Rise of Australia

Chapter 921 Shooting
As the president of the Russian government, Sudalin naturally received the news that the Russian Western Front was surrounded and annihilated by Germany. It is worth mentioning that such news actually came from the German radio station, not the Western Front or the military report.

This surprised Sudalin greatly, and he immediately called Zhukov to ask about the situation of the Pavlov Western Front.

Where was Pavlov at this time? Pavlov was at the position of Bialystok, commanding the Russian 10th Army to defend against the German offensive.

When Zhukov asked Pavlov about the current situation of the Western Front, Pavlov actually gave an answer that he was not aware of the situation.

As the commander of the Western Front, Pavlov's answer was undoubtedly unqualified, and made Zhukov extremely disappointed.

Zhukov then continued to ask whether the news from the German radio station was true. Pavlov replied that he was not sure, but it should be true.

What a good idea!
Zhukov was so angry that he almost laughed. He hung up the phone with Pavlov and conveyed all the content of the conversation to Sudalin.

Only then did Pavlov realize the seriousness of the matter. While he was still resolutely resisting the German frontal attack, the German armored forces that he despised had already defeated the entire Western Front from the rear.

On the other side, Sudalin was very angry when he heard the news.

He couldn't believe that the Western Front commanded by Pavlov would be defeated so completely in such a short time, and even the main force had been surrounded and annihilated by the Germans.

What made Sudalin even more unbelievable was that Pavlov, whom he had originally trusted, performed very incompetently in this war and was not even clear about the situation of the various army groups under his command.

Although part of the reason for this was that the Germans destroyed the Russian army's communication system, Sudalin did not believe that hundreds of thousands of troops would completely lose contact without telephones.

More importantly, Bialystok and the place where the Western Front was attacked in the rear were only a few dozen kilometers away.

If Pavlov had been able to foresee the possible attack on the rear, the Western Front would not have ended up being surrounded and annihilated.

The angry Sudalin was only angry for a moment because he had no good way to deal with Pavlov who was in Bialystok.

At present, the Western Front's retreat has been cut off by the Germans. Even if Sudalin wants to recall Pavlov to be punished, he can only do so if Pavlov leads his army to successfully break through.

If Pavlov failed to break out, the Germans would have captured him first without waiting for Sudalin to try him.

Sudalin's rage intensified at the thought that Pavlov and other senior officers of the Western Front might be captured by the Germans.

Pavlov's rank was that of a general, which was a very high rank in the Russian officer system. Above him was only a marshal, which meant that if Pavlov was captured by the Germans, it would be a huge blow to the war the Russians were waging.

"Let that damned guy resist firmly!" Sudalin said to Zhukov with a gloomy face: "I don't want the Germans to capture our senior officers, and I don't want him to be the first Russian officer to be captured.

Tell him what to do. If he is really powerless to resist, I hope he can abide by the honor of a Russian officer instead of living with his sins. "

Sudalin's words were conveyed to Pavlov verbatim. This was also the expectation of the entire Russian government for the Western Front Command, which was to fight to the death.

Compared with the capture of senior officers of the Western Front, it was obviously more in the Russians' interest for the Western Front to fight to the last man.

If it was the former, it would undoubtedly be a blow to the faith of the Russian army. The capture of a senior general just a few days after the start of the war was not something a powerful country could do.

Of course, now it is no longer important to the Russian government and the Supreme Command whether Pavlov will fight to the death.

Most of the Western Front's troops had been annihilated, a total of 65 troops. After losing these troops, not only would the Polish region occupied by Russia be left open, but even Ukraine and Minsk would face the threat of the Germans.

A few days later, good news came that some remnants of the Western Front's 4th and 10th Armies broke out from Grodno, among them were members of the Western Front's command, including General Pavlov.

But this was not good news for the Russian government and Sudalin. After the withdrawal of this remnant army, there were only a few Russian troops left in Poland, and only one division of troops was left in Baranovichi, the gateway to Minsk.

When faced with the German army of hundreds of thousands, the strength of this division seemed so thin and fragile that it could be described as vulnerable.

