Russia at war
Page 20
Pavlov proceeded to give Boldin peremptory orders about the counter-offensive the 10th Army was to carry out that night. Boldin objected, pointing out that the 10th Army had been as good as wiped out. For a moment Pavlov seemed to hesitate, and then said:
"These are my orders. It's for you to carry them out."
What, Boldin reflected, was the meaning of these totally unrealistic orders? And he
related that, long after the war, he discovered that men like Pavlov used to issue such orders, "merely for the record, to show Moscow that something was being done to stop the Germans".
[Boldin does not mention the fact that Pavlov was, soon afterwards, to be shot for his incompetence—or as a scapegoat. Pavlov is also mentioned in Ehrenburg's memoirs as
one of the Russian generals he met in 1937 in Spain. He also refers to Pavlov's tragic end in 1941.]
The rest of this tragic chapter in Boldin's book deals with the attempts, during the 23rd, to mount a counter-offensive with the remnants of the 10th Army, some other units and the armoured corps under General Hatskilevich, which was still in comparatively good
shape. But all day long the troops and the army headquarters were being attacked by
enemy aircraft. One general was killed, and although Hatskilevich's tank crews fought bravely, they were beginning to run out of fuel. Boldin, unable to contact the Front headquarters, sent two planes to Minsk, begging for fuel to be flown to the headquarters of the 10th Army. But both planes were shot down.
It was in this desperate situation that Marshal Kulik suddenly arrived from Moscow.
[Kulik was a "Stalinist" upstart who had risen to the top of the Army hierarchy since the 1937 Purge. Little more was to be heard of him after the beginning of the war.]
He listened to my explanations, then made a vague gesture, and mumbled: "Yes, I see..." It was quite obvious that, when leaving Moscow, he had no idea that the situation was as serious as this. Soon afterwards, the Marshal left our command
post. When saying goodbye, he said he would see what he could do.
As I watched his car driving away, I wondered what he had come for... I had known him as a man of energy and will-power, but now his nerves seemed to have given
way. General Nikitin seemed to think so, too. When the car had disappeared in a
cloud of dust, he remarked: "A strange visit"...
A few minutes later Hatskilevich arrived. He was in a state of great agitation. "We are firing our last shells. Once we've done that, we shall have to destroy the tanks."
"Yes," I said, "I don't see what else we can do."
Within a few hours, General Hatskilevich died a hero's death on the field of battle.
Surrounded on all sides—like the other troops in the famous "Belostok Pocket"—without ammunition, the generals, officers and soldiers under Boldin split into small groups, and started moving east, hoping for the best... Boldin's small group of men, who picked up more and more soldiers in the woods in the course of their forty-five days' trek—in the end there were 2,000 of them—finally managed to cross the front near Smolensk and to join the main Russian forces.
There were countless other units who did not have Boldin's good luck, and who were
either wiped out by the Germans, or forced to surrender. Boldin admits that, during the first few days of the trek, the morale among some of his own soldiers was low, especially as a result of German leaflets saying: "Moscow has surrendered. Any further resistance is useless. Surrender to victorious Germany now." Yet most of them were not desperate, but angry.
*
The first-hand accounts of Generals Fedyuninsky and Boldin confirm that Stalin and the Army High Command still seemed, even at the twelfth hour, to have hoped to avoid the war. It was not until the night of the invasion that urgent directives were sent out to the army secretly to man the gun emplacements along the frontier; to disperse the aircraft concentrated on the frontier-zone airfields, and to get the troops and anti-aircraft defences into a state of military preparedness. No other measures were prescribed and even these orders came too late.
Thus General Purkayev recalls that when he started moving his troops to the frontier, the war had already begun several hours before. Another commander, Army-General Popov,
recalls that when the Germans started their air raids on Brest-Litovsk it all came as a complete surprise. A regiment which was rushed to the frontier from Riga was
intercepted by superior German forces advancing north and practically exterminated.
The official Soviet History admits that in many frontier areas the Germans broke all resistance within a short time. Many troops went into battle completely unprepared and the Germans had little difficulty in breaking through the frontier defences. The Soviet air force was almost wiped out over large areas. During the first days of the war German bombers raided sixty-six airfields, especially those where the most modern planes were concentrated. Before noon, on June 22, 1,200 planes were destroyed, 800 of them on the ground. The Central Sector suffered the heaviest casualties of all—528 planes were
destroyed on the ground and 210 in the air.
There were practically no reserves in the frontier areas; telephone and telegraph
communications were disrupted in the very first hours of the war; army units lost contact with each other; some front commanders lacked the necessary operational and strategic training, and the experience required for the command of large operational forces in war conditions. Throughout the day the Soviet General Staff was unable to gain a clear idea of what was happening.
[IVOVSS, vol. II, pp. 20 and 28-29.]
Issued at 7.15 a.m. on June 22, the first directive of the General Staff to the frontier troops reflects their ignorance of the true situation and, seen in retrospect, has the ring of bitter travesty:
1) Our troops are to attack enemy forces with all the strength and means at their disposal, and to annihilate them wherever they have violated the Soviet border.
