Chapter 1944 I Want to Continue Following Him

The brilliant achievements of the leader's division in the Cherkasy region spread throughout the army. Of course, Vatutin was not the only one who knew it well. Konev, who was fighting in coordination with the Second Ukrainian Front in the north of Cherkasy, also knew it well.

"Comrade Stalin, after being honored to be promoted to marshal, I hope to be able to command the Stalin Guards 1st Tank Division named after you, so as to better carry out the next stage of strategic deployment. The Leader Division will be crucial in the next action against Poland. This will be a heavy hammer for us to break the chains of the fascists that imprisoned Poland."

"The Leader Division was originally a unit of the 1st Ukrainian Front. It was seconded to the 3rd Belarusian Front to participate in the battle during Operation Bagration. Now that Operation Bagration is coming to an end, the 1st and 2nd Ukrainian Fronts have been integrated into a powerful strategic cluster. I think it's time for the Leader Division to return to the First Front so that it can be complete. The sooner it returns to the team, the more convenient it will be for us to carry out the next stage of strategic deployment and make more comprehensive and adequate preparations before the offensive begins."

The content of the face-to-face report that Konev made to Comrade Stalin alone was completely unknown to Zhukov, who was in a high position, not to mention Vatutin, who was still busy with the troops on the front line.

When Comrade Stalin recalled Vatutin from the front and listened to his report alone and tentatively talked about the possibility of transferring the leader division, there was no need to guess how Vatutin, who had suffered a great injustice last time, would react.

"Comrade leader, this, this, I can't understand why this is happening?"

"Comrade Konev now has the largest strategic cluster in the entire Red Army. You know the strength of the New Ukrainian First Front, which is the integration of two fronts. Our Third Belarusian Front has only one main tank cluster unit, which is completely incomparable to the New Ukrainian First Front. The cost of losing the unit in your name is something our front cannot afford."

Perhaps after seeing Vatutin's expression of injustice that made him unable to speak, he did feel some sympathy and felt that he might have gone too far.

In short, Comrade Cifu, who always said what he meant, did not continue to embarrass Vatutin on this issue. Instead, he simply comforted Vatutin and said that the matter needed to be discussed again. Without determining the final result, he told Vatutin, who had already finished his work report, that he could leave first.

Vatutin, whose head was buzzing, did not want to stay any longer. After standing at attention and saluting Comrade Stalin, he turned around and left, gently closing the door and leaving.

Comrade Cifu, who thought that he still needed to brainstorm on this matter, called his "brain" and "firefighter" Zhukov. He briefly stated the course of events and asked Zhukov what he thought and what he thought without expressing his own attitude. This led to Zhukov's next answer.

"From a military strategic perspective, I support and agree that the leadership division should continue to stay in the Third Belarusian Front. Comrade Vatutin has a good point. Compared with the powerful First Ukrainian Front, the Third Belarusian Front is indeed a little weaker, both in terms of overall scale and the quantity and quality of technical equipment."

"The transfer of the leadership division back to the First Ukrainian Front will indeed make the already strong enough troops stronger. But at the same time, we should also consider what will happen after the Third Belarusian Front loses the leadership division. Future offensive battles will become more and more difficult for them, just like cavalry losing sabers and tanks losing main guns."

"Supplementing other troops can indeed make up for the lack of combat power caused by the transfer of the leadership division. This is true in theory. But we should also pay attention to the tacit understanding and cooperation between commanders, especially Malashenko and Vatutin have worked together for a long time, and have never communicated with Comrade Konev. The mobilization process of the troops and the familiarity and cooperation of the entire front should be considered in particular at the moment when the war is imminent."

If you want to say whether what Zhukov said is right, then there must be no problem.

Malashenko has been with Vatutin for so long, from Kursk to Cherkassy and then to Bagration. Objective facts also fully prove that this is a pair of well-coordinated and highly skilled superior-subordinate partners. At least Zhukov himself feels that the performance of Malashenko and Vatutin's cooperation is no worse than the familiar feeling when he commanded Malashenko.

In addition to satisfying Konev's potential selfish desires, and being promoted to marshal and holding the command of the leader division, Zhukov can't think of any reason for the powerful strategic cluster of the First Ukrainian Front to get such a special unit as the leader division as a combat force supplement.

Just as he thought that night, the military serves politics, but soldiers are always inevitably affected by politics.

Zhukov didn't want to comment on Konev's side. What he thought and did was his business. He only needed to answer Comrade Stalin's questions based on the facts.

"Hmm"

Obviously, Zhukov's words had some impact on Comrade Stalin, but this impact was obviously not enough to have a decisive effect. Comrade Stalin was still thinking about something that Zhukov could not consider at the moment.

And the words "Go talk to Malashenko, he happens to be in Moscow, I want to hear his personal thoughts" became Zhukov's final order from Comrade Kind Father, and of course it was the first time he received such an order.

After all, Comrade Stalin had never before asked a tank major general to ask for his opinion on the issue of troop mobilization. But it was normal for Malashenko to have "no precedent to follow". Zhukov himself felt that he was "numbed" to this, so he just took the order and went.

Although it was true that he met Malashenko in person, Zhukov did not intend to or have the time to fully describe the whole process of the incident to Malashenko. He simply narrated it briefly and then directly raised the question, waiting for Malashenko's answer.

Facing this sudden question raised by Zhukov, Malashenko also took a long time to slowly recover from the initial surprise. A short period of thinking did not seem to be a reason for Malashenko to hesitate. The answer that followed was exactly what Zhukov, who was familiar with Malashenko, expected.

"Comrade Marshal, I want to continue to fight with General Vatutin. If the final result is indeed like this, please convey my apologies to Marshal Konev."