Chapter 249
The importance of Warsaw to Germany is beyond words. Therefore, for Model, the current commander of the German Army Group Center, even without considering the order from the Führer, he could not easily hand over this key city to the Soviets. As for those "bugs" who launched the so-called uprising in Warsaw, they were naturally even more intolerable.
The day after the Soviet army captured Radzymin, Model transferred the 17th and 22nd SS Police Regiments, which had just been transferred from Warsaw, back to Warsaw. At the same time, he also transferred the 4th Armored Division to Warsaw to suppress the uprising that broke out in the city.
The 39th Armored Corps arrived at the same time as the 4th Armored Division. They were deployed directly to Volomin, northeast of Warsaw, only 15 kilometers away from the city of Warsaw. The Soviet Army's 3rd Tank Corps was accelerating its assault on this area.
The Soviet Army's 3rd Tank Army was subordinate to the 2nd Tank Army. In previous battles, this tank army advanced rapidly and formed a salient with a front of about 15 kilometers and a depth of 7 kilometers on the left wing of the entire 2nd Tank Army. At the same time, the reserve forces of the entire 2nd Tank Army were very limited.
The German army apparently also realized the unfavorable position of the 3rd Tank Army. On the first day of the conflict between the two sides, the right wing of the 3rd Tank Army was attacked by the German army 12 times. The German army's goal was to interrupt the connection between this Soviet army and the follow-up troops and encircle and annihilate them.
However, the commander of the 2nd Tank Army, Bogdanov, was an experienced commander. As soon as the German army launched a counterattack, he realized the passive situation of his troops. Therefore, he quickly ordered the 3rd Tank Army to retreat, get close to the 16th Tank Army and the 8th Tank Army that launched offensives from the left and right wings, and go on the defense.
However, the Soviet retreat could not escape the German attack. In the following two days, the German army launched a full-scale offensive against the Soviet defense line from Volomin to Radzymin. Three armored divisions were successively involved in the attack. In just two days, the Second Tank Army lost more than 240 tanks, and the Third Tank Army was almost wiped out.
It was not until the third day of the battle that the 9th Guards Army and the 47th Army under the command of Chuikov arrived. The Soviet army was able to consolidate its defense line and began to counterattack the German army within a certain range.
By this time, the National Army uprising in Warsaw had been going on for nearly a week. Faced with the frenzied suppression by the German army, the insurgents suffered heavy losses. As the supreme commander of the insurgents, Mandal had given up his initial arrogance. He contacted the First Belorussian Front several times, demanding that the Soviet army provide weapons and ammunition to the insurgents as soon as possible. If possible, they also needed more food.
However, as the representative of the headquarters, Yuri is too lazy to pay attention to this guy now. To be honest, he doesn't care about the lives of the insurgents at all. Even if all the people in Warsaw died, he would not feel guilty. As a general, he has fought in the cruel war for many years. It can be said that he has long been accustomed to life and death. What he has done in these years is actually commanding waves of young people to die. He has commanded countless battles and campaigns, and it is probably difficult to estimate how many people have died under his command.
Compassion is not an emotion that belongs to soldiers; it is something that doctors should consider.
Of course, whether to provide assistance to the Warsaw Uprising was not something Yuri could decide. His report had been submitted for a long time, but there had been no feedback from Moscow. On the contrary, news that was unfavorable to the rebels had been reported frequently.
Just yesterday, Molotov officially announced on behalf of the Soviet government that the Soviet Union does not recognize the legitimacy of the Polish government in exile. The only Polish government that the Soviet Union and the Soviet people are willing to recognize and establish diplomatic relations with is a brand new Polish government based on the Polish National Liberation Committee, which truly belongs to the Polish people.
While announcing this decision, Molotov also mentioned that the uprising in Warsaw had nothing to do with the Soviet Union or the Polish National Liberation Committee, and that the leading body of the insurgents had not informed the Soviet government before launching the uprising. Molotov also pointed out that the Warsaw Uprising was a rash, unrealistic, suicidal uprising, and that the Soviet Red Army could not provide them with any military support regardless of the actual problems of the war.
However, Molotov also mentioned that although Moscow was not optimistic about the uprising in Warsaw, considering humanitarian and anti-fascist factors, the Soviet Red Army would still do its best to provide food and other supplies to the insurgents, and allow British and American transport planes to pass through the Soviet territory and airdrop supplies to Warsaw. In addition, the Soviet Red Army would also speed up the offensive on the Warsaw front and strive to drive out the German troops occupying Warsaw as soon as possible.
