One Hundred and Eighty-Nine Illusory Victory

An unknown small village on the long front between the Soviet Union and Poland. [For more exciting novels, please visit] This used to be a trading station on the border between Poland and the Soviet Union, and now it has become an important stronghold for the two sides to fight desperately.

The Soviet army stormed the Polish defenders here for 15 days, but failed to fully occupy the small village of only two dozen houses. It was not until the Soviets used cannons to smash the village into ruins, and the Polish soldiers stationed here retreated to the permanent fortifications behind and continued to hold on.

And just above the rubble of this village, an infantry of the Soviet Red Army is struggling to cross the Soviet-Polish border. About two kilometers ahead is the main defense zone of the Polish border, where the Soviet troops in front have already left the upper and lower borders. Thousands of corpses still haven't been able to move forward.

"Comrade Commissar!" An officer of the Soviet Red Army stood at attention and saluted a political commissar: "We have run out of ammunition, and now we cannot launch an attack..."

"It is not allowed to retreat!" The political commissar glanced at the officer who came up to complain, and said arrogantly: "Every soldier should fall on the way forward for the sake of the motherland!"

"Comrade Commissar! We haven't eaten all morning! The soldiers are tired and fell asleep in the snow. We are short of ammunition, and we are fighting on the enemy's land..." The officer said with a sad face: "We need to rest. , food, supplemental ammunition and fuel."

"No! You can't stop." The political commissar shook his head stubbornly and pointed to the direction of the Polish defense line: "The real Bolsheviks will not be defeated by hunger and fear!"

Anyone with a little military common sense knows that a hungry army should not be forced to attack, not to mention that this starving army lacks ammunition and other supplies. But obviously this comrade of the Soviet Red Army was stupid when he read Stalin's admonition manual. He was more willing to believe that the yellow-faced and thin-skinned Red Army soldiers in the distance could transcend by spirit.

The attack started in the afternoon. The Soviet Red Army organized a large-scale attack on the front of the village. A full 4,000 soldiers were used to assault the Polish defense line, but they were shot back by machine guns on the Polish defense line. Many soldiers They were executed by the law enforcement team, and more people fell on the way to charge. Except for the Poles to use up some reserve ammunition, this attack did not achieve any results.

Several political commissars who organized the attack began to shirk their responsibilities, and attributed the failure of the attack to the officers’ unwillingness to serve the motherland or the soldiers’ inability to staunchly carry out the sacred tasks assigned to them by the motherland—in short, it had nothing to do with them. . Their final meeting came to the conclusion that there were still some bourgeois conspirators lurking in the army to sabotage the Red Army's combat operations.

So in the morning several officers who raised the issue of lack of ammunition and supplies for the troops were arrested and sent to a remote concentration camp in Siberia. The officer who said his army had run out of food was shot in front of everyone.

Sometimes we can't understand this truth: just let a few people die, even if there is an explanation for the thousands of people who died before.

Kliment Yefremovich Voroshilov, as the Soviet marshal, is now looking at his subordinates standing in a row in frustration, waiting for his lectures. He had just arrived on the front lines this month, taking over command of the collapsed Soviet Red Army's invasion of Poland. His predecessor, on the other hand, was sent to a concentration camp in Siberia hours after his arrival.

As a result, after he took over the command of the front-line combat, the Soviet Red Army still failed to win the battle against Poland. Except for mobilizing elite troops to attack parts of the middle road in Poland, most of the Soviet Red Army's fronts were still in place near the Polish border. step. Even the breakthrough in the middle line of defense was the result of the slow progress achieved after the Soviet Red Army was in chaos for a few days.

But Marshal Voroshilov was more fortunate than his predecessor in that, in order to show the importance of the frontline attack, Stalin sent three of his favorite generals to take charge of all matters on the Polish side. Khrushchev and Yezhov are now by Voroshilov's side, responsible for the political work of the Soviet Red Army offensive units.

However, Khrushchev and Yezhov both came from politics. They don't know anything about military matters, but they all want to show their strategic vision by pointing fingers. Their interference makes the Soviet army's offensive weak worse.

First, Yezhov insisted that the Soviet Red Army continued to insist on some primary and secondary offensives across the board. As a result, the Soviet troops scattered their heavy weapons advantages. They fought for a week without being able to move forward. He got up and executed a third of the time, but still failed to open the situation.

