Stalin's General (32 page)

Soviet plans for Operation Bagration were closely coordinated with the launch of the long-awaited Second Front in France. The Soviets were informed of the approximate date of D-Day in early April and on April 18 Stalin cabled Roosevelt and Churchill that “as agreed in Tehran, the Red Army will launch a new offensive at the same time so as to give maximum support to the Anglo-American operation.” When the D-Day landings began on June 6, 1944, Stalin cabled Churchill and Roosevelt his warmest congratulations and informed them that, in keeping with the agreement reached at Tehran, the Soviet summer offensive would soon be launched on “one of the vital sectors of the front.”
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Zhukov's role in Operation Bagration was Stavka coordinator of the 1st and 2nd Belorussian Fronts. Vasilevsky had the same role in relation to the 1st Baltic Front and the 3rd Belorussian Front. Serving alongside Zhukov was Shtemenko, who was given special responsibility for the 2nd Belorussian Front.

Zhukov spent most of his time with the 1st Belorussian, and having served in Belorussia for six years before the war he knew its area of operations quite well. As before Kursk, Zhukov spent a lot of time on inspection tours. In his memoirs he detailed the thoroughness of the preparations for Bagration. There was intensive training of troops in fire tactics and attack techniques, with particular attention paid to the coordination of infantry, tanks, artillery, and aviation. Advanced HQs and command and observation posts were established and procedures worked out to move them forward as the attack developed. Reconnaissance units reviewed their intelligence and tweaked the tactical and operational maps provided to front-line units. As always, there was a huge logistical effort to secure and put in place the necessary supplies of food, fuel, and ammunition. In mid-June details of the operation were reviewed and a series of war games conducted at army level. In attendance were corps and divisional commanders and other senior officers. “We were able,” commented Zhukov, “to better acquaint ourselves with the officers who were to lead the troops to rout a major enemy grouping.… Theirs was a great responsibility since
the defeat of Army Group Centre spelled the complete expulsion of the enemy from Belorussia and Eastern Poland.”
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It is likely that, given his knowledge of the area and the opportunity presented by the lull between operations, Zhukov went hunting, his favorite pastime. He was a dedicated hunter and often took his officers and commissars on hunting trips during the war. When asked why he insisted his officers go hunting with him, even when they were not hunters, he explained that it was to show confidence that the rear areas under his control were safe and secure.
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One of the units Zhukov visited during the preparations for Bagration was General P. I. Batov's 65th Army, which was part of the 1st Belorussian Front. In his memoirs, published in 1962, Batov painted an unflattering portrait of Zhukov as a blundering bully. He recalled a failed attempt by Zhukov to climb an observation post up a tree. Halfway up Zhukov lost his footing and fell. Zhukov was “beside himself with rage,” wrote Batov, and he ordered the corps commander to be relieved and the divisional commander to be sent to a penal company.
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However, Batov's memoirs were published during the Khrushchev era at the height of the campaign to discredit Zhukov and his conclusions about Zhukov's personality and behavior are largely a construct derived from the critical attacks on Zhukov made during that time.

Zhukov could indeed be abrasive, a not untypical trait of the Red Army's higher commanders. Not everyone appreciated his overly assertive leadership style and he must have upset a lot of senior officers who were stressed enough by the war. There was also jealousy about Zhukov's exalted status, especially his personal relationship with Stalin. Many of Stalin's generals—for example, Konev—were equally egotistical and after the war would take the opportunity to settle their personal scores with Zhukov. Animosity toward Zhukov was not universal, however. For every Batov and Konev there was a Bagramyan or Vasilevsky willing to spring to Zhukov's defense. Even Konev balanced his personal animosity toward Zhukov with an appreciation of his military talents and the same was true of Zhukov's attitude toward Konev.

Operation Bagration began with a wave of partisan attacks on the Germans. Belorussia was the main center of Soviet partisan operations
and by summer 1944 there were as many as 140,000 partisans organized in some 200 detachments operating behind the Wehrmacht's lines. On June 19–20 the partisans launched attacks on German communications, staff headquarters, and airfields. The partisans also acted as forward observers for massive bombing attacks on the Germans on June 21–22. The main ground attack began on June 23 and was a stunning success. Attacking across a 500-mile front the Red Army smashed through Army Group Center's defenses and rapidly converged on Minsk. The Belorussian capital was recaptured by the Soviets on July 3. Zhukov visited the city shortly afterward:

In a poignant reversal of the Red Army's catastrophe at Minsk in June 1941, 100,000 Germans were encircled and trapped east of the city. At Stalingrad the symbol of Soviet success had been the iconic newsreel footage of the surrender of the 6th Army's commander, Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus. In the case of Operation Bagration the memorable sight was of 57,000 German POWs being led by their generals through the streets of Moscow in July 1944.

Minsk was followed by the recapture of Vilnius on July 13. In mid-July Konev's 1st Ukrainian Front began the Lvov-Sandomierz operation. He was joined by Zhukov, who was appointed Stavka coordinator of the operation. Lvov fell to the Red Army on July 27. Two days later Zhukov was made a Hero of the Soviet Union for a second time in honor of his role in liberating Belorussia and Ukraine. That same day Stalin issued an edict stating that henceforth Zhukov was not only in charge of coordinating the 1st Ukrainian and 1st and 2nd Belorussian Fronts but of their operational decisions, too. An identical edict was issued concerning Vasilevsky and the 3rd Belorussian and 1st and 2nd Baltic Fronts.
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It is not clear what motivated Stalin's decision or what
difference it made in practice, but the edict endorsed the status and authority of Zhukov and Vasilevsky as Stalin's trusted chief trouble-shooters.

