Chapter 2203

  Although the Belarusian Second Front has adjusted its attack direction, the troops are still at a distance without taking any action, because the troops that have undergone fierce battles need to replenish ammunition and soldiers to prepare for the next stage of action.

   Rokossovsky was invited by Zhukov to visit the liberated Warsaw city. When he returned, he came to Sokov's 48th Army headquarters.

  Sokov did not expect that Rokossovsky would come to his headquarters in person, and hurriedly led someone up to greet him, and asked in surprise while saluting: "Comrade Marshal, how come you have time to come to me?"

"Marshal Zhukov invited me to visit Warsaw." Rokossovsky replied: "On the way back to the headquarters, I thought that your combat area was nearby, so I ordered the driver to turn a corner and come to see you." .”

   "Comrade Marshal," Lunev asked when he stepped forward to shake hands with Rokossovsky, "I wonder what the city of Warsaw has become?"

Hearing Lunev's question, Rokossovsky snorted, and then said: "It can be described as **** on earth. Most of the buildings in the city were blown up by the Germans, and the whole city became a mess." Ruins; Also, during last year's uprising, the remains of the insurgents killed by the Germans were still thrown on the street or in the ruins of buildings. I really don't know what the Germans think, so many corpses are not disposed of , don’t they worry about a plague?”

"Comrade Marshal, I think the Germans have already considered this." Sokov interjected, "The reason why they allowed the corpses of the insurgents to be placed on the street is to deter those Warsaw citizens who are dissatisfied with the Germans. After the uprising was suppressed, the weather turned cooler and winter gradually entered, and they didn't have to worry about the plague caused by those corpses. Now that winter has not passed, they have abandoned this city that has no meaning of holding on, and let our army occupy the city. I'm afraid I just want to wait for the plague to occur after the beginning of spring and cause certain losses to our troops."

Rokossovsky agreed with Sokov's statement: "Misha, what you said is very reasonable. The Germans withdrew from the city at this moment, in fact, there is a conspiracy. There are only bones in a city without A city of living people is not only meaningless to us, but it will infect the troops with the plague."

   "I wonder if Marshal Zhukov has arranged manpower to deal with the bones left in the city?"

Rokossovsky nodded and said affirmatively: "Marshal Zhukov is also aware of this, so the first thing after entering the city is to organize a corpse collection team to collect the remains of the massacred insurgents or civilians, and conduct Properly handle it to avoid the plague after spring.”

   "Comrade Marshal, when will we launch an attack on the enemy?" Sidolin couldn't help asking: "The soldiers are getting impatient."

  Sidorin's words caused a roar of laughter in the room.

After the laughter, Rokossovsky said to the crowd: "Comrades, you have worked hard in the previous stage of fighting. Use this time to take a good rest. There are more arduous combat tasks ahead, wait It's up to you to finish."

   Sokov waited for Rokossovsky to finish speaking, and asked cautiously: "Comrade Marshal, can you tell us about the situation on the battlefield?"

Regarding Sokov's request, Rokossovsky briefly talked about the current situation: "According to the information we have obtained, the 3rd Tank Army on both wings of the 4th Group commanded by the German Army Horsbach The positions of the 2nd Army and the 2nd Army were effectively broken by our army. General Hans Reinhardt, the commander of the German Central Army Group, called Mustache and asked for permission to immediately withdraw the 4th Army to the Masurian Lake District. In order to slightly strengthen the 2nd Army with the freed forces, and prevent our army's possible attack on Elbing."

   After Rokossovsky finished speaking, he looked at Sokov and asked, "Misha, tell me about your analysis. Do you think the German Fourth Army will retreat?"

"Comrade Marshal, as you just said, the defense lines of the German 4th Army's left and right wings have been effectively broken by our army." Sokov stared at the map in front of him, and said cautiously: "If Hosbach If the general wants to continue holding on, Paulus will be waiting for him. In order to prevent this army from being annihilated by our army, no matter how reluctant Little Beard is, he must order him to retreat."

  After listening to Sokov's analysis, Rokossovsky nodded slightly, as if he was very satisfied with this answer.