Khrushchev saw Yezhov's joke and decided to change this strategy. He was more self-aware than Yezhov, and he consulted some Red Army commanders, and finally came up with a central breakthrough to attack Warsaw's offensive plan. Of course, due to the lack of middle and lower-level officers in this plan, the process of assembling troops was chaotic, and the Soviet Red Army itself became chaotic first.

In the end, Voroshilov took over the command that should have belonged to him a long time ago, but he was faced with a mess that was too bad to be bad. Of course, his luck was not because of these, but because Khrushchev and Yezhov decided to hide their mistakes on the front line, so Stalin in Moscow received news of the victory of the Soviet Red Army, and Voroshilov won the More time for the long overdue victory of the Soviet Red Army.

The Polish troops relied on solid fortifications to fight steadily, causing tens of thousands of casualties to the Soviet Red Army. Although the entire line of defense is now crumbling due to the lack of reserves, there is absolutely no problem in holding it for another ten and a half days.

The Polish defenders found that the Soviet troops were literally testing their training according to their defense manual: when they were stationed in villages, the Soviet soldiers' clumsy attacks cost them casualties; when they retreated to the reinforced concrete fortifications At that time, the retreating Soviets came up again to die.

To put it bluntly, the Soviets were fighting the war in line with the rhythm of the Polish defenders: when the Poles were afraid to retreat, the Soviets blindly attacked and were beaten back to their hometowns, giving Poland the courage to resist; At that time, the Soviets were chaotic and wasted their opportunity and gave the Poles a chance to breathe; when the Poles were ready to fight, the Soviets washed their faces and brought them together...

Khrushchev looked at the number of casualties of the troops and felt that sweat had broken out on his forehead. He signed his name on the battle report to Stalin, and the land occupied in that illusory victory was still trampled underfoot by the Poles. This kind of thing is a kind of mental torment every day.

On the other hand, Yezhov, who was sitting opposite him, who was once confronted by the competition for favor, also showed his frustration. He also signed the report on the victory of the front line, so now he can fully understand Khrushchev's mood . They were grasshoppers on a rope now, so he was in a terrible mood for yet another failure.

Voroshilov was the only one of the three who knew about military affairs, and he knew there would be such a fiasco before he got the document. His current army logistics supply has become a mess. The supplies in Kyiv and Minsk are piled up like mountains, but the supplies that can be transported to the front are very few. The number of railways built by the Germans was not large, but due to the disparity in dispatching level, these railways were unable to perform even half of their capacity during the war.

The soldiers on the front line lack food and clothing, and ammunition cannot meet the needs of large-scale battles. If they can win in this way, it can be said that God has blessed them. So Voroshilov did not believe from the beginning that this attack would achieve the desired victory. But he had to send his soldiers up to die in exchange for the support and compromise of two Stalin cronies.

"Why did this attack fail again? Marshal Voroshilov!" Yezhov asked, as if he wanted to find a reason to shirk the responsibility for this failure.

Khrushchev sighed: "The army is in chaos now, and many political commissars have reported to me that they can no longer urge the army to advance! At least we must distribute food and ammunition before we can continue the attack!"

"If... if Comrade Stalin knew that we dared to deceive him." Voroshilov coughed twice: "The three of us will be finished!... We are now trying to find a way to get the best of both worlds and cover up our lies. Go down!"

Ye Ruov saw that his responsibility was not clear, he shook his head and said, "Let's launch another attack? Every time we fail, there will be an additional hole! Now this hole is almost bigger than the sky!"

"Comrade Stalin held a meeting in Moscow a few days ago and praised the three of us by name." Khrushchev sighed about the honor he had won. He had never been so afraid of his superior's praise as he is now: "It was awarded to us. medals, and we are also preparing to hold symposiums in the major military regions to discuss this victory."

"Offensive is impossible! The army has reached its limit, and there is no 'chaos' to maintain it. It is already the result of the efforts of various departments." Voroshilov thought for a while and said: "It will take 2 months to recover at the fastest. , to ensure that the attack can be carried out smoothly in early January next year! My former commander is more than dead."

Seeing that he put all the blame on the dead, Khrushchev and Yezhov nodded. But then the two of them frowned again: since the army can't get the victory it wants, how can this victory that has been boasted become true?

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