Chapter one hundred and eighty first reward for meritorious deeds
Rundstedt, who was far away on the battlefield in Poland, still didn't know that Reinhard had already booked a circumnavigation route for himself in Poland. He was still immersed in the victory of the Battle of the Buzula River.
Echoing Rundstedt's Army Group South, Army Group North commanded by General Bock also made extensive use of armored forces and launched a regular encirclement battle.
If in the Army Group South, the Führer representative next to the veteran Lundstedt was Manstein. Then in the Army Group North, Bock, the equally traditional Prussian general, was represented by Reinhardt.
Went to another Führer general - Heinz Wilhelm Guderian.
Unlike Manstein who took office as chief of staff of Army Group South, Guderian chose to go to the front line to command operations.
After all, he is Reinhardt's crony and a well-known armor master in Germany (Reinhardt gave him all the tasks related to the armored forces. If he is not famous, who is more famous), Guderian got it quite smoothly.
opportunity to command an armored corps.
Therefore, the well-equipped 19th Armored Corps of the Wehrmacht in Bock's Northern Army Group was assigned to the academic general Guderian who was the most experienced in armored forces.
In fact, Guderian's ability to secure command of the armored forces in the Wehrmacht had a lot to do with his preparations over the past ten years.
Under Reinhardt's packaging arrangements, Guderian, who returned to China after training armored forces in the Soviet Union, often published articles discussing contemporary military issues in Germany's famous "Military Weekly" magazine.
And Reinhard gave a special greeting to Atok, the editor-in-chief of this weekly, and placed every article by Guderian at the top of Military Weekly. So Guderian used tactical exercises
With the opportunity of war games, he easily expressed his new concept that tanks will become the masters of the ground battlefield again and again. Over the past few years, Gudri's reputation as an armor expert has spread throughout the German political circles.
In 1931, he smoothly became the chief of staff of the German Motorized Infantry Force Directorate. In 1935, he was arranged by Reinhardt to be one of the division commanders of Germany's first three armored divisions. When Austria was annexed,
He was even ordered to lead the armored troops on a forced march, creating a contemporary march of more than a hundred miles a day!
In this attack on Poland, Guderian served as the commander of the 19th Armored Corps of the Northern Army. Bock had no objection at all. After all, he could not find anyone more professional than Guderian.
Under the leadership of Guderian, the 19th Armored Corps, which had 1 armored division, 2 motorized divisions and 1 infantry division, was both the center of the 4th Army and the offensive forward of Army Group North.
After the war started, he led his troops to quickly break through the Polish border defense line, and within two days completely completed the encirclement of the Polish "Pomeranian" Army Group in the "Danzig Corridor" area. Although the encirclement scale was slightly smaller than that of the Southern Army Group, it was
This siege ultimately reduced the Polish army's main border force by nearly 100,000, and was also a brilliant victory.
Compared with the huge siege of the Buzula River that Manstein won through strategy, Guderian's shining point was the ultra-low casualty rate he achieved by relying on tactical weapons.
The outcome of the Battle of the Buzula River was that the 30th Division of the 8th Army of Army Group South was completely lost, with more than 11,000 casualties in the division. Bock relied mainly on Guderian's armored forces to defeat the Polish army.
After the three infantry divisions and one cavalry brigade of Pomeran Army Group were all annihilated, the total casualties of Army Group North were less than 2,000. Among them, the four front-line combat divisions commanded by Guderian only had 150 casualties and 150 wounded.
700 people.
However, Guderian, whose troops were still healthy, now also encountered a big troublesome problem - the 19th Division advanced too smoothly, and almost easily captured more than 20,000 Polish soldiers along the way.
The prisoner's advance will inevitably seriously affect the advancement speed behind him.
"General! Commander Bock sent a telegram, asking us to go ahead and break through the Polish fortification area in Brest-Litovsk, and then as soon as possible join the leading armored forces of the Southern Army Group at Wwo on the Bug River.
Dawa will join forces." A Guderian staff officer introduced next to him.
"We just swallowed up a Polish army group, and they immediately urged us to rush to Włodawa. Admiral Bock's appetite is really not small." Guderian looked at the map hanging on the wall, and after a long time
Then he said: "No! It's impossible to get there with such a large group of prisoners. Even if we get to Wvodawa, it will take at least more than a week. By then, the leading troops of Army Group South will probably have arrived long ago."
After hearing this, the staff officer said helplessly: "We rushed too fast, and there are no other friendly forces around us that can catch up. Even if we want to hand over the prisoners, we can't find any friendly forces to take them over."
Guderian looked melancholy, dragging his chin and thinking: "I also want to increase the speed, so as not to waste the mobility of our armored forces. But the 20,000 prisoners only have legs, and they can't catch up with our tanks.
speed."
Just when Guderian came up with the idea of leaving the prisoners behind and traveling at full speed, a staff officer came up with a compromise plan for him.
"Commander, we can let the slower 14th Infantry Division stay and escort the prisoners to advance slowly. Anyway, the 14th Infantry Division is always dragging down the entire army. In this way, we can also focus on speed.
The fastest 3rd Armored Division, 2nd and 20th Motorized Divisions advanced rapidly."
After the staff officer finished speaking, he glanced at Guderian's eyes. What he found in the commander's eyes was a satisfied approval.
"Yes, your suggestion is very creative!" Guderian nodded, patted the staff officer on the shoulder and praised: "I will personally give you a promotion report later and apply for a medal. I can do it very quickly.
I can tell you responsibly that with the relationship between me and the head of state, whether it is a promotion or a medal, you have to decide!"
"Thanks for the promotion, General!" the staff officer immediately stood at attention and saluted. He had been working as a lieutenant colonel for several years, but he still had no chance to move up. Although he had been working as a staff officer for Guderian, the famous figure of the Führer,
But why did Guderian promote him to an inconspicuous little staff officer when he had nothing to do on weekdays?
He had long thought that without aristocratic background and being unwilling to flatter, it would be very rare for him to be promoted to the level of lieutenant colonel.
"Don't think too much, you deserve it." As if he had seen through the psychological activities of the staff, Guderian said calmly: "Since the head of state came to power, the promotion standards for officers have no connection with whether they have aristocratic background or not.
.Those who are talented and have made great achievements can be promoted. Even those who are incompetent and the children of aristocratic families can only go to the grassroots level and slowly climb up step by step."
