Chapter 74: New Situation
For most people, life in military academies is undoubtedly boring and tiring. In fact, it is true. Although the Shaposhnikov Higher Military Academy is a place dedicated to training middle and senior commanders, students still have to participate in basic physical training.
After entering the school, Yuri's basic daily routine is arranged according to the school's schedule: get up at 6 o'clock in the morning, wash up for 10 minutes, start at 6:10, and do a 2-kilometer morning run. After that, there is a period of free time, mainly to tidy up the house. 7 o'clock is the time for students to have breakfast. There is no limit on the meal time, but 8 o'clock is the time for formal classes. There are a total of 3 classes every morning. The first class is the unchanging political theory class. Students must learn the theories of many revolutionary mentors including Marx, Enkes and Lenin, and also learn Comrade Stalin's theories and essence on many aspects of the socialist Soviet economy, military, social culture, etc. This course is very important. It is evaluated once a month and the evaluation results are recorded in the student files.
The next two classes and the first two classes in the afternoon are all military theory classes. Through these four classes every day, every student must have an in-depth understanding and mastery of many tactics and command theories of various arms, including infantry tactics, position defense, assault and counter-assault operations, tank combat deployment, combat command, combat coordination, logistics and technical support, artillery firepower elements, artillery shooting rules, etc.
In the evening, there is another class, which takes up one hour, and the main content is free discussion and exchange among students.
Yuri couldn't help but feel proud that during the training of the trainees, the instructors used the Berezna Defense Battle, which he commanded and carried out by the 34th Brigade, as a typical case of infantry defense operations and gave detailed explanations. In the words of the instructors, "In the Berezna Defense Battle, our commanders used unconventional means to combine the small-unit combat mode unique to guerrilla warfare with the attritional positional warfare method, causing heavy losses to the German army, which had an advantage in manpower and weapons and equipment. Therefore, it can be called a model of street fighting and urban area combat."
In fact, from a tactical point of view, of all the battles commanded by Yuri, only the Battle of Berezna was truly outstanding. As for the others, such as the Battle of Brezhnev, its political significance far outweighed its practical significance, and the surprise attack by Schorse was entirely due to the favor of the god of luck. Only the Battle of Berezna was a head-on confrontation, fought with real ability. This can be proved by the feedback from the Soviet intelligence department from the German army. Even Guderian, who is known as a famous general, admitted when talking about the battle in the Berezna area that "among the Russian army with backward tactical theory, there are also some commanders with strong military literacy."
However, past achievements are only in the past, and Yuri has never thought of just resting on his laurels. His current goal is to learn more in the academy so that when he graduates in the future, he can command an elite force that can coordinate operations among various arms.
In order to achieve this goal, Yuri studied very hard in the academy. In addition to daily classes, he often visited the academy library. In addition, what he was most passionate about was discussing and deducing with students of the same period, so as to learn from their experience and broaden his experience.
The days passed one by one in this monotonous yet enjoyable academic practice. As September passed and October came quietly, the weather got colder day by day. As the saying goes, every autumn rain brings a chill. The rainy season in Moscow reaches its peak in October. Now the temperature close to 0 degrees seems to tell people that a rare cold winter in history is approaching Moscow step by step.
The drizzle continued, and the gray and yellow wilderness took on a dark gray color under the drizzle, which seemed to give people a desolate feeling.
A jeep covered with camouflage nets sped along the road from Solnechnogorsk to Moscow. Inside the car, Yuri, wearing a woolen military coat, sat quietly in the back seat, concentrating on reading the battle report he had just received this morning.
The battle report was issued by the General Staff. Only commanders at the school level or above who were on the front line or might rush to the front line at any time were qualified to read it. Its content was the battle report of the Battle of Kiev that had just ended a week ago.
This massive battle finally ended. Shaw's victory did not fundamentally reverse the situation of the war. It only delayed the end of the battle by nearly two weeks. At the same time, it also greatly weakened the results achieved by the German army.
On September 27, the German troops on the northern and southern fronts successfully joined forces in Romny and Smailoye areas east of Kiev. Most of the Soviet 5th, 6th, 21st, 26th and 37th Armies were surrounded. Only the 40th Army successfully broke through the German siege and retreated to the Ligov area.