As for Pavlov who successfully escaped back to the country, Sudalin's reaction could be summed up in two words: anger, extreme anger!
After returning to Moscow, the capital of Russia, the first person to meet Pavlov was Russian Marshal Timoshenko.

When he met the marshal, Pavlov asked anxiously, "Comrade Marshal, do I need to report to you?"

"No need, Comrade Pavlov." Marshal Timoshenko looked at Pavlov with a gloomy expression, and directly interrupted Pavlov's question with his hand. He suppressed his anger and said: "It's meaningless. Nothing we say can make up for our losses in Poland."

"Comrade Marshal, please consider my situation at the time. I think that if it were anyone else, it would be of no help either." Pavlov tried to defend himself.

But what greeted Pavlov was even more intense anger and questioning from Timoshenko: "I know that our Western Front soldiers are lacking in training, and we have many other problems.

But you know what? We lost more than 60 troops, a large number of tanks, planes and artillery, and the Polish territory we occupied.

As the commander of the Western Front, don't you have any responsibility at all?"

"But the Germans fought in Brest with 15 divisions, including at least 5 tank divisions. And we had only 3 tank divisions, and the defending army in Brest had only 7 divisions.

It was the German armored forces that confused me. I am willing to redeem myself and return to the battlefield in any position to make up for my loss to the country." Pavlov said hastily.

Faced with a military personnel like Timoshenko, Pavlov still wanted to fight for it.

Because he understands that once he enters the government's trial stage, those government officials will not have any understanding of him, he will bear the government's anger, and the price may be something he cannot afford.

"Well, I don't have time to do these arithmetic problems with you." Timoshenko did not give Pavlov a chance, directly interrupted Pavlov's rescue and ended the meeting.

Pavlov looked pale in the room. He knew that he had lost all his chances. He could only wait quietly for the government to judge him. No matter what the result was, he would be forced to bear it.

About an hour later, a lieutenant general from the Supreme Command entered Pavlov's room and handed him an arrest warrant.

"Comrade Lieutenant General, are you sure you are not mistaken?" Pavlov looked at the Lieutenant General in disbelief.

"If you are General Pavlov, then you are right." The lieutenant general nodded calmly, and without any expression, he signaled the guards to arrest Pavlov directly. Although it was the first time to try a senior general in a war, it was nothing new for the Russian government and Sudalin to try military personnel.

However, due to Pavlov's huge guilt in the war and Sudalin's anger that had nowhere to vent, the trial lasted less than a week and the result was announced soon.

The commander of the Western Front, Pavlov, the chief of staff of the Western Front, Klimovsky, the chief of communications of the Western Front, Grigoriev, and the commander of the Fourth Army, Korobkov, were sentenced to death by firing squad for anti-Russian conspiracy and treason and were executed immediately.

Russian President Sudalin signed the verdict, crossed out the words "anti-Russian conspiracy" and agreed to its immediate execution.

In this way, a general, an admiral, and two lieutenant generals were immediately executed by firing squad. They were also the highest-ranking generals ever immediately executed in war since the establishment of the current Russian government.

Although senior generals of the Western Front, including Pavlov, were executed, Sudalin was still angry.

However, there is obviously a more important task at this time, which is to deploy the defense line from Minsk to Moscow to ensure the safety of the Russian capital Moscow.

If the Germans were allowed to quickly reach the vicinity of Moscow, it would be a huge blow to the current Russian government.

In order to ensure the safety of the capital, the Russian Supreme Command dispatched the Reserve Army Group to rush to the Minsk to Vitebsk line and try to build a defense line on the Minsk line.

If Minsk cannot be defended, a defense line will be built from Vitebsk to Smolensk, and this line will be defended to the death.

After Pavlov, Marshal Timoshenko became the commander of the Western Front. Sudalin also gave Timoshenko a difficult task, which was to ensure that Russian territory was not violated as much as possible.

But this task was indeed too difficult for Timoshenko. Most of the original 10th, 3rd and 4th armies of the Western Front were damaged, and the 3rd army was completely wiped out.