Sokov pointed to the map and said to Rokossovsky: "Comrade Marshal, please see that Bolkin's 50th Army is the closest to the German 4th Army. Launching an attack, I think the retreat of the Germans may turn into a rout. At that time, we will be able to grasp more initiative on the battlefield."

The smile on Rokossovsky's face was even bigger: "Misha, that's a good analysis. I also discussed with Chief of Staff Bogolyubov that if the German 4th Army wants to retreat, order Bolkin's 50th Army Launch an attack on them, try to disrupt the retreat sequence of the German army, and severely damage their vital forces."

After Rokossovsky left, Lunev said to Sokov with regret on his face: "Misha, if Bolkin's 50th Army really launched the main attack and defeated the German 4th Army, then It will fall to him to open the way to Berlin."

Regarding this period of history, although Sokov knew that he could not believe it, he clearly remembered that although Bolkin's 50th Army was the closest to the German 4th Army, for some reason, after receiving Rokossovsky's After the offensive order was issued, Bolkin did not move, which caused most of the German 4th Army to escape to a safe area. By the time the Soviet scouts discovered that the German positions were empty, it was too late.

  In order to punish Bolkin, Rokossovsky directly dismissed him as the commander of the army group, and Ozerov, the chief of staff of the army group, took his place.

  Hearing Lunev's complaint at this moment, Sokov smiled slightly, but did not speak, because he knew in his heart that this honor would not fall on Bolkin's head anyway. If you are lucky, your troops will succeed the 50th Army and attack the German 4th Army, and you will still have a chance to win this honor.

The time came on the morning of January 21. Under Reinhardt's repeated pleadings, Mustache finally issued an order for the 4th Army to retreat, allowing them to withdraw to the Masurian Lake District and the area west of the Masurian Canal to the north. Continue to build fortifications to resist the Soviet attack.

  However, Hossbach found that his troops were faintly surrounded by the Soviet army. If they retreated according to the normal steps, the losses of the troops would be very heavy. Therefore, he directly ordered his subordinate troops to withdraw from the existing defense zone as quickly as possible, get rid of contact with the Russians, and rush to the area where the 2nd Army is located to join friendly forces.

  As the order was issued, the German officers and soldiers eager to escape immediately abandoned their positions and retreated to the area where the 2nd Army was located as quickly as possible. Except for a few commanders, no one knew that the retreat order they received was actually to rush to the Matsu Lake area to build a new line of defense, not to join the 2nd Army.

  In order to get rid of contact with the Soviet army as soon as possible, the troops encountered groups of fleeing civilians during their retreat. Hossbach ordered people to drive these ordinary people to both sides of the road, making room for the convoy carrying troops to pass quickly.

  As Sokov remembered, after receiving the telegram from Rokossovsky, Borkin did not follow the order at all and dispatched enough reconnaissance forces to monitor the German 4th Army. It wasn't until the evening of the 21st that a Soviet reconnaissance team that entered the German position by mistake found that the originally well-defended position was empty, and hurriedly reported to its superiors.

  The head of the reconnaissance department, who received the report, hurriedly took the telegram sent by the scouts to Bolkin. But after Bolkin read the telegram, he threw it aside and said to the director of reconnaissance with disdain: "Comrade director, don't you think that this is false information fabricated by the Germans, just to lure us into their Is it a trap?"

   Chief of Staff Ozerov said to Bolkin after hearing this: "Comrade Commander, since the information was sent back by the front-line scouts, should you immediately report it to the Front Army Command to see how they responded?"

"No, no, no." But Bolkin waved his hands and said stubbornly: "I said this is a German conspiracy, and it is a German conspiracy. Go back and be honest. No one is allowed to act rashly, otherwise I will absolutely Not lightly."

Seeing Bolkin's stubbornness, Ozerov couldn't help but frowned. He remembered the order sent by the Front Army Command not long ago, saying that the enemy might choose to retreat in the near future, and asked them to strengthen their surveillance of the enemy. The enemy has fled.