Afterwards, the encircled Soviet troops began to launch a breakout operation. By the end of the battle on October 13, a total of nearly 100,000 people broke through the siege, retreated to the area from Proletarsky to Belgorod, and rebuilt the defense line.
According to official data released by the Supreme Command, the Soviet army lost nearly 130,000 troops in the entire Battle of Kiev and lost a large area of Ukraine west of Sumy. However, on the re-consolidated defense line, the Soviet army has once again formed a large-scale force and is ready to launch an operation to retake Kiev at any time.
But this official statement was aimed at the public, and according to the report in Yuri's hand, the Soviet army lost as many as 270,000 troops. In addition, because the new reserve corps had not yet been successfully formed, the defense from Sumy to Belgorod was very weak. Once encountered an attack by the German army, it would most likely be forced to continue retreating.
The failure of the Battle of Kiev put the Soviet army in an absolutely passive position in the south and southwest. Dnepropetrovsk, Donetsk, Odessa, Kharkov and other important cities were directly threatened by the German army. It can even be said that the fall of the entire Ukraine was only a matter of time. If Ukraine was lost, the Soviet Union would lose its main grain-producing area, and Sevastopol, the headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet, would also be lost. At the same time, the German 2nd Panzer Group, which had withdrawn from the Battle of Kiev, would be deployed to the Western Front again, posing a direct threat to Moscow.
The Supreme Command's judgment on the German strategy was accurate. Just after the Battle of Kiev, the German army on the southern front began to launch an offensive towards the Crimean Peninsula, and in the southwest, Kharkov, Sumy and other places also fell one after another. The German 2nd Panzer Group, which was liberated from the Battle of Kiev, made a detour and broke through the Bryansk Front's defense line from the south of Roslavl, and was advancing rapidly towards the Vyazma area.
The German army's combat intention was very clear. They planned to encircle and annihilate most of the Bryansk Front in the Vyazma-Bryansk area and eliminate the right-wing threat of its attacking Moscow troops. However, it was useless to learn of the German army's intention because in this area, the Bryansk Front had no place to retreat and could only hold on.
Vyazma is the key point of the Moscow defense line and the core of the Vyazma defense line built by the Soviet army. This defense line starts from Ostashkov on the shore of Lake Seliger in the north and ends at Kirov in the south. Vyazma is located in the center of the main defense line. If the German army successfully breaks through Vyazma, the entire defense line will be useless and the German army will successfully reach the Moyesk .
The situation is very difficult. Although he knows the general trend of history, Yuri couldn't help but shake his head secretly when he saw this notice.
The deteriorating situation on the southern front, the passivity on the northern front, and the successive defeats on the central front made the overall direction of the Soviet army's entire front seem confusing, so that many people saw no hope.
As a mid-level employee who had just joined the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs and became the deputy leader of a subordinate agency of the department, Yuri also gained some advantages. From the intelligence information he had obtained in the past two days, the situation in Moscow also showed signs of instability. This instability came from the big discussion on whether to withdraw government agencies.
It is frustrating that such a big discussion was actually initiated from the bottom. The signs of this discussion had already appeared in early October, and by the middle of the month, this discussion began to become more and more rampant, and the whole of Moscow began to become uneasy.
According to the intelligence information provided by the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs, on the 4th of this month, the Supreme Command and the Politburo discussed whether to withdraw government agencies. Most people, including Stalin, opposed the withdrawal of agencies from Moscow, because it would not only affect the morale of the troops and the confidence of the people, but also cause a heavy blow to the international reputation of the Soviet Union. Most importantly, the British ambassador and the American secret envoy are currently in Moscow. They brought a large-scale aid plan to Stalin. Stalin would never allow Moscow to be evacuated at this time, which would cause the United States and Britain to lose confidence.
In response to the rumors of retreat, the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs had already taken action, and a large-scale arrest operation was in the works. However, a sudden change disrupted the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs' deployment - the "Ramza" group of the Tokyo intelligence department directly led by the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was cracked by the Japanese, and Richard Sorge, a German Nazi who used the aliases Sant, Schwarz, Ramser, and Insson, was arrested.
This was an extremely heavy loss for the Soviet intelligence system. Most importantly, this was the critical moment when the Germans were about to attack Moscow. Without this source of intelligence, the Supreme Command would not be able to learn about the news from Japan and would not be able to predict the development of the situation in the Far East.
