Finally, under the "coercion" of Major Mikhailovich and others, the colonel reluctantly made a phone call to the Stalingrad Front Army headquarters to prove his identity.
"Yes!" replied on the phone: "Colonel Kaplanov is our staff officer. We sent him to ask for Comrade Shulka. Lieutenant General Goldov hopes to talk to Comrade Shulka!"
Major Mikhailovich felt relieved.
But he still said to Colonel Kaplanov with dissatisfaction: "Colonel, you don't look like you are here to invite someone!"
"You should know how tense the war situation is now!" Colonel Kaplanov replied without a good face: "We can't waste any time!"
"Then you should prepare documents and orders from your superiors!" Major Mikhailovich said: "Instead of thinking like now that you can just drive a car and take away our deputy commander with a military uniform,
!”
Colonel Kaplanov seemed not to want to tangle with Major Mikhailovich any longer. He asked impatiently: "So, can I take the person away now?"
"Of course!" Shulka walked into the headquarters. He had already taken this time to change back into his military uniform.
"Colonel!" Shulka said, "Do you need to tie my hands?"
Colonel Kaplanov said nothing, just "hum" and walked out of the door.
Shulka and Major Mikhailovich couldn't help but smile at each other.
The Stalingrad Front Army Headquarters is more than 30 kilometers away from Stalingrad. Shulka didn't know where it was. He only knew that the jeep turned left and right on the road, then turned into a forest, and then stopped in front of a bunker.
Stop.
Several people jumped out of the car and walked into the entrance, only to realize that it was an underground warehouse and not a bunker.
The warehouse was full of soldiers running back and forth, busy loading ammunition into cars and transporting it away in batches.
This situation happened to Shulka all the time, because the same thing happened in Stalingrad.
Even the scene in Stalingrad was even more chaotic than this... After hearing the news of the war, people rushed to flee the city and rush to the east bank of the Volga River. So the stations and docks were full of people coming and going, and
Soldiers came in and out in batches.
"Comrade Gordov!" Kaplanov walked up to a lieutenant general and stood up to salute.
The lieutenant general and a group of generals were discussing something around the map on the shell box. When he heard the sound, he raised his head and turned around. He glanced at Shulka coldly and then turned to a major general next to him.
"Comrade Shulka!" the major general came up to him and said, "Nice to see you!"
"General!" Shulka stood up and saluted.
"Maybe you don't remember me!" said the major general: "My name is Filipovich. I used to be Comrade Rokossovsky's staff officer. I was still a colonel at that time!"
Shulka said "Oh" and seemed to have guessed what was going on... He had cooperated with Rokossovsky for a period of time, and it was at that time that Colonel Filipovich met him.
Nowadays, Colonel Filipovich, who was transferred to the Stalingrad Front, or to be precise, a major general, thought of Shulka when he was at a loss in the defense of Stalingrad.
So, he recommended himself to Goldov.
This is also the reason why Lieutenant General Goldov behaves coldly towards himself... He simply does not believe that a captain who was transferred to the "cannon fodder regiment" can do anything good.
"This is Lieutenant General Gordov!" Major General Filipovich introduced: "The commander of the Stalingrad Front is also the commander-in-chief of the two fronts!"
"Comrade General!" Shulka stood up and saluted.
Lieutenant General Goldov nodded, then pointed to the map in front of him and said: "Look at this, Comrade Shulka, you need to understand the current battle situation first!"
Major General Filipovich pointed to the map and explained: "The Germans have occupied Karachi and extended the defense line to the Don River. From north to south are the 44th Infantry Division, the 60th Motorized Division, and the 14th Armored Corps.
, 71st Infantry Division... We can't stop them on the west bank of the Don!"
These Shulkas have been roughly seen on the map.
Stalingrad is important not only because the city is named after Stalin, not only because it is an important industrial base of the Soviet Union, but also because it has an important strategic position.
There are two main rivers near Stalingrad, one is the Don River and the other is the Volga River.
The Don River naturally forms a large bend like a fish hook in the middle, forming a narrow channel with the Volga River that is only 100 kilometers at its narrowest.
Stalingrad is located on this narrow passage, with the Volga River at its back.
It can be imagined that these two rivers are almost the moats of Stalingrad. In addition to crossing the river, the enemy can only attack from both wings... This is why the Soviet army placed two fronts, one north and one south, on the two wings of Stalingrad.
one.
"What's the problem?" Shulka asked after looking at it for a while, and at the same time turned his attention to Major General Filipovich.
Shulka knew that there must be some problem that was difficult to solve, so he thought of him.
No one answered, and the officers had unnatural looks on their faces.
"No problem!" Major General Filipovich replied: "We just... want to hear your opinions, such as troop deployment or other aspects!"
Shulka understood after hearing this.
They were actually beaten by the Germans and lost their confidence.
This does not seem surprising. Previously, the Soviet army was confident that it could occupy Kharkov and even surround the German army. Who would have thought that it would be counter-surrounded by the German army in just a few days and lose hundreds of thousands of elite troops.
Therefore, they did not believe from top to bottom that anything could stop the German attack, even though they had natural dangers.
However, this is indeed the case. The main reason is that most of the assembled troops are defeated soldiers. They do not have much combat experience and they do not believe that they can win the victory just like these commanders.
As a result, it didn't take long for the German army to break through the Soviet defense lines and march to Stalingrad.
This is not a question of troop deployment, but a question of morale and the quality of the soldiers. The former may be motivated in some way, but the latter cannot be achieved temporarily.
And if the soldiers collapse at the first touch, even the seemingly solid defense line will be empty.
"What do you have in mind?" Major General Filipovich asked.
After thinking about it, Shulka replied: "First of all, there is the issue of the enemy's possible attack direction. I think the enemy is more likely to attack from the south rather than the north!"
Upon hearing this, Lieutenant General Goldov couldn't help but raise his head suddenly and looked at Shulka in surprise.