Chapter 214 |
< World War II - River of Fire and Blood (10) >
October 2, 1941
Central Belarus (Western Soviet Union), Minsk
As the day waned and the sunset began to cast its long shadows, Colonel General Hans-Valentin Hube’s armored unit, having raced here nonstop, arrived on the outskirts of Minsk.
The massive, magnificent barrels of the Freiheit Self-Propelled Guns unleashed their fire, shaking the very earth.
Heavy 15cm shells slammed into the Soviet defensive positions in the eastern part of Minsk, erupting in colossal explosions.
Panzer IVs spearheaded the charge, with Luftwaffe fighters and dive bombers flying overhead in support.
Under their cover, mechanized infantry units began pouring into the urban area.
“Charge!”
Among General Hube's forces, the mechanized infantry ‘Fleck’ Battalion was retaking the city with a ferocity unmatched by any other unit.
Amidst a hail of bullets and artillery shells, the infantry followed their armored vehicles, engaging in a frantic firefight.
Whether they feared the battlefield or not was irrelevant.
Not a single one of them dared to hold back.
“Los! Los!! Los!!!”
When the Battalion Commander himself was leading the charge, screaming at the top of his lungs with an MP40 submachine gun in hand, what else could they do? They had to follow.
“Give it to me!”
The moment Clemens spotted a T-34 blocking his unit’s advance, the Major, with incredible nerve, snatched a Panzerfaust from a soldier, shouldered it, and stepped forward.
The rocket fired from the Panzerfaust struck the T-34.
It penetrated the armor and caused a massive explosion, blowing the tank to pieces.
“Hahaha! No one can stop me! Get out of my way, you filthy commies!”
“Ooh-”
A veteran of veterans who had fought in the Condor Legion, the defensive war in Poland, the suppression of the Nazi remnants' coup, and every major battle against the Soviet Union.
A close friend of Dietrich Schacht—a household name in the Allied Forces—and a soldier who fought in the most intense hotspots without a shred of self-preservation.
He possessed the ability and valor befitting a hero who had earned brilliant military merit in countless battles.
“Charge! Follow me!”
“Follow the Battalion Commander!”
“For the Fatherland! Long live the Allied Forces!”
The sight of Clemens leading from the front, demonstrating his astounding prowess and inspiring his men to cast aside their fear and charge forward, was truly a model for all soldiers.
Meanwhile, his Battalion Adjutant, Vinrich Behr, who had served under Clemens Fleck since his days as a Company Commander, watched the scene with dead, unenthusiastic eyes.
'So this was the kind of man my superior officer—the one who made my life a living hell by having less than zero motivation—could be.'
Winrich Behr, having long since given up on counting the number of times he had been disappointed by his superior, simply picked up his rifle and followed him.
-
As soon as General Hube’s forces reached the Minsk urban area and engaged the enemy, the Allied forces in Minsk, having reorganized their units, launched their own offensive under the command of Field Marshal Günther von Kluge.
The German, Polish, and Free Russian armies, which had been on the defensive until now, all launched a simultaneous counterattack.
The Soviet forces, already flustered by the attack on their rear from General Hube's unit, quickly began to fall back.
“Uraaaaaa!”
“Uraaa—huh?”
The Soviet soldiers were utterly bewildered to see the Free Russian Army charging them, screaming the same battle cry of "Ura!"
“Advance, my brothers! For the freedom of Russia! Let us reclaim the glory of the Republic!”
The Free Russian Army, fighting wildly as if they couldn't let this opportunity slip, pushed back the Soviet Army as fiercely as any Allied unit.
The horrific battlefield, where the wreckage of urban warfare, bloodstains, and even corpses had not yet been cleared, was once again filled with shouts, screams, and curses.
The Soviet red flags, which had been hung over parts of the city at the cost of a million bloody sacrifices, were torn down and thrown to the ground after only a few days.
In the urban area, already filled with the rubble of destroyed buildings, fierce hand-to-hand combat reminiscent of World War I became a common occurrence.
“Uraaaaaa!”
Clemens, his eyes bloodshot, unleashed a hail of bullets from his submachine gun at a Soviet soldier charging at him with a fixed bayonet.
“Gack…”
The Soviet soldier stared at him with a vacant look for a moment before collapsing.
“Persistent bastards.
