Chapter 236
When discussing "battles", the German military master Clausewitz put forward four principles for victory: mobilization, concentration, speed and pursuit.
The so-called mobilization is the preparation for the battle, and all available forces should be mobilized as much as possible; the so-called concentration is to concentrate the forces as much as possible at the key attack points; the so-called speed means that the action must be fast, time is the magic weapon for victory, and the party that wins the time is the party that wins the war; and the so-called pursuit means that it is advisable to pursue the enemy with the remaining courage, pursue the defeated and retreating enemy troops, and expand the results of the battle as much as possible, which is a powerful supplement to win the final victory in the war.
After experiencing a series of disastrous defeats in the early stages of the war, the Soviet command gave up disputes over the route of military construction and turned to summarizing experience from actual combat. No one mentioned Clausewitz's war theory, but the experience summarized from actual combat was actually not much different from Clausewitz's theory.
Yuri stayed in the war zone of the 1st Baltic Front for two days. When he left, the front ended the fighting in the Vitebsk direction, and several German divisions surrounded in the area were completely annihilated.
During the same two days, the main force of the German Ninth Army, which was trapped on the east bank of the Berezina River, finally crossed the Berezino Bridge with difficulty. For this, they paid an unbearable price. In the attack of the Soviet Air Force alone, more than 5,000 German soldiers died, including two army commanders and a division commander. The Ninth Army's field command organization was disbanded, and the German High Command was forced to reorganize the German army into the Miller Group commanded by Lieutenant General Miller and the Combat Group commanded by von Schauken. Konig was responsible for commanding the 337th Infantry Division to cover the rear.
The wasteland and swamps on the east bank of the Berezino Bridge became a huge corpse dumping ground. The bodies of countless German officers and soldiers, along with destroyed trucks and tanks, were abandoned there in a mess, with no one to collect them.
Even those German troops who had managed to escape across the river became panic-stricken dogs, fleeing madly westward and living a miserable life with three shocks a day.
At the same time as the remnants of the 9th Army retreated westward, a large number of scattered German troops were moving westward in the area south of Minsk between the Wolma River and the Berezina River, including the 78th Assault Division, the 18th and 25th Armored Infantry Divisions, the 12th, 14th, 31st, 57th, 110th, 134th, 197th, 256th, 260th, 267th, 337th, and 707th Infantry Divisions, and the "Heinrich Scheherazade" Armored Infantry Division.
Most of these German troops had been defeated. They retreated in a panic to this narrow area. Although they were only one step away from Minsk, they suddenly discovered that the passage to there had been cut off by the Soviet army.
In fact, when the Ninth Army was still stranded east of the Berezina River, the cavalry group commanded by Lieutenant General Oslikovsky in the 3rd Belorussian Front had already captured Vileika, cutting off the passage from Minsk to Vilnius. In the 1st Belorussian Front, the cavalry group led by Pliyev took the lead in capturing Stolbchi and Gorodeya, cutting off the passage from Minsk to Baranovichi.
Model, the "master of defense" who had just taken over Busch's command of the Center Army Group, was forced to evacuate Minsk. The main force of the 9th Army, the main force of the 9th Army, and part of the 3rd Armored Division, which were still trying their best to advance towards Minsk, had actually been abandoned.
Hundreds of thousands of German troops, under the heavy bombing of the Soviet Air Force, desperately broke out to the west. They broke through the blockades set up by the Soviet army, but were blocked by the next blockade. It was like a big fish swimming upstream. No matter how hard they struggled, they could not escape the rapids.
From the beginning of the Belarusian Campaign to before the official launch of the Minsk Campaign, the four air force groups under the four major Soviet fronts, plus the long-range aviation, dispatched nearly 60,000 combat aircraft in total, slaughtering all visible German targets on the ground in the air.
At this time, the Soviet Red Army had completely controlled the air supremacy in the direction of Belarus. They not only launched attacks during the day, but also dared to carry out air strikes on the German rear at night. Faced with this seemingly unscrupulous air attack, the German air force was helpless. They did not even have the basic ability to fight back.
…
The entire Svisloch River was covered with misty drizzle. The rain was not heavy, but it had been falling for a long time. With the arrival of this rain, the weather, which had been warming up, seemed to suddenly drop by a few degrees. If you don't wear a coat, you will actually feel a little cold.
On the one hand, it rained suddenly, and on the other hand, the permafrost began to melt, and the roads in the entire wilderness became muddy and difficult to walk on.