2) Our reconnaissance and combat aircraft shall ascertain where enemy aircraft
and land-forces are concentrated. By striking mighty blows our aircraft are to
smash the main enemy troop concentrations and their aircraft on its airfields. These blows are to be struck anywhere within sixty to a hundred miles of German
territory. Memel and Königsberg are to be heavily bombed. Until further notice, no air attacks are to be made on Finnish or Rumanian territory.
This order, given after the Soviet air force had already been practically eliminated, could, naturally, not be carried out. By the end of June 22, the left flank of the German Army Group Centre had already advanced far beyond Kaunas, where it had routed the Russian 11th Army, now in disorderly retreat from Kaunas to Vilno.
No doubt, here and there, the Russians were able to hang on, as for instance the garrison of the Citadel at Brest-Litovsk, which, although surrounded on all sides and constantly bombed and shelled, held out for over a month, till July 24. When the Germans finally captured the Citadel, most of its defenders were dead or severely wounded. The main
German forces in the area, however, by-passed Brest-Litovsk and pushed thirty-five
miles east on the very first day of the war.
The first official communiqué, published at 10 p.m. on June 22, was probably intended to prevent panic or bewilderment among the Soviet population:
In the course of the day, regular German troops fought our frontier troops and
achieved minor successes in a number of sectors. In the afternoon, with advance
field forces of the Red Army arriving at the frontier, the attacks of the German
groups have been repelled along most of the frontier with heavy losses to the enemy.
That the General Staff itself had no very clear idea of what was happening on the first day of the war is confirmed by the second directive given to the troops in the frontier area. The South-Western Army Group was to start, on the very next day, a major
offensive, which would lead, by the end of June 24, to the capture of Lublin, some thirty miles beyond the Soviet border! The North-Western Army Group was at the same time to capture Suvalki, and all three Army Groups were, moreover, ordered to surround any
German forces that had penetrated into Soviet territory.
Absurd though the order was, a pathetic attempt was made to carry it out; in a number of places the Russians succeeded in concentrating what tanks they still had in the frontier areas; but, in the absence of air support they were wiped out by German bombers.
The German advance continued almost without a hitch. Large Russian forces were
trapped in the Belostok pocket and eleven divisions in the Minsk area. By June 28 the Germans had already reached the city of Minsk, were pushing deep into the Baltic
Republics and were approaching Pskov, on the straight line to Leningrad.
A few days later the remnants of sixteen Russian divisions were facing two powerful
German tank formations along the Berezina, and under these conditions it was
unthinkable to form a new 220 miles long defence line; some delaying actions were,
however, fought with great gallantry by the Russians, notably east of Minsk, at Borisov, where they threw in a large number of tanks, though most of them obsolete. These
delaying actions to some extent helped to gain time in which to bring up reserves and organise a defence in depth in what already came to be known as the "Smolensk-Moscow direction".
Some minor delaying actions were also fought, with suicidal bravery, against the German Army Group South. Held up in the Rovno area and unable to pursue their advance
towards Kiev, the Germans turned north and got bogged down for some time in what
were described as "battles of local importance". But by July 9, the Germans had broken through to Zhitomir, which was captured, and were threatening to break through to Kiev and to encircle the main Russian forces in the Northern Ukraine. But here again, at
Berdichev, the Russians threw in some armour and there was heavy fighting around
Berdichev for almost a week.
Chapter III MOLOTOV AND STALIN SPEAK
It was not until several hours after the Germans had invaded the Soviet Union that an official announcement was made over the radio by Foreign Commissar Molotov. "Men and women, citizens of the Soviet Union," he began in a faltering, slightly stuttery voice.
"The Soviet Government and its head, Comrade Stalin, have instructed me to make the following statement:
At four o'clock this morning, without declaration of war, and without any claims
being made on the Soviet Union, German troops attacked our country, attacked our
frontier in many places, and bombed from the air Zhitomir, Kiev, Sebastopol,
Kaunas and some other places. There are over 200 dead or wounded. Similar air
and artillery attacks have also been made from Rumanian and Finnish territory.
The next sentence betrayed Molotov's extraordinary dismay and suggested that, in its dealings with the Germans, the Soviet Government would have been willing to consider almost any concessions to put off the evil hour:
This unheard-of attack on our country is an unparalleled act of perfidy in the
history of civilised nations. This attack has been made despite the fact that there was a non-aggression pact between the Soviet Union and Germany, a pact the terms of
which were scrupulously observed by the Soviet Union. We have been attacked even
though, throughout the period of the Pact, the German Government had been
unable to make the slightest complaint about the USSR not carrying out its
obligations. Therefore the whole responsibility for this act of robbery must fall on the Nazi rulers.
Molotov then spoke of the visit he had received at 5.30 in the morning from the German Ambassador, who had informed him that Germany had decided to attack the Soviet
Union because of Russian troop concentrations on the frontier.