What kind of orders did they receive to resist so desperately?”
Even though the outcome of the battle was clear, the Soviet resistance was far more intense than expected.
The main force of the Minsk offensive consisted of units that had been stationed in the rear under Marshals Voroshilov and Budyonny.
They had been training for a long time, unexposed to the harsh conditions of the front lines or the propaganda broadcasts of the Allied Forces.
As such, their morale was high, and they had been thoroughly indoctrinated by political officers who preached the greatness of the Soviet Union and obedience to the General Secretary.
Clemens wiped away the sweat that was pouring down like rain despite the now-cooling weather and shouted.
“Behr! What’s our position?”
Behr, who had been guarding his back and following him through all this pandemonium, quickly unfolded a map and showed it to him.
“I estimate we’re here. The city is such a mess that I can’t be certain, but…”
“Good.
Then spread the companies out here and here. We should be encountering the city’s defense force soon, so tell them to be careful to avoid friendly fire!”
Winrich Behr looked at him with a peculiar expression.
“What is it? Why the look?”
“It’s nothing, Battalion Commander. I’ll relay the message immediately!”
As Behr went to find the radio operator, Clemens swapped out the empty magazine of his MP40.
When that guy Dietrich had given it to him, saying it would be useful, he hadn't had high expectations. But this excellent gun, which had already saved his life several times, gave him a sense of security.
Clemens and his men immediately aimed their guns at the new silhouettes that appeared.
“Niemiecka!”
“What are they saying?”
Clemens clicked his tongue, but when a Polish flag was raised and waved from behind the enemy’s cover, he finally understood the situation.
“Raise our flag, too!”
Only after both sides had confirmed each other’s flags did they emerge from cover, shaking hands with relieved smiles.
They had finally succeeded in linking up with the Minsk Defense Force.
He had no idea what they were saying, but it was clear they were happy to see them.
“Hey, radio the main force.
Tell them we’ve linked up with the defenders!”
“Yes, Battalion Commander!”
Though he hadn't been aiming for it, the lack of any radio traffic so far suggested they were the first to have advanced deep into Minsk and met the Allied forces.
The ‘Fleck’ Battalion had once again earned unintended military merit.
“Agh, hell, how am I supposed to say this so they understand? Uh, do you happen to know where Sergeant Karina Juhlińska is?”
The Polish officer, who had been looking perplexed by his words, seemed to have understood the name Karina Juhlińska, as he asked back.
“Karina Julinska sierżant?”
“Oh, yes.
That’s right. Sergeant Karina Juhlińska!”
The officer nodded and pointed in a direction with his finger.
“Oh, thank you! Danke, danke!”
The Polish officer smiled, having understood the word "Danke" (Thanks), and Clemens shouted to Behr.
“Adjutant, I’m trusting you with command for a moment.”
“Yes, Major.”
Winrich Behr’s eyes were somewhat glazed over as he saluted, but Clemens was already gone, breaking into a run.
However, after running for only a short distance, Clemens was filled with deep regret.
'Dammit, I should have brought my men with me!'
Gunshots and screams erupted from all around.
This place was, without a doubt, a fierce battleground!
“Argh, why does she always have to be in the most dangerous places!”
He had fallen head over heels for that feral charm of hers, but still, this was just too dangerous—
It was at that moment that a familiar back came into the frantically running Clemens's view.
Brown bobbed hair, a lithe physique reminiscent of a leopard, and the distinctive Polish military cap.
“Juhlin-”
The moment Clemens shouted with boundless joy, a Soviet soldier wielding an axe leaped out from the doorway Karina was cautiously about to enter.
“Ura!!!”
“Whoa-!”
The startled Karina blocked the attack with her rifle, but with a thwack, the axe embedded itself in the weapon.
“Waaaggghhh!”
“Ugh!”
As the burly Soviet soldier let out a roar and swung his axe, Karina lost her grip. The rifle, struck by the axe blade, went flying into a corner.
This was the moment he had run all this way for!
Clemens reflexively raised his MP40 and pulled the trigger at the Soviet soldier’s large frame.
And then there was a click.
“Huh?”
This goddamn gun had to jam at a time like this!
Clemens paled and looked down at his weapon, but nothing changed.
“умереть!” (To die!)
