95 – Episode 95 Tchaikovsky Corps (2)
The Southwestern Front Army apparently had a large army of 300,000, but in terms of armament, training, and morale, it fell far short of that. .
In this sloppy army, the quality of a commander was more important than ever.
The problem was the age of Commander Aleksandr Ilyich Yegorov.
First of all, Yegorov was too young. Most of the commanders of the Red Army were like that, but entrusting command of a single front to a general in his early 30s was too much of a responsibility.
Unfortunately, Yegorov had no experience commanding such a large army.
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Stalin, a political officer of the Southwestern Front, also knew this fact.
So he did not hesitate to interfere with strategy.
“Comrade. “Our military must maintain a defensive posture.”
“No, they are invading us, so we can’t even prepare for an offensive?”
“Because such actions provoke Germany.”
Stalin was extremely cautious, so he did not want to take risky risks. Yegorov could not do anything if Stalin was against it.
The compatibility between the two was truly the worst.
“Comrade! The commander of the front line is here. “Why do you keep criticizing my decisions?”
“Do not forget that I am the eyes and ears of the party.”
At first, their relationship was okay, but after several arguments, their relationship completely soured.
But it was okay when we were preparing for defense.
However, the story changed when the ‘Tchaikovsky Corps’ crossed Ukraine to the Kuban Peninsula.
“The Germans have begun to invade the Caucasus. We must move south as soon as possible.”
“It is impossible to invade the South before Tsaritsyn (Stalingrad) is occupied.”
“No, are you planning to watch with open eyes the Germans occupying the Caucasus?”
Yegorov could not understand Stalin’s policy at all.
So he gave verbal orders to his subordinate commanders.
“Start heading south.”
When Stalin found out about this, the units under the Front Army had long since begun moving south.
“Oh my, have you seen the guy you’re going to kill?”
Stalin felt heat rising to his head.
Stalin was a seminarian and had a knack for patience, but his essence was a rough person.
For Stalin, who did not hesitate to rob trains to raise funds during his revolutionary days, belittling himself was something he could never tolerate.
Stalin immediately sent a long report to Moscow.
Then Trotsky sent a reply.
“Comrade Stalin seems to be overly interested in military issues. Stick to your own business.”
Stalin felt angry, but he could not express his anger even at the Soviet Union’s second-in-command.
He did not forget to store this anger in his heart.
Yegorov’s army marched south without hesitation all the way to Rostov, a key point in southern Russia.
It was not that there was no resistance from the White Army, but the resistance of the disorganized warlords was not a big deal.
There were not many enemies of the level of Pyotr Wrangel in the White Army.
“Ha. Ridiculous bastards.”
It was laughable that these scum were blocking the unification of Russia.
Yegorov attempted to enter the city of Rostov straight away.
However, this was not an empty house.
“It’s poison gas!”
The Caucasus Liberation Army, or rather Tchaikovsky’s Corps, did not even hide their identity and immediately sprayed poison gas.
Poison gas, which became infamous on the Western Front, was well known to the Russians.
“Wet the cloth with urine. “If you just breathe in, you’ll die.”
The Russians tried their own countermeasures brought from the west, but to no avail. A hastily made substitute for a gas mask was not helpful in blocking various types of poisonous gases.
“Kehek.”
If the person could not bear the spicy taste of tear gas and tore the cloth open, chlorine gas or mustard gas would be released, and if the person could not stand the spicy taste, Adam Site would pour out vomit.
“Retreat, retreat!”
The Soviet army retreated frantically as soon as it was attacked by gas.
The German army then unleashed a large cavalry force.
Thousands of fallen soldiers became prisoners of war or were killed in action.
“How can we handle such a weapon?”
The power of poison gas, which I first tasted on the Eastern Front, was beyond imagination.
Everyone was speechless in shock.
If Germany behaved like that, I had no idea how to deal with it.
“Let’s continue retreating for the time being and attack the enemy’s logistics.”
Stalin suggested keeping his troops intact. He felt burdened by directly attacking the German expeditionary force and was not confident of winning.
Yegorov naturally did not accept that opinion.
“How much longer can I stay away from here? Comrade, do you plan on watching them take over Tsaritsyn?”
“But you can’t face the enemy head on, right?”
Stalin thought that now was the time to preserve his troops.
The argument between the two ended with Trotsky’s intervention.
“Please step aside for now.”
It was a bad choice to stick to the front line in a situation where there were not enough means to immediately respond to poison gas. Trotsky also made that calculation, so he sided with Stalin.
The Soviet Union adopted a war of attrition strategy while attempting to approach the West.
“Isn’t the enemy of my enemy my friend? “You, the West, don’t want to see Germany monopolizing Eurasia.”
Britain responded to the Soviet Union’s subtle approach.
“I don’t mean to give it to you, but it’s too heavy to carry, so I’m leaving it behind.”
The British troops stationed in Arkhangelsk withdrew and handed over supplies to the enemy.
It was an action that violated the agreement, but the British people were proud.
“The Germans did the same thing in Arabia, so is there any reason why we can’t do it?”
The supplies provided by Britain were like rain in a drought for the Soviet Army, which was suffering from a lack of supplies.
Anyway, the Soviet military’s war of attrition strategy was effective.
Because the size of the expeditionary force was not large, there was the problem that the longer the front line, the more difficult it was to advance.
Garrison troops had to be deployed and the lengthening front line had to be protected.
Because the army was so small compared to the length of the vast front line, there were many cases where one platoon guarded a 1 km front line.
The German army filled this gap with allied troops, but the reliability of their troops was not very high.
In the first place, it was difficult to be motivated to kill ‘fellow Slavs’ for the sake of the Germanic people.
