Chapter 56: Pig Teammate
The bulge, the bulge, the damn bulge!
Someone must be held accountable for the Chernigov debacle , someone needs to be sentenced or even shot.
This was the first thought that flashed through Yuri's mind when he heard the news.
How many troops did the 21st Army have stationed in the northern bank of Chernigov? Two full divisions, nearly 14,000 people, how long did they hold their positions? From the time the Germans launched the offensive to the time the front collapsed, it took less than 14 hours. The most hateful thing is that the main direction of the German offensive was not set in Chernigov, but in Berezna, on the position of the 34th Brigade.
According to Demel, the fundamental reason why the 21st Army's defense line collapsed was that the Chernigov ferry was blown up by the German army, which was equivalent to cutting off the rear supply line. Panic spread among the troops and eventually led to the collapse.
This reason was pure nonsense in Yuri's opinion. Even if it was true, the commander of the two divisions should be shot. How did the soldiers fighting on the front line know about the bombing of the ferry and the cut-off of support? Why didn't they block the news? To be frank, if the commander hadn't panicked and lost morale, such news would never have spread. Even if it had spread, the commander should have controlled the emotions of the soldiers. If he doesn't even have this kind of organizational ability, what kind of commander is he?
In the past, he always felt that the military law within the Red Army system was too harsh, and commanders would be executed at any time. But now, Yuri felt that this harshness was justified, because an incompetent commander would kill not only his soldiers, but also his friendly forces.
Now, the 21st Army retreated to the south bank of the Desna River, with only the 34th Brigade holding its positions, forming a vulnerable salient on the German positions on the north bank of the river.
In military terms, a salient between two opposing armies is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it is easy for the side that forms the salient to be surrounded and annihilated by the enemy. On the other hand, it can also be used as a core to threaten the enemy's flank. To achieve the latter effect, the side that forms the salient must have sufficient reserves, because if the salient is not to be eaten by the enemy, it must continuously deploy reserves.
But the question now is, does Yuri have any reserve troops? Is the front capable of providing him with sufficient support? Obviously, there is none of these, so he poses no threat to the German front. Sadly, the Germans do not know and will not believe this. It is foreseeable that in the coming time, in order to eliminate this threat, the German army will inevitably increase its offensive against the Berezna area, and the situation Yuri will face will be even worse.
Logically speaking, at this time, the best choice Yuri could make was to withdraw his troops to the south bank of the Desna River and defend the urban area on the south bank. At the same time, he would blow up the ferry on the river and use powerful artillery to support the German army to prevent the German army from establishing a landing site on the south bank of the Desna River.
However, in the previous combat arrangements, Yuri had divided his troops into small teams. If the troops were to retreat at this time, it was foreseeable that the final result would inevitably be a major rout. Hundreds of soldiers from the two divisions of the 21st Army drowned in the Desna River during the rout. In Yuri's prediction, if the 34th Brigade had a major rout, more people would drown because he did not have enough boats to cross the river, and the German army had already squeezed the entire defense line of the 34th Brigade. Even more tragically, he did not have a strong artillery force to back him up, and it was impossible to effectively prevent the German army from crossing the river.
However, Yuri also knew that any complaints at this time were useless. If nothing unexpected happened, the German army would launch a large-scale offensive against Berezna at the latest tomorrow morning, and the battle would be more brutal than he had previously predicted.
The entire command of the 34th Brigade, including Demel, was obviously aware of this reality. Therefore, everyone was very nervous. Even the combat staff had nothing to advise. Some people even suggested withdrawing the troops from Berezna.
Yuri ignored this unrealistic suggestion. As he said, retreating at this time would be tantamount to collapse, and anyone who gave such an order would be destined to be brought to a military court in the future.
Yuri was also afraid of death, but he would rather die on the battlefield, being blown up by the enemy, than die on the execution ground. For a soldier, that was too sad - I don't know since when, Yuri has completely brought himself into the identity of a soldier.
In the end, Yuri made a decision as the commander of the 34th Brigade and issued two orders: First, he raised concerns to the front command that the German army might launch a large-scale offensive against Berezno, and at the same time stated that the 34th Brigade Command decided to defend the urban area on the north bank of the Desna River to pin down and consume the German army. Of course, considering that this battle may be extremely fierce, it is hoped that the front can give the 34th Brigade as much support as possible. Second, he ordered the grassroots commanders to reveal a message to the soldiers, that is, the front command is gathering reserves in the area on the south bank of the Desna River, preparing to launch a counterattack against the German army with the Berezna salient as the core.