The image of the big guy raising his axe and charging at Karina was seared into Clemens’s eyes in slow motion.
“N-No—!”
Clemens’s scream was desperate.
'Goddammit to hell!'
Clemens belatedly started running, but he was already too late.
Just as the Soviet soldier lunged forward to bring his axe down.
Karina leaped backward to dodge the axe, drew the knife from her belt, and threw it.
The knife landed precisely in the large man's glabella. The Soviet soldier stared at her blankly, then staggered and collapsed.
After a full rotation in the air, Karina landed gracefully on her hands and feet, reminiscent of a cat.
Clemens stared blankly, the scene imprinted on his eyes.
He felt as if she were the only person in the world.
“Phew… Huh.
Major Fleck?”
Only when he heard the voice of Karina as she stood up did Clemens snap back to his senses.
“…I must be seeing things.”
As Karina let out a hollow laugh and muttered, Clemens rushed forward and pulled her into an embrace.
After a moment of silence, Karina murmured.
“We really reek this time, too…”
Before Karina could finish her sentence, raindrops began to fall from the sky.
“Thank you for being alive, Sergeant.”
To Clemens’s words, Karina replied.
“Thank you for coming to help.”
The rain began to pour.
The rainy season, the start of the Rasputitsa.
-
October 4, 1941
Northern Belarus, Minsk-Mogilev Campaign
After a desperate urban battle, the Soviet forces, barely withstanding the coordinated attack from within and without, were finally defeated and completely surrendered Minsk to the Allied Forces.
Knowing that the roads would soon turn into impassable muck due to the Rasputitsa, the Soviet soldiers began a hasty retreat, dragging their exhausted bodies through the pouring rain that signaled the start of the rainy season.
Or rather, they were supposed to retreat.
In the midst of the pouring rain, the Soviet forces, utterly drained after the brutal urban warfare, stared with dumbfounded eyes at the defense line constructed along their path of retreat.
Unfortunately, what awaited them on their escape route was not a friendly defensive line meant to cover them.
It was a German defense line.
While a bloody battle raged in the urban area of Minsk, Walter Model’s armored unit had left Minsk to General Hube and advanced vertically from Bobruisk, piercing straight through the Soviet forces.
When Panzer IVs and armored vehicles appeared out of nowhere, racing day and night and crushing every Soviet soldier in sight, the rear-echelon units, whose guard was down, couldn't even mount a proper response.
While it was normal not to imagine that a madman's unit would plunge into the heart of a Soviet line numbering in the millions while a bloody battle raged in Minsk, the result was that Konev had failed to block Model's breakthrough.
Walter Model had charged straight across the vast plains of Belarus, which were optimal for an armored advance, and had broken through all the way to the West Dvina River.
When Ivan Konev grasped the situation, he was enraged and immediately ordered an offensive.
Konev’s reaction to Model's seemingly reckless act—splitting a Soviet army of over 3 million with a force of just over 200,000—was not strange in itself.
A unit that had penetrated so thinly and deeply was vulnerable to being encircled itself the moment its supply lines were cut, and Konev had more than enough troops to overwhelm Walter Model's unit, even without the forces attacking Minsk.
However, Walter Model, who had anticipated a counterattack from the very beginning of his breakthrough, had already divided his forces and established a thin but sturdy defense line with infantry units along his entire breakthrough path.
The Soviet Army, which had thrown all of its elite units into Minsk, failed to break through the defense line established by Walter Model and only racked up more casualties.
In fact, while Konev was distracted by Model’s unit, Sikorski, having finished the battle on the Dnieper Riverbank, ordered the main Polish force to advance, launching a counterattack from Bobruisk as well.
In the end, the rainy season in Belarus began before Ivan Konev could break through Walter Model's defense line.
Konev's army, which had pushed into Belarus with such vigor, inflicted heavy damage on the Allied Forces, and brought Minsk to the brink of fall, now had its retreat route cut off by the West Dvina River and Walter Model's defense line.
Konev's own troops, as well as the armored units siphoned from the Dnieper front and the forces received from Marshals Voroshilov and Budyonny.
A total of 2 million soldiers of the Soviet main force were isolated in the pouring rain, on land that was turning to mud as the Rasputitsa began.
The opportunity gained by covering the Dnieper River in fire and blood ended in a catastrophic failure.
Winter is coming.