On the last day of July, a heavy rain in the early morning turned the devastated city of Mozyr into a muddy place again. A large number of troops from the 100th Army rushed to the rescue and set up defenses outside the city, from Mozyri to Kalinkovich.
The train station, with a diameter of only five kilometers, was filled with nearly 30,000 people!
The German 70th and 71st Divisions rushing to the rescue thought they could beat the main force of the Soviet army. After arriving at their destination, their first task was to clean up the battlefield waste, conduct a large-scale search for escaped soldiers and horses, and clean up the bodies of fallen soldiers and horses.
The exhausted people were chilled by the heavy rain in the early morning. In the early morning, hundreds of soldiers reported to military doctors that they had signs of throat inflammation.
Mozyr was safe, but Army Commander Gunter still had a headache. He was not at ease at all. The Soviet troops disappeared mysteriously, and rain and mud became the biggest enemies of the German army.
The thunderstorm in the early morning made him feel uncomfortable all over. He barely managed to wait until the thunderstorm ended and was able to sleep peacefully for a few hours. About ten kilometers away, an alarm came from Petrikov that "the guerrillas were about to attack the city."
It was only then that Hangte realized that the so-called thunder heard in the morning was not thunder at all, but the explosion of artillery shells in the distance.
"Oh my god, can these Russians survive the heavy rain? Are they human beings? Or are they monsters?"
Currently, the two division commanders are guarding the army commander's simple bed.
Genus, commander of the 70th Division, said pragmatically: "Commander, the enemy may be a human or a monster. What should we do now? The fall of Petrikov is basically a foregone conclusion. We must take back the town?"
"Take it back? Okay! How about I send you to attack? Although your troops suffered heavy casualties, they have accumulated a lot of experience in sieges."
"this……"
Hunter immediately frowned and grinned helplessly: "I knew you would have this attitude. The Russians we encountered were very vicious, and they never fought according to common sense. Our army has never gained the real initiative.
I now feel that Petrikov is more like a trap, and the Russians are just waiting for us to jump into it!"
The 71st Division suffered the fewest losses, and its division commander decisively volunteered: "Let us go! Our army's strength is very complete, and we still have some heavy weapons."
Before he finished speaking, Gunt immediately waved his hand: "Oh my God! Karl, don't you know the damn road conditions in Russia? When it doesn't rain, everything is fine. After a heavy rain, won't the armored vehicles get stuck?"
Mud? Even if our army has reinforcements, it has to rely on the legs of the infantry."
"Even so, we must reinforce. Well, at least send..."
"Forget it!" Hangt endured his headache and interrupted the division commander again: "Karl, my dear Karl. Our 100th Army belongs to the Ninth Army, and our battlefield should be Smolensk, not Smolensk.
This damn muddy Belarusian swamp! This is the defense zone of that ass-like General Wagner. His troops should go and attack the guerrillas. We will stay here quietly.
Please note that our mission is to recover Lechica. We have completed this mission. Do we need to perform other missions? Without the order from the group army, I have no right to execute other people's so-called orders."
In this regard, the commander of the 71st Division had nothing to say. The commander's explanation was indeed very reasonable. The 100th Army had already completed its mission, so why continue to wade through muddy waters? Did it still think its casualties and consumption were not high enough?
Therefore, when the commander of the 74th Division, Borisman, after a brief analysis of Petrikov's situation, he personally found the army commander Gunter who was recovering from his injuries early in the morning and sincerely requested him to send troops to recapture the town.
This request was flatly rejected, "Even if it is an order from your army commander Wagner, we do not have the authority to execute it. We have completed the task and are now waiting for the order to go north."
This reason for rejection is indeed something Borisman cannot refute.
He had no choice but to report this information to the group army commander Wagner. He was eager to get clever ideas from his superiors. In response to his confirmation, on the other end of the phone, Wagner roared at the top of his lungs: "The 100th Army is simply unreliable. Your 74th Division must find a way to prevent the guerrillas from going further."
Destroy. Otherwise, surrender yourself to the military court!"
The reason that allowed Wagner to curse without thinking was because of the current chaotic war situation.
On the surface, the reinforced 100th Army defeated the guerrillas that had been in trouble for a long time, but it was only a defeat. They fled through the "safe corridor" between Lechica and Gomel, and fled towards the swamps.