Knowing that he could not convince Bolkin, Ozerov took the chief of the reconnaissance to the next room and secretly gave him a new order: "Comrade chief of the reconnaissance, I think your information is very valuable. But for the sake of To be on the safe side, you should send more people to conduct reconnaissance on the German positions and find out what they are doing. Understand?"

   "Understood." The director of reconnaissance agreed, turned and left the room, and went to carry out the order.

  Sitting in the room, Ozerov thought about it for a while, and felt that such important information must be reported to the front army headquarters immediately, otherwise if something goes wrong, the superior will pursue it, and the consequences will be disastrous. It was precisely out of this consideration that he came to the telecommunications room and said to an operator: "Get me to the Front Army Command."

   After a while, the phone was connected, and Bogolyubov's voice came from the receiver: "I'm Bogolyubov, where are you, what can I do?"

   "Hello, General Bogolyubov." Ozerov quickly identified himself to the other party: "I am Major General Ozerov, chief of staff of the 50th Army."

  Bogolyubov hummed, and then asked: "What's the matter?"

   "Not long ago, we received a telegram from the Front Army Command, ordering me to monitor the German 4th Army."

   "That's right, there is this order, and I signed it myself." Bogolyubov asked in surprise, "Is there any problem?"

   "General Bogolyubov, I recently received an intelligence report from the Director of Reconnaissance, saying that the scouts he sent accidentally entered the German position and found that there was no enemy on the position."

   "What, there is no enemy?" Bogolyubov raised his voice: "What's the matter, don't the Germans grow wings and fly away?"

   "I don't know the specific situation." Hearing that the other party got angry, Ozerov replied in a panic: "I have sent someone to verify, and I believe it will not take long before I can get a reply."

   "Report to me as soon as you have the latest news."

  After Bogolyubov put down the phone, he reported the situation Ozerov said to Rokossovsky.

   Rokossovsky couldn't help frowning after hearing this: "Comrade Chief of Staff, if the situation reported by General Ozerov is true, why didn't we get Bolkin's report?"

Hearing Rokossovsky's question, Bogolyubov couldn't help being taken aback. Yes, it is reasonable to say that such a big event is reported by the commander of the group army in person. Why is it that the chief of staff secretly called him this time? Could something be wrong with it?

With such doubts, he said to Rokossovsky: "Comrade Marshal, I think something may have happened to General Bolkin, because the Chief of Staff Ozerov secretly tried to report this to me. "

   "How long will it take from us to the headquarters of the 50th Army Group?"

   "If you take a car, it will take about an hour."

  Rokossovsky got up and ordered Bogolyubov while fastening his belt: "Get me a car immediately. I'm going to the 50th Army headquarters."

   "What, now go to the headquarters of the 50th Army?" Bogolyubov was taken aback, and quickly reminded Rokossovsky: "It's already dark outside, and the road may not be safe."

   "I think there is something wrong with the 50th Army Group. I don't feel at ease if I don't go and take a look in person." Rokossovsky urged Bogolyubov again: "Get me a car!"

  When Bogolyubov called Rokossovsky to prepare the car, the military commissar Subbotin sitting on the side got up and said: "Comrade Marshal, I will go with you."

  Since Subbotin is willing to go with him, Rokossovsky is naturally happy, so he nodded and agreed: "Okay, Comrade Military Commissioner, you go with me."

   Bogolyubov, who finished the phone call, said to Rokossovsky: "Comrade Marshal, the car will be here soon. Do you need me to call General Bolkin?"

   "No." Rokossovsky waved his hand and said, "I just want to know the real situation of the 50th Army. If I have been notified in advance, I am afraid I won't be able to see what I want to see."

   Looking at the backs of Rokossovsky and Subbotin, Bogolyubov sighed softly, full of sympathy for Bolkin. If the Germans really retreated, but the 50th Army stationed nearby did not notice it at all, Bolkin would have an inescapable responsibility. According to Rokossovsky's personality, there is a high probability that the opponent will be directly dismissed. In this way, it may be necessary to transfer commanders from other units to take over Bolkin's position.

  (end of this chapter)