Yuri has always believed that a commander can command soldiers to die and ask them to fight the enemy in any harsh environment, but before that, whether it is true or false, he must give the soldiers a hope, a hope that they may sacrifice themselves, may die in battle, but they will eventually win. Only with such a hope, whether true or false, will the soldiers' spirits not collapse, and they can persist until the last moment in a deadly environment, and this persistence is often the key to victory.
Don't ask whether hope comes first before victory, or victory comes first before hope. This is as ridiculous as discussing whether the chicken or the egg came first. Don't discuss whether deceiving soldiers is fun, because it is a means of command, and an effective one. Therefore, it must be used when needed.
The German army's large-scale offensive came earlier than Yuri expected. At 4 o'clock in the afternoon of that day, the German army launched an attack on the city of Berezno from three directions. Among the three directions of the German army's attack , the middle road was obviously the top priority. Just as Yuri predicted, the German army's intention was to cut the Soviet army defending the city into two parts, and at the same time, seize the Soviet ferry on the Desna River.
The German large-scale shelling of the city began at 4 p.m. and lasted for two hours. In the October District, more than half of the buildings were destroyed by German artillery fire. Victory Avenue, Dzerzhinsky Avenue, Lenin Square, and October Square were successively controlled by the German army. Even the former headquarters of the 34th Brigade, the Urban Planning and Design Institute Building, fell into the hands of the Germans.
At nine o'clock in the evening, the German offensive stopped. At ten-fifteen , Yuri received a report on the casualties of the troops that day: in the battle that day, the casualties of the 34th Brigade were as high as 1,200 people, and an entire regiment was wiped out.
After receiving the report on casualties, the 34th Brigade Command held a short meeting. Yuri resisted the pressure and, with the support of Political Commissar Demel, rejected the staff's proposal to withdraw the troops to the south bank of the Desna River overnight, and asked the previously established assault team to launch a counterattack on the German-occupied urban area at night.
In fact, it was very irrational for Yuri to order the troops to launch a counterattack at this time, because the casualties of the troops were too great. The 34th Brigade lost nearly one-third of its troops in the daytime battle. From a military point of view, the troops had actually been defeated, and the soldiers' spirits were actually on the verge of collapse. If the counterattack failed and the troops suffered huge losses again, then the situation that the 34th Brigade would face next would be a complete collapse.
At 1:00 a.m. on the 8th, under Yuri's order, several assault teams of the 34th Brigade began to counterattack the German defense line. The battle entered a white-hot stage from the beginning. Buildings that were almost bombed into ruins became battlefields for hand-to-hand combat between soldiers of both sides. Although the Germans threw a large number of flares, the Soviet assault teams still broke through the German defense line under the cover of the ruins.
By 4 a.m., after three hours of fierce fighting, the Soviet army recaptured the entire October District and the southern part of the Don District in one fell swoop, pushing the German defense line back one kilometer to the north.
Do not underestimate this one kilometer. By losing this one kilometer, the German army only advanced less than 1.8 kilometers southward in the entire day's attack yesterday.
At 4 a.m., when the Soviet counterattack pushed the front line back to Dzerzhinsky Street , Yuri issued an order to the troops, requiring the soldiers to bury a large number of mines outside the defensive buildings. At the same time, he reported to the front command on the battle situation and troop losses that night.
…
Kyiv, Southwestern Front Command.
Major General Vasily Ivanovich Tupikov, who had just taken over the post of Chief of the General Staff of the Southwestern Front less than a month ago, walked into the headquarters at the first light of the morning.
At this time, there were already people in the headquarters' operations command room. Tupikov walked to his seat, put the documents in his hand on the table, lit a cigarette for himself, and then looked across.
In addition to him, there were three other people in the command room, two members of the Front Military Committee: Burmistenko and Rekov, and the other one was Colonel Zakhvatayev, deputy director of the Operations Department of the Front General Staff.
Nodding to the remaining few people as a greeting, Tupikov, who had always been rather withdrawn, began to look through the documents in front of him - this was the battle report of the 34th Brigade that he had received an hour ago. This report gave him a headache.