Their entry into the swamp was undoubtedly a fish out of the sea. If the Germans wanted to advance further, they were really asking for trouble. Besides, Wagner did not have much mobile troops left at all. What was even worse was that after the 100th Army moved north, it only relied on
Can the troops that have just experienced a "tragic victory" defend the land after the guerrillas have withdrawn?
A very disgusting fact faced Wagner, that is, the dehumanization of the defense zone.
The German army was ordered to create a strategic no-man's land in southern Belarus. Civilians along the railway were either killed or moved to the north. Now most of the villages north of the railway, up to the important town of Bobruisk, are completely deserted.
.
All the villagers were taken away by the guerrillas. One of the results was that the guerrillas could rapidly expand their forces, and the other was that the number of local people serving the German army plummeted.
Wagner not only had to face the reality of the division's exhausted veterans, but also had to consider the very serious logistics supply and human resources problems in the future. Less than twenty-four hours after he had just survived, the supposedly exhausted guerrillas attacked Mozyr again.
, thanks to the cleverness of the 100th Army, the city was not occupied.
The 100th Army has already conducted some military operations that exceeded their mission goals. Wagner knew that they would basically not do this again. The only reason why they even fully reinforced Mozyr was simply because their military headquarters was here.
Blows came one after another, and a heavy rain made the whole world muddy. The bad weather made Wagner, who was already in a bad mood, even more depressed. He had been in the Belarusian occupation zone for a long time, and naturally he hated the local road traffic conditions.
The situation in the city of Bobruisk, where its headquarters is located, is relatively good. Once you get to the outskirts of the city, you are in a quagmire. Even many roads extending into the city have turned into mud roads like during the snow melting period in spring.
.
Only light infantry can fight in such a disgusting environment, but the guerrillas are a group of light infantry. It is really difficult for the German army to fight well in such a rainy period.
Wagner couldn't help but think of the World War I he had participated in. He was very lucky not to be used as cannon fodder on the Marne River. As a trench soldier, he experienced the rainy season in France that was filled with the smell of decay and gunpowder smoke and was extremely muddy.
Fighting in the rain naturally became a nightmare for a generation of German veterans. Many of them became officers in the new era, and their attitudes were naturally transmitted to lower-level soldiers.
So after learning that a town that his 74th Division was responsible for defending was instantly attacked by the guerrillas, what else could he do? The closest thing to the battlefield besides the 74th Division was the 100th Army.
He can only mobilize the 74th Division, which has a large defensive area. Affected by heavy rain, communication between various units is very likely to be interrupted.
After giving the order to the 74th Division, he gradually came out of his anger.
He and many staff members quickly made various analyzes based on only brief information about the attack on Petrikov.
One analysis was the most convincing, and the chief of staff was a fan of it.
During the morning meeting that was held unexpectedly, the chief of staff pointed his baton at the regional map on the wall and started a discussion based on this line of analysis.
"We have studied yesterday and concluded that the reason why the guerrillas attacked Mozyr was to attract the main reinforcements of the 100th Army so that the rest of the enemy's troops could escape smoothly. From the current point of view, the enemy has been relatively successful.
However, the enemy voluntarily abandoned Mozyr. They did not continue to retreat at all, but attacked Petrikov, a town west of Mozyr. Their purpose in doing so was nothing more than to repeat the tactics of attracting firepower and attract our troops to launch an attack.
Pursue. Just imagine, if the main force of our army pursues this group of people, then Lechica, which has just been recaptured, will face the problem of a lack of defenders. The enemy will naturally choose this gap to capture Lechica."
"Do the Russians still have more troops?" Wagner couldn't believe that the Russians would have a steady supply of troops. "We found a large number of enemy corpses on the battlefield, with a total of more than 5,000 people! Do they still have strength?
"
"However, they almost succeeded in occupying Mozyr, but it was only thanks to our army that we bombed the bridge ourselves to avoid a recurrence of the tragedy."
The words of the chief of staff are indeed very convincing. At the same time, there must be a strong guerrilla force operating around Mozyr. They are the enemies who attacked Mozyr yesterday. Where will their attack targets now?
?We can’t go west along the Pripet River and attack Pinsk directly!
Wagner somewhat hoped that the guerrillas would attack Pinsk, which was in the southwest of Belarus and was not under his jurisdiction. The guerrillas fought hard against the defenders of Pinsk. It was best for the defenders to cripple or annihilate them, and they must not be allowed to leave.
