pressure on the First Belorussian Front so that they would change the offensive situation in the Rogachev direction as soon as possible.
Each representative of the headquarters had his own style of doing things. If it was Timoshenko, he would curse in the face of such a situation; if it was Zhukov , he would ask the commander to stand aside and do it himself; if it was Vasilevsky, he would ask Moscow for the next decision. As for Yuri, he couldn't curse in front of Malinin and Rokossovsky, so he had to use this more obscure way to express his dissatisfaction.
As the representative of the headquarters, Yuri expressed his willingness to accept the proposal of the front command. He would reserve his opinion for the time being and closely monitor the battle situation in the Bobruisk direction in the next two days.
What this actually means is that he can choose to reserve his opinion temporarily, but if the situation does not improve within two days and the battle situation in the Bobruisk direction still cannot be clarified, then he will have to follow his opinion.
