Chapter 34:
Chapter 34
I felt like my stomach was turning upside down again.
I heard the shocking news that Rundstedt, the oldest and highest-ranking officer in the defense army and my superior, had been arrested on the absurd charge of plotting to assassinate the Führer.
As a result, the vacant position of the commander of the Southern Army Group was filled by some young colonel who had been promoted two ranks to a general.
“Walter Model? Who is that… who are you?”
“Are you… Walter Model, the one who was a division commander in the Central Army Group until recently?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
One of the division commanders under my command raised his hand hesitantly.
What was his name?
As I was trying to remember, the general spoke with a sincere look of curiosity.
“Then I think he’s my friend. He’s an old friend of mine…”
“…What?”
The guy who should be a division commander under me is now my boss?
I could understand how Manstein, who had been pushed aside by some incompetent senior, had become the commander of the Northern Army Group.
I could also accept that Guderian, who was seven years younger than me, had been promoted because he had advanced the farthest.
But as I heard those shocking words, I felt like punching him in the face.
‘What did I do wrong?’
Who is that Model guy and what did he do so well that he became an army group commander?
The situation of the Southern Army Group was not good. But that was because the Soviet resistance was strongest in the south, and we had to face their elite forces with pathetic Romanian and Hungarian soldiers.
Did the Führer think this was my fault?
But the current situation was not something that could be explained by the difference in command ability of the generals.
Would Rundstedt, who had grown old and senile, have done well in Poland and France?
At that moment, the door of the conference room opened wide and someone came in swiftly.
The general who grabbed the empty chair at the head of the table greeted everyone with a look of surprise.
“Nice to meet you!”
His steps were light, and his speech was cheerful and clear.
He looked inappropriate for a commander of a defeated army that was cornered.
“I’m Model, the new commander of the Southern Army Group. I won’t say much, so let’s get to the briefing quickly.”
Would a rising general who had been victorious at the forefront act like this?
He showed no hesitation in front of those who had much longer military careers than him.
After the initial victory at the beginning of the war, the German army had not tasted a real victory.
And yet he had such confidence?
I was speechless.
Model even waved his hand and smiled brightly at the division commander who said he was an old friend.
The other generals did not seem very convinced either.
Anyone could see that the situation of the Southern Army Group was grim.
The 6th Army’s defense line had more holes than troops in front of the surprise offensive of the Soviet 1st and 2nd Shock Armies.
The Soviet mobile units penetrated through the gaps in the defense line, and we barely repelled them, but not without casualties.
As a result, the units under the 6th Army were isolated and reduced to small and exhausted subunits.
It was not a matter of retreating and reorganizing.
It was either being annihilated while retreating or breaking through the front line and abandoning our allies.
That was our only choice.
On top of that, our infantrymen were exposed to the powerful artillery fire of the Soviet artillery units.
They clutched their helmets and trembled in their trenches, only to be swallowed up by the waves of advancing Soviet soldiers.
“Our 34th Infantry Division has less than half of its strength left!”
“The same goes for our 82nd Division, sir!”
Each corps and division pleaded for reinforcements and support, describing how desperate their situation was.
One general showed his arm wrapped in a white bandage and tearfully begged him to save his unit from being shot by a Soviet soldier.
Model commander listened to them with a calm expression, closing his eyes lightly.
A few young staff officers transferred our troops and enemy troops to a tactical map with a scale of 25,000:1.
The Soviets were disgustingly numerous.
We couldn’t even represent them all with our wooden markers, so we had to use pieces of paper with identification codes and numbers instead.
First of all, the German army was already overwhelmed by the sheer number of artillery pieces that dominated the firepower on the battlefield.
The Soviet artillery force was clearly inferior to the German one in terms of training, skill, and quality of shells. But the Soviets compensated for this low reliability with overwhelming quantity.
“The Soviet army’s heavy artillery power… It is estimated that they have more than five times as many guns as we do, based on the number of guns alone. The supply of shells is also relatively smooth for them, so there is no factor that would hinder their bombardment.”
The artillery observation commander was also crying out in despair.
Stalin said, ‘Artillery is the god of war’, didn’t he? 152mm, 203mm, and even 280mm heavy guns that were scarce on the entire battlefield fired at the unlucky soldiers of the Southern Army Group.
According to the data obtained through radio interception, the unit numbers of the heavy artillery battalions reached up to 100.