The Western Front had a total of 65 troops, but the number of people who broke through was less than 5, not even enough to form an army.

Although the Reserve Army Group will draw two armies to be incorporated into the Western Front, part of the troops around Moscow will also be mobilized to help the Tenth and Fourth Armies restore their organization and combat effectiveness.

But that is a matter for the future. What's more, without a certain period of accumulated combat experience, the two newly joined armies and the reorganized recruits of the Western Front are actually not combat-ready.

What’s even more terrible is that the Western Front’s heavy firepower weapons, especially the tanks and aircraft that are urgently needed on the battlefield, have now reached their limit.

Because they broke out of the encirclement, the less than 100 aircraft and dozens of tanks left by the Western Front all became German spoils.

This is also one of the reasons why Sudalin was angry. Russia is not rich now, and these weapons and equipment are a considerable fortune for Russia.

According to Timoshenko's estimate, after all the troops are reorganized, the Western Front will have the strength of four army groups, and the total number of people will expand from the original 65 to about 80.

But this is not all good news. Compared with the Western Front under Pavlov, where the majority of the troops were recruits, the Western Front under Timoshenko's rule could be said to be basically composed of recruits.

In terms of the replenishment of tanks and aircraft, each generation is inferior to the previous one.

Pavlov still has 300 aircraft and hundreds of tanks under his command. The Western Front currently led by Timoshenko, even when it is fully staffed, has only a little over 100 aircraft at most, which are mobilized from Moscow and other regions.

The number of tanks was even smaller, only a few dozen, and a considerable number of them were Russian tanks of the previous generation.

Taking into account the loss of heavy firepower weapons and the decline in the overall quality of soldiers, it can be said that the combat effectiveness of the reorganized Western Front is not as good as the previous Western Front.

Trying to rely on these new recruits to stop the German attack was a headache for a long time even though Timoshenko was already a Russian field marshal.

On the German side, the victory in Poland obviously could not satisfy the German appetite. Since the war with Russia had already begun, the German ambition was definitely to attack Moscow and divide up the Russians' vast land area and rich mineral resources.

After encircling and annihilating most of the Western Front, the German army occupied and controlled important cities such as Bialystok, while organizing the army to continue advancing eastward, and captured Baranovichi in less than two days.

This city is the western gateway to Minsk, and it should not be so easy to break through.

However, due to the deployment of the Pavlovsk Western Front, Baranovichi only had one division of troops stationed there. When facing the attack of hundreds of thousands of German troops, this one division of troops naturally could not resist for too long.

When Pavlov successfully broke through and arrived in Moscow, the German army had already officially broken through Baranovichi, and the armored forces had already taken the lead as the vanguard and approached the western border city of Minsk in Russia.

Minsk is also well-known in Eastern Europe, with a history of nearly 900 years. The city once belonged to Lithuania and eventually became part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

After being occupied by Russia in 1793, it has been an important border town in western Russia. Since the Tsarist rule, it has been a famous military town and fortress in Russia.

The good news is that there are currently four divisions of troops stationed in Minsk and more than 4 aircraft.

The bad news is that the troops of these four divisions were once the reserve forces of the Western Front, in other words, they were new recruits.

Most of the more than 300 aircraft had been damaged in the German attack, and at least dozens of the remaining aircraft had been lost in battle in order to support the main force of the Western Front.

Currently, Minsk has less than 70 aircraft capable of taking off, and only about half of these aircraft are truly combat-capable.

Expecting four divisions of new recruits and thirty or forty combat-capable aircraft to defend this important military town is absolutely nothing but a foolish dream. There is no hope at all.

What’s even more terrible is that these four divisions also belonged to the Western Front and were once under Pavlov’s rule.

After Pavlov broke through and fled to Moscow, the four divisions were leaderless and had no way to contact the Western Front headquarters.

You must know that according to the deployment and system of the Russian army, there are armies above the division, army groups above the army, and army groups above the army, which are equivalent to the Russian fronts.

This also means that these four divisions are not only unable to contact the Western Front's command, but also unable to contact the rear command.

(End of this chapter)