Comrade Molotov's speech was precisely positioned, his statement was clear, his stance was firm, but his promises were vague.
As the Second Tank Army suffered heavy losses outside the city of Warsaw and in view of the fierce German offensive in the Bialystok direction, Yuri, as the representative of the headquarters, received an order from Moscow - to redeploy the offensive forces on the Polish front and strive to achieve a breakthrough first on the north and south wings of Warsaw.
Yuri knew very well that this telegram from Moscow had political intentions, because the German army had suffered equally serious losses on the offensive route of the 2nd Tank Army. At the same time, they had no reserve troops to deploy later. Behind the 2nd Tank Army, Chuikov's 9th Guards Army and the 47th Army had been deployed and could be put into battle at any time.
As for the battles on the north and south wings of Warsaw, there was no need for Moscow to issue any telegrams, as the First Belorussian Front was already doing it. While the battle on the Warsaw front was going on fiercely, the 69th Army commanded by Kolpakki had already launched an offensive in the direction of Puławy. His troops cut in from the junction of the German 4th Panzer Army and the 9th Army, and defeated the German 17th Infantry Division defending this area. In just two days, they established a landing field on the other side of the Vistula River with a front width of 30 kilometers and a length of more than 10 kilometers.
Subsequently, the 61st Army and the 9th Assault Army also broke through the German Vistula River defense line and captured Novo Miasto, Grujec and other places. The German defense line in the remote suburbs south of Warsaw was on the verge of collapse.
At this time, the main forces of the German army were mostly concentrated in front of Warsaw and in the direction of Bialystok, and the defensive forces in southern Poland were very weak - this is the dilemma currently faced by the German army, with a serious shortage of troops. Strengthening the forces in one direction will cause a situation of troop shortages in another direction.
In the confrontation with the German army, more than a dozen Soviet fronts were advancing in parallel, with abundant manpower, and weapons, equipment and logistical supplies being continuously delivered from the rear. There might be supply difficulties in the short term due to transportation problems, but there would not be a situation of logistical cutoff.
In a nutshell, when the war developed to this point in 1944, Germany finally failed completely in the competition of comprehensive national strength.
Germany has the most elite army in the world, the most advanced strategic and tactical thinking, and the most powerful military weapons. What about the former Soviet Union? It does have the largest army in the world, of course, only in terms of quantity, and other than that, it only has the most vast territory. But when these two countries fought, it was the Germans who ended up losing.
Therefore, the war was not fought over technology or ideas, but, in the final analysis, over comprehensive national strength. The Germans were actually dragged down by the Soviet Union.
Along the entire front, the fighting between the Soviet and German armies was not limited to Warsaw. From the Baltic coast to East Prussia, from Poland to Romania, the front stretched for thousands of kilometers. The German counterattack only made some progress on the Warsaw front, while in all other places, the German army was retreating.
In Romania, the Soviet army had already entered Romania and was advancing rapidly towards the Ploiesti oil fields controlled by the German army. In Romania, the forces opposing Antonescu were seeking peace talks with the Allies. After Molotov made a speech stating that the Soviet Union had no intention of taking Romanian territory, the power of this opposition was growing rapidly. Even Antonescu himself began to waver in his position, and his attitude towards the Germans became increasingly tough.
On the Baltic coast, Soviet troops were sweeping across the collapsed German Army Group North. Lithuania, Estonia and other places were liberated one after another, and the Soviet army pushed straight to the Gulf of Riga.
Further north, the war with Finland was drawing to a close, with Soviet troops having seized all of the territory ceded to the Soviet Union by Finland in the Moscow Peace Treaty.
When the news of the German defeat in the Battle of Estonia reached Finland, the Finnish government, under pressure, began to seek opportunities for peace talks with the Soviet Union again. Now, although the two sides are still in a standoff, all military operations have stopped.
At this point, the outcome of this protracted war had actually become clear. Even if the German army launched a certain degree of counterattack in a specific direction and caused a certain degree of losses to the Soviet army, there was no force that could change the overall direction of the war.
It was in this situation that Yuri received another telegram from the headquarters - an order signed by Comrade Stalin himself, asking him to return to Moscow immediately to participate in the parade of German prisoners of war.