The wheels of the jeep sank into the mud pit, with the two rear wheels almost halfway sunk. Even with the power of four-wheel drive, the car couldn't climb out by its own strength.
A large number of German soldiers' bodies were dumped in the drainage ditches on both sides of the road. The bodies were stacked one on top of the other. Due to the temperature, the bodies had not yet rotted, but the exposed skin had turned black. At first glance, they were dumped in the drainage ditches and could not be seen as dead people. Instead, they looked like dead wood wrapped in rags.
The tanks were moving on the road, crushing the mud and water. Because the road was difficult to travel on, thick oil smoke was emitted from behind the tanks from time to time. Soviet soldiers wearing raincoats were crowded on the tanks, dozing off in a daze as the tanks swayed.
This is the 5th Guards Tank Army advancing towards Minsk. The troops commanded by Rotmistrov have suffered serious damage in the fighting in the past two days. They encountered the reinforced German 5th Armored Division.
The 5th Panzer Division of the German Army was equipped with 159 tanks, most of which were Tiger and F-35 tanks. Due to the scarcity of tanks, this German armored unit began to adopt the tactics used by Katukov three years ago. They hid the tanks in narrow passages and ambushed the Soviet tank columns on the move.
The confrontation between the 5th Guards Tank Army and the German 5th Panzer Division lasted less than two days. The Soviet army suffered huge losses, and the German 5th Panzer Division was completely crippled. When it withdrew from the battle, the German army had only 18 tanks left.
However, Rotmistrov's tank troops were soon reinforced in the newly occupied Borisov. The front reserve provided his troops with hundreds of tanks, more than half of which were new tanks with a caliber of 85 mm.
Relying on the newly replenished tanks, the 5th Guards Tank Army quickly advanced towards Minsk, and was the first to reach 25 kilometers northeast of Minsk and advance to the suburbs of Minsk.
Originally, Rotmistrov planned to advance to the city of Minsk in one go, but the sudden rain created difficulties for his attack, and he had to order his troops to slow down the pace of the attack.
On a moving tank, Yuri sat on a log tied behind the tank turret, his eyes fixed on Filia who was vomiting beside him.
Just now, this reporter from Moscow saw a German soldier's body lying on the road. The body had been run over by countless tanks and trucks, and was almost crushed into a pancake. The internal organs and bones had burst out, and had been covered in mud and turned light black. Only one arm was still intact. The infantry following the tanks just stepped on the body as if they hadn't seen anything.
Stimulated by the scene, Filia was so disgusted that she vomited all her lunch, but she still couldn't stop vomiting.
Yuri actually doesn't like traveling on a tank because it is very bumpy. If you sit on it for a long time, your butt will become numb from the shaking. But there is no other way. His jeep broke down on the way here, and he didn't know what the problem was. The driver tried to fix it for nearly an hour but couldn't fix it.
This place is less than 40 kilometers away from Minsk. Although the Soviet army has controlled this area, it has failed to wipe out the German defeated soldiers who fled in the jungles and swamps. Therefore, he did not dare to stay for long and could only continue forward in a tank.
At present, from Logeisk to Rudnya, from Smolevichi to Smilovichi, in this vast area, the Soviet army and the encircled German army have been in a mess. The encircled German army has more than 100,000 troops. Although they are defeated, they still have the strength to fight. They continue to break out in the direction of Minsk, and the main forces of the three major Soviet fronts are continuously reinforcing. As a result, this encirclement has become mobile, and it is slowly advancing towards Minsk.
The Soviet army was constantly strengthening the encirclement and trying to cut the German troops in the encirclement into several parts. At the same time, in the direction of Minsk, the Soviet army was attacking the city and trying to launch an offensive against the German troops west of Minsk, forcing them to retreat towards the Sura River and the Isiloch River.
Initially, the German army could still deliver supplies into the encirclement through the Air Force, but as the Soviet Air Force's air raid radius extended to the rear of the German army, the German air support became increasingly weak and it was estimated that it was difficult to maintain.
Yuri lifted the raincoat on his body and prepared to take out a cigarette from his military uniform pocket. As a result, he did not touch the cigarette case, but touched a hard medal.
Only then did he remember that he had exchanged his pack of cigarettes with Rotmistrov for a medal. It was not a Soviet medal, but a German Iron Cross First Class. It was said that he found it on the body of a German officer.
Yuri wiped his rain-soaked face with his hand, took out the medal, and played with it in his hand while thinking about how to write the report on the liberation of Minsk.