“Enemy cavalry has broken through to our rear.”
Soviet cavalry penetrated behind the allied forces and invaded railways and roads to their heart’s content.
Unfortunately for the allies, they did not have enough troops to respond to this.
“It’s annoying.”
Sekt planned to advance all the way to the Volga River at once, but he found the Red Army’s attacks too persistent and annoying.
“Let’s find out who to enlist as volunteers.”
Sekt began to gather resources to ‘volunteer enlistment’ in the ‘Caucasus Liberation Army’.
Volunteers from various ethnic groups, including Chechens, Circassians, Ossetians, and Tatars, flocked under the flag of the Caucasus Liberation Army.
The motive behind their gathering was simple.
“You said that when the communists come, they will take away everything, including livestock and fields?”
The reason they joined the German army was fear of communists.
Although Sekt was replenishing his troops, his power was insufficient to sweep the vast southern Russian region.
Yegorov saw that the German front was shaking and decided to go on the offensive.
“When you have momentum, you have to compete.”
The Red Army shifted from a war of attrition to an offensive.
“Woah!”
The Soviet army immediately broke through the German army’s weak defense line and made a breakthrough.
Poison gas hindered the advance, but Yegorov was able to minimize his losses thanks to a British-made gas mask.
“Keep moving forward.”
Although Stalin expressed his disapproval, Yegorov thought that if he missed this opportunity, the enemy would become too strong to handle.
“It is true that now is an opportunity, Comrade Political Committee member.”
Because the mood of the field army was inclined toward the offensive, Stalin could not continue to oppose it.
On December 16, 1917, the leading units of the Soviet Army captured Rostov.
The Politburo was also encouraged by the entry into the Caucasus territory for the first time since the Brest-Litovsk Treaty.
Lenin emphasized that this counterattack would crush the Germans’ ambition.
On December 25, 1917, the Soviet army advanced to the vicinity of Krasnor, a key point in the Caucasus. Inside this area along the Kuban River was the Kuban Peninsula, the bridgehead of the German expeditionary force.
Yegorov ordered the offensive to continue in Rostov, a hundred kilometers from the front.
“We must return Krasnor to the embrace of revolution before the first day of the new year.”
The Soviet Army’s offensive was clearly powerful, but the Allies were preparing a counterattack at this stage.
“It doesn’t matter if the enemy counterattacks. “The enemy’s strength is at a level we can handle.”
Yegorov was confident, but the Soviet army had reached the end of its offensive at the threshold of Krasnor. In fact, providing logistical support from Voronezh to Rostov, hundreds of kilometers away, and from Rostov back to Krasnor was a project that the Soviet military could not handle. He did not argue that Stalin should occupy Tsaritsyn first for nothing.
In addition, because Sekt withdrew and destroyed all infrastructure, including the railway, the Soviet Army was having difficulty supplying supplies to the front lines.
“Continue attacking.”
At Yegorov’s command, the Soviet army fiercely pounded Krasnor.
Stalin remained in the rear and watched the logistics problems, once again expressing his opposition to this offensive.
“This can’t go on. “What are you going to do if the enemy starts a counterattack?”
“The initiative is in our hands, so why are we so worried?”
Yegorov pretended not to hear Stalin’s concerns.
But the shadow of disaster was already upon us.
When the enemy judged that the offensive had reached its end point, Sekt went on the offensive.
After raining down a large amount of poisonous gas and shells, large-scale infantry launched a wave offensive.
“We need support, support.”
The troops on the front shouted, but Yegorov, a hundred kilometers away, received the news slowly.
“This is their temporary counterattack. Hang in there.”
Yegorov had no doubt that the enemy was not capable of launching a large-scale counterattack.
“This is your Excellency’s order. “Let’s focus our efforts on Krasnor!”
At Yegorov’s urging, the Soviet generals only focused on Krasnor.
“When on earth are you going to send the relief army!”
Meanwhile, the Allied forces were steadily preying on Soviet units on both wings and narrowing the encirclement.
It was not until this time that Yegorov realized the seriousness of the situation.
“How did things get to this point?”
He belatedly paid the price for trying to judge the situation from a hundred kilometers away.
“It is annihilation.”
The staff sadly reported defeat.
Most of the 300,000 troops under the Southwestern Front were trapped in the encirclement of Tchaikovsky’s corps. Each unit desperately attempted to break through, but to no avail. Escape was an impossible dream in the face of allied forces armed with poison gas and machine guns.
“This is all Stalin’s fault.”
When Yegorov faced the crisis of taking responsibility for things, he hung around Stalin.
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“No, what did I do wrong?”
“If our comrades had done their best to support supply, would our troops have struggled like this?”
Even as the responsibility battle heated up, the front line troops melted like ice cream on the battlefield.
The collapse of one front army was tantamount to a disaster for the entire Soviet army.
Even Lenin fell silent upon hearing this defeat.
The German army gained momentum and occupied Tsaritsyn and Rostov, then pushed the Soviet army beyond the Caucasus.
“This is a clear violation of the treaty!”
The German Empire explained to the Soviet Union, which had protested against its violation of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, that it seemed to be the work of ‘friendly young people’ who had gathered ‘by chance’ to help ‘the people of the Caucasus’.
As for why those friendly young people were wearing military uniforms and carrying weapons, they added that the lost weapons were likely leaked due to ‘poor management.’
“Say something that makes sense!”
But it made sense.
In the 21st century.
In any case, vast territories that could have been in the hands of the Soviet Union were left out of their hands.
It was the moment when the ‘great power candidate’ who could have threatened Germany’s frontiers fell into a regional power.