“Does that mean they have that many heavy guns?”
“Probably so, we assume…”
The German army assigned one battalion to each division, and only a few to the corps-level artillery brigades.
The heavy guns were so scarce that they had to be borrowed from the corps-level units and operated under the command of the corps artillery force or the Higher Artillery Command, and only allocated when a division requested urgent support.
And they had hundreds of them? Some people snorted.
From 76mm field guns to 82mm mortars, it was hard to estimate how many guns the Soviet army had in their units. 10,000 guns? 20,000 guns?
That was not all.
The reconnaissance planes reported that countless Soviet infantry and tank units were advancing.
Most of them were worthless things like tankettes and light tanks, but among them were T-34s and KVs that were not easy to deal with even with Panzer III or IV.
As more reports were compiled, the generals’ faces became more distorted.
The 6th Army had only 270,000 men.
The 1st Panzer Group was essentially an armored unit, so it had even less, barely 110,000.
The Soviet army… 500,000? 1 million?
No one could guess their numbers. Until recently, they could intercept almost any communication, but now it seemed that the Soviet army had opened their eyes to the field of communication security.
“We… estimate that they have at least more than a million. Maybe even close to 2 million.”
“Huh…”
The reconnaissance flight commander sent by Luftwaffe spoke of 2 million in a trembling voice.
The generals all let out a long sigh at the number. But Model, the commander-in-chief, smiled faintly instead, showing no sign of frustration.
“First.”
No one could say anything until Model spoke in a very cheerful voice.
Was he sane? Or… a savior?
Kleist wondered. Maybe all the other generals felt the same way. But Model seemed to be oblivious to what others thought.
I’m the leader here! Was that what he thought?
Anyway, with no other alternatives, they gathered around to see his tactics.
“First of all, we will close this gap and secure the connection between the 6th Army and the 1st Panzer Group.”
Most of the equipment of the 1st Panzer Group was stuck in mud and could not move properly.
The railway network behind them had been cut off long ago by partisan attacks and cavalry forces led by Budenny.
Even if they combined the 6th Army and the 1st Panzer Group, they had 380,000 soldiers who were exhausted and wounded without replenishing their losses. But Model was confident.
He ran his hand over the key points on the tactical map.
Novogorod-Volynskyi, Dubovitsy, Shepetovka, Zdolbunov.
He tapped and brushed away the waves of Soviet troops heading for the unfamiliar Russian-named cities.
“Here, here, and here.”
The areas where railroads passed that could support the 1st Panzer Group.
His hand drew a long line from Lutsk where the Southern Army Group headquarters was located.
His ‘counterattack’ had two spearheads.
It was obvious that he intended to annihilate the Soviet vanguard ‘field armies’ starting from Lutsk and Chernobyl.
“And from here we will launch a counteroffensive. The Soviet army… The 9th Army and the 26th Army? Those bastards are too cocky. Hahaha.”
Kleist and all the other generals were stunned by his absurd optimism.
No matter how huge the German field army units were compared to those of the Soviet army, they faced several armies that they did not know how many.
It was not a matter of simply annihilating two field armies.
They needed something more to avoid drowning in the waves of troops that would follow.
Model’s old friend, Hans-Valentin Hube, raised his hand hesitantly.
Model smiled brightly and answered his old friend’s question.
“Ah! Hans. Yes, what are you curious about?”
“Sir… Do we have reinforcements for this operation? Will our strength be enough for this operation?”
Model looked at the audience with playful eyes.
Reinforcements?
Did they have reinforcements?
Everyone’s eyes were filled with anticipation and focused on the new commander-in-chief.
Well, if the Führer loved him so much that he put him in that position… Wouldn’t they have reinforcements?
Hahaha, he answered loudly with a hearty laugh.
“Me! Don’t you have your new commander-in-chief here?”
“Yes? Hehehe…”
Hube laughed as if he was speechless.
Some people joined his laughter and soon the conference room was filled with laughter.
Kleist snorted in disbelief.
‘No, have you ever seen such a madman?’
But he didn’t feel bitter at the moment.
He had seen many madmen in his forty years of military service.
Madmen either did reckless things and suffered a defeat, then got their heads chopped off after shifting all the blame, or… they won.
And this madman seemed to be the latter.
Hahaha, he started to like the young commander-in-chief who laughed heartily.
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