Between June 22 and July 4, Army Group Center lost twenty-five divisions and well over 300,000 troops; another 100,000 troops were lost in the weeks that followed. By the end of July it had ceased to exist as an effective fighting force. The destruction of Army Group Center did not come cheap. The four main Fronts involved in Operation Bagration suffered 750,000 casualties during the course of the campaign to liberate Belorussia. But there was no gainsaying the magnitude of the Soviet victory. By the end of the operation Belorussia and western Ukraine were back in Soviet hands; Finland was about to capitulate; the Red Army had penetrated deep into the Baltic states and in the south was heading for Belgrade, Bucharest, and Budapest. John Erickson went so far as to argue that “when the Soviet armies shattered Army Group Centre, they achieved their greatest single military success on the Eastern Front. For the German army in the east it was a catastrophe of unbelievable proportions, greater than that of Stalingrad.”
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The main aim of Operation Bagration was to liberate Belorussia, but the collapse of Army Group Center and the rapid advance of the Red Army propelled Soviet forces forward to the borders of East Prussia and into central and southern Poland. By the end of July the Red Army was closing on the Polish capital, Warsaw, from a number of directions. The extent of the Red Army's penetration westward raised the question of the future direction of the offensive now that Belorussia had been liberated. On July 19 Zhukov proposed to Stalin a series of operations to occupy East Prussia, or at least cut it off from the main body of Germany.
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His proposals were considered at meetings between Stalin, Zhukov, Vasilevsky, Antonov, and Shtemenko at the end of July.
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It was ultimately decided East Prussia was too tough a nut to crack, although operations to establish the basis for a future assault would continue. But the main Soviet effort would focus on the capture of Warsaw. On July 27, 1st Belorussian was ordered to attack the Warsaw
suburb of Praga, on the eastern side of the Vistula, and to establish bridgeheads on the river's western banks to the north and south of the Polish capital. These tasks were to be accomplished by August 5–8.
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Pride of place in the coming capture of Warsaw was allocated to the Soviet-organized 1st Polish Army. Recruited from among Polish citizens deported to the USSR following the Soviet invasion of Eastern Poland in September 1939, the 1st Polish had begun forming up in July 1943. Its leadership was pro-communist and many of its officers Russian. By July 1944 it was about 20,000 strong and formed part of Rokossovsky's 1st Belorussian Front. Rokossovsky was himself part Polish, bilingual, and spoke Russian with a Polish accent. After the Second World War he was to become minister of defense in communist-controlled Poland.

Soviet plans soon ran into trouble as the Red Army came up against strong German defenses in the Warsaw area. The Wehrmacht was down but not out, and the Germans quickly rebuilt Army Group Center by transferring divisions from other sectors of the Eastern Front and from Western Europe. Warsaw barred the way to Berlin and was a crucial strategic outpost for the Germans to defend. Working in favor of the Germans' stabilizing their defensive position was the fact that the Soviet offensive was progressively losing momentum. Soviet troops were tiring, the Red Army's supply chains were now stretched hundreds of miles, and the Red Air Force's relocation to forward airfields had disrupted its operations, allowing the Luftwaffe to regain some initiative in the air. The Soviets were able to establish some small bridgeheads on the western bank of the Vistula but couldn't hang on to them and were forced to retreat from Praga after their 2nd Tank Army received a severe mauling at the hands of six German divisions, of which five were armored. The 1st Polish Army also incurred high casualties in its unsuccessful attempts to establish a bridgehead on the western bank of the Vistula.

On August 8 Zhukov and Rokossovsky submitted to Stavka a new plan for the capture of Warsaw that involved securing a strong bridgehead across the Vistula north of Warsaw in the Pultusk-Serock area and strengthening existing bridgeheads south of Warsaw. Once this was achieved the 1st Polish Army would then advance north along the western bank of the Vistula and capture Warsaw. Zhukov and Rokossovsky
estimated that the operation could begin on August 25.
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In the event there was further delay and on August 29 Stavka issued a series of directives to the Fronts ordering them to go over to the defensive. However, the right wing of the 1st Belorussian was exempted from this directive and ordered to continue its efforts to establish a bridgehead in the Pultusk-Serock area.
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In mid-September Rokossovsky renewed the attack on Praga and revived his efforts to establish a bridgehead for the 1st Polish Army west of the Vistula. While the first goal was achieved, his persistent efforts to secure a position for the 1st Polish Army across the river failed. By early October the Soviet attack on Warsaw had petered out and its bridgeheads west of the Vistula were precarious at best. On November 12 the right wing of the 1st Belorussian Front was ordered to go over to the defensive
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and the Red Army did not resume offensive operations in the Warsaw area until January 1945.

The course of military events shows that the Soviets did indeed want to capture Warsaw and expected to do so quickly. When their first efforts failed, they tried again. Only when Operation Bagration had run its course did Stavka shelve the aim of capturing Warsaw in the short term.
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(See
Map 23
: The Soviet Advance on Warsaw, Summer 1944
.) However, an alternative scenario has been posited, one in which the Red Army deliberately halted its offensive at the Vistula in order to allow the Germans time to crush a popular uprising in Warsaw. The uprising had begun on August 1 and was staged by the Polish Home Army (the AK)—the partisan arm of Poland's government-in-exile in London. Like the Soviets, the Polish nationalist partisans expected Warsaw to fall to the Red Army quickly and easily. Their aim was to liberate Warsaw from the Germans and seize control of the city before the Red Army could arrive.