He stated emphatically that no Soviet plane had ever been allowed to cross the border, and he branded as "lies and provocations" the announcement over the Rumanian radio that morning that the Russians had bombed Rumanian airfields, and Hitler's statement
"trying after the event to concoct stories about the non-observance of the Soviet-German Pact by the Soviet Union". But now that the Germans had attacked the Soviet Union, the Soviet Government had ordered its troops to repel the attack and to throw the Germans out of Soviet territory.
This war has not been inflicted upon us by the German people, or by the German
workers, peasants and intellectuals, of whose sufferings we are fully aware, but by Germany's bloodthirsty rulers, who have already enslaved the French, the Czechs,
the Poles, the Serbs, and the peoples of Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium,
Greece and other countries.
Molotov did not doubt that the Soviet armed forces would do their duty and smash the aggressor. He recalled that Russia had been invaded before, that, in the great patriotic war of 1812, the whole Russian people had risen as one man to crush Napoleon. The same
would happen to "arrogant Hitler".
The Government of the Soviet Union is deeply convinced that the whole population
of our country will do their duty, and will work hard and conscientiously. Our
people must be more united than ever. The greatest discipline, organising ability and selflessness worthy of a Soviet patriot must be demanded of everybody to meet the needs of the Army, Navy and Air Force, and to secure victory.
The Government calls upon you, men and women citizens of the Soviet Union, to
rally even more closely round the glorious Bolshevik Party, around the Soviet
Government and our great leader, Comrade Stalin. Our cause is good. The enemy
will be smashed. Victory will be ours.
There were a few catch phrases that stuck—about this being another "patriotic war" after the model of 1812; as well as the last paragraph: "Our cause is good. The enemy will be smashed. Victory will be ours (pobeda budet za nami)." But the general tone of the broadcast, and especially the complaint that the Germans had
"made no demands" on Russia, left an uneasy, almost humiliating, feeling. It took twelve incredibly long and anxious days before Stalin himself broadcast to the
Russian people.
In the midst of the conflicting, reticent and, to all appearances, untrue military
communiqués, the Russian people derived what cheer they could from Churchill's
historic broadcast on the night of June 22, less than twenty-four hours after the German invasion.
These were the passages that made a particularly strong impression on the Russians. He admitted that: "No one has been a more consistent opponent of communism than I have in the last twenty-five years. I will unsay no word that I have spoken about it." But then he went on, as only he could do:
I see the Russian soldiers standing on the threshold of their native land... I see them guarding their homes where their mothers and wives pray—ah, yes, for there are
times when all pray—for the safety of their loved ones... I see the ten thousand
villages of Russia where the means of existence is wrung so hardly from the soil, but where there are still primordial joys, where maidens laugh and children play. I see advancing on all this in hideous onslaught the Nazi war machine... I see the dull, drilled, docile, brutish masses of the Hun soldiery plodding on like a swarm of
crawling locusts. I see the German bombers and fighters in the sky, still smarting from many a British whipping, delighted to find what they believe is an easier and safer prey...
And then—the assurance that there would never be a deal with Hitler, and the promise that Britain would support Russia, and finally, the conviction that: "He [Hitler] wishes to destroy the Russian power because he hopes that if he succeeds in this, he will be able to bring ba
ck the main strength of his Army and Air Force from the East and hurl it upon this Island... "
The comments I heard from Russians were almost all along these lines: "We had heard about Hess; we suspected that there might well be a deal between Britain and Germany.
We remembered Munich and those Anglo-Franco-Soviet talks in the summer of 1939.
We had felt deeply about the bombing of London, but had, all along, been taught to
distrust England. One of our first thoughts, when Germany invaded us, was that it had perhaps been done by agreement with England. That England should be an Ally—yes, an
Ally—was more than we had ever hoped for..."
At last Stalin spoke. It was an extraordinary performance, and not the least impressive thing about it were these opening words: "Comrades, citizens, brothers and sisters, fighters of our Army and Navy! I am speaking to you, my friends!" This was something new. Stalin had never spoken like this before. But the words fitted perfectly into the atmosphere of those days.
Stalin began by saying that the Nazi invasion was continuing, despite the heroic defence of the Red Army, and although "the best German divisions and air force units had already been smashed and had found their grave on the field of battle". Understating the territorial losses already suffered, Stalin then said that the Nazi troops had succeeded in capturing Lithuania, a large part of Latvia, the western part of Belorussia and parts of the western Ukraine. German planes had bombed Murmansk, Orsha, Mogilev, Smolensk,
Kiev, Odessa and Sebastopol. "A serious threat hangs over our country."
Did this mean, Stalin asked, that the German-Fascist troops were invincible? Of course not! The armies of Napoleon and of William II also used to be considered invincible; yet they were smashed in the end. And the same would happen to Hitler's army. "Only on our territory has it, for the first time, met with serious resistance." That a "part of our territory" had, nevertheless, been occupied, was chiefly due to the fact that the war had begun in conditions favourable to the Germans and unfavourable to the Red Army:
At the time of the attack, the German troops, 170 divisions in all, had been fully mobilised and were in a state of military preparedness along the Soviet frontier, merely waiting for the signal to advance. The Soviet troops had not been fully