An opportunity to harm the Southeast again.
The chief of staff continued: "We still control several towns and some villages west of Mozyr. Most of the mobile troops of the 74th Division are deployed in the area north of Mozyr, and the mud seriously restricts the speed of its reinforcements. In this way, our Mozyr
The defenders west of Jili must face the large guerrilla forces with their weak forces. The outcome of the battle can be imagined!
Therefore, my attitude is to immediately abandon the unoccupied towns and all the soldiers move north to the railway exit to hold on to the railway line.
The guerrillas are also very likely to search the prisoner-of-war camp. I believe that all the prisoners of war waiting for transfer in our prisoner-of-war camp near the railway must be executed immediately to avoid being taken away by the guerrillas and becoming our army's future enemies.
The main force of our army will stick to its position and will never fall into the trap."
There are only three opinions to sum up the chief of staff. First: soldiers abandon the town. Second: execute prisoners of war. Third: the main force sticks to the position.
The last two opinions are completely operable, especially the second one. More than two months ago, after a prisoner of war camp was ransacked by guerrillas, those who escaped became soldiers to participate in the battle.
Wagner was only dissatisfied with the first point. He asked the chief of staff: "Are we, the troops of the Third Reich, going to retreat on our own initiative? Are we going to be cowards?"
"No! I am taking the most reasonable measures based on the current situation of the army. The troops we can invest are too few, and we cannot waste lives in vain by hitting rocks with eggs."
"Bah! I will never be a coward!" Wagner reacted with anger, but he never agreed with the chief of staff's opinion on this point.
"This is not a matter of being a coward. Don't you think that our group army suffered too many casualties? It is the rainy season now, and this kind of weather should have prevented fighting. Our army has many reasons to avoid new conflicts. As long as we
If there are no new casualties among our soldiers, our strength will not be further depleted."
However, the chief of staff's humanistic ideas were once again rejected by Wagner.
Wagner is the commander of the group army. He has many things to consider, especially the morale of the army. The hard battle has just ended. Most of the grassroots soldiers breathed a sigh of relief. The army at least won and paid a heavy price. In the end, there was no
Bringing shame to Germany.
What if the soldiers learned that some troops of the 74th Division voluntarily abandoned some towns in order to avoid further casualties and boldly gave the cities to the guerrillas. In this way, so many casualties were paid, and in the end it was squandered by a group of cowards?
In this way, in his capacity as commander, and based on the current situation of the troops, Wagner issued a death order: "74th Division, shoot all prisoners of war in the prisoner of war camp. The defenders of various town strongholds west of Mozyr faced the advancing guerrillas and defended their positions.
"
An hour after Borisman, the commander of the 74th Division, was scolded, he received a new call from his superiors.
The chief further emphasized the reason for holding on to the town, although it made Borisman a little regretful. Today, I am afraid that many soldiers will die again, and reinforcements from superiors will never be able to arrive due to the disgusting road conditions and continuous rain. Besides,
, even if reinforcements arrived, the guerrillas fled into the forest and disappeared without a trace!
On the contrary, Borisman was willing to accept the order to massacre the prisoners of war. After all, more than two months ago, the prisoner-of-war camp that his troops were responsible for managing was captured by the enemy.
After receiving further orders, Borisman picked up the phone and first called the "Rudolf Labor Camp" located four kilometers north of the railway line, ordering the defenders to immediately launch execution operations.
After that, because telephone lines and poles were washed away by heavy rains or destroyed by guerrillas, telephone communications were interrupted. Borisman sent a message to the garrison of Turov, an important river town farther west from Mozyr, via radio.
Telegram - Your department will immediately carry out city defense construction to defeat the guerrillas' attack on the town. Those who retreat without orders will be subject to military law.
The telegram was so brief that Borisman did not dare to tell the truth. He also knew that the defenders were afraid of being annihilated, and as for reinforcements, they did not exist.
The war was fought so cowardly, what could he do? Who asked the commander to issue the death order? He just sat back and watched the guerrillas continue to make trouble in the western area. But as a soldier, he must obey the order, even if Borisman has 10,000 disloyal people.
If he is willing, he can only sit helplessly and watch the guerrillas attack Turov and learn the bad news that the defenders have been wiped out. (To be continued)