Iron Cross

The situation before Zhukov is very difficult: if Vatutin's main force does not rescue his rearguard, once the rear route is cut off, the front may also fall into a situation of being surrounded from the front and rear. Come, then the front army will face the pressure of the German forces from three directions: the right bank, the left bank, and the meander of the Don River. The Southwest Front army cannot stop it no matter what; but if the main force of the front army returns to the division for rescue, let alone Unable to arrive in time, the plan to besiege Rostov's flank and force the Germans in the river meander failed first.

"How could this happen?" He slammed his fist on the table hatefully. Now he was in a dilemma.

After a while, more bad news came. The 27th Army was divided by the German army, the 21st Army Headquarters lost contact with the General Staff Headquarters, and all divisions and corps in the Hequ Department were locked in a bitter battle, but the Germans' combat effectiveness seemed to be endless.

The phone rang. After taking it, the staff only asked one question before nervously handing it to Zhukov: "This is a call from Comrade Stalin himself..."

He took a deep breath, tried his best to calm down, and answered the critical phone call.

"Comrade Konstantin, what should we do about the situation on the front line now?" Stalin's words contained no blame or criticism for the first time. Instead, he felt a little regretful and uneasy. It seemed that he did not listen to the opinions of Zhukov and Vasilevsky to eliminate the Holocaust in advance. Very upset.

"The current method..." Zhukov did not think about the reason for Stalin's mood change. He smiled bitterly, "The Southwest Front immediately stopped the attack and used the main force to rescue the rearguard. At the same time, he ordered all the troops of the 21st and 24th Group Armies of the Hequ Department to launch a desperate attack to hold back the enemy. The German troops in the area, as for the Second Guards Army..."

Stalin quickly picked up the topic: "Let them attack Rostov at all costs and force Manstein to return troops for rescue."

"This must not be the case!" Zhukov couldn't help shouting into the microphone, "Comrade Vasilevsky told me that after sending out the 57th, 62nd, 64th and Guards Army, Yereomenko also There is only one army group left, and his current situation is very similar to that of Comrade Vatutin. If there is any change in the Kleist Group..."

Although he didn't say anything directly, the horrific scene he described still made Stalin gasp - thinking that Yereomenko might suffer the same fate as Vatutin, his hands dropped weakly.

"Okay, what do you think we should do?"

"Pause the offensive, protect the Stalingrad Front Army Headquarters, and avoid giving the Kleist Group an opportunity to take advantage of it." Zhukov explained, "And order the Bryansk Front Army to defeat the enemy's interception at all costs..."

The other end of the phone was silent for a long time, and finally said: "Let's do it according to your opinion first..."

Putting down the phone, Zhukov felt all the cold sweat on his back pouring out.

At 5 o'clock in the morning on November 14, Zhukov issued an order on behalf of the Red Army General Staff: on the one hand, he ordered the southwest to quickly recover the retreat and block the German Fourth Armored Army; on the other hand, he ordered the Second Guards Army to retreat quickly and consolidate the existing front. , and also required the 21st and 24th Group Armies that were surrounded in the Don River bend to launch a desperate attack to hold back the enemy forces in front of them.

This order completely ruined the last glimmer of hope for the besieged troops in the Hebending Department: if they did not attack or block the German troops, they could have supported and retained more troops. However, after the decisive attack order was issued, the already scarred troops Completely turned into a group of moths fluttering into a flame.

Because of the existence of this order, the Guards Army, which had finally achieved a breakthrough at the cost of more than 4,000 men and more than 50 tanks, could only retreat in anger, and the strength of the 57th, 62nd, and 64th Army Groups also began to shrink—— Yeremenko was sincerely frightened after learning what happened to Vatutin. His situation was almost exactly the same as Vatutin's. At this time, he hated Rokossovsky even more. If the other party allocated the 4th Tank Army to him, he would Why is it so unsuccessful?

Vasilevsky, who was sitting in the Stalingrad Front, was speechless. After appeasing Yeremenko and Khrushchev with his kind words, he hurried to the headquarters of the Don Front, hoping to see Rokossovsky has any way to turn the situation around. As a result, the other party spread his hands and expressed that he could do nothing about it. He even changed the topic and criticized the general staff's chaotic command. He was very emotional:

"Comrade Vasilevsky, it's not that I don't respect your combat deployment and plans, but the strategy you drew up on the map in Moscow is completely divorced from reality - it is well known that the Don River will freeze in mid-November. , Why can't we wait until it is completely frozen before crossing the river to attack Rostov?" Rokossovsky cursed, "In order to grab a few days, our 21st Army was forced to build a pontoon bridge at the meander of the river. You repeatedly accused me of being timid and conservative, and urged me to invest in follow-up troops - well, I lost another half of the 24th Army. "

Vasilevsky was speechless. How could he tell the other party that he and Zhukov both requested a complete freeze before attacking? It was Comrade Stalin who couldn't wait any longer.

"And..." Rokossovsky continued to fire, "Even if my 21st and 24th armies were surrounded by the enemy, they at least held back more than 10 German divisions. I still had the 28th Army and the 4th Tank Army to continue the attack, but why did the downstream troops let a few warships in? In order to deal with them, we paid a heavy loss, and some bastards should be held responsible for this."

The bastard was obviously scolding Yeremenko. The Stalingrad Front had no words to defend this matter, but Vasilevsky himself and Zhukov did not expect this move by the German army.

"In the end, even if we made the first two mistakes, they are still not the most fatal..." Rokossovsky slapped the map, "Why was Vatutin's rear attacked by the Hoth Group? How did the Bryansk Front contain the enemy? Do they have any sense of the overall situation and responsibility?"

Vasilevsky subconsciously replied: "In fact, we want to annihilate the Hoth Group first."

"Yes, why don't you stick to such a correct proposition? Think about it..." Rokossovsky gave the Chief of the General Staff a tactical lesson, "If we eliminate the Hoth Group first, then the Don River will definitely be frozen. The Southwestern Front, us, and the Stalingrad Front will attack from three directions together, and we can completely crush the German troops in Rostov - such a good opportunity for success was let go by you."

Vasilevsky was speechless. Could he still tell the other party that these major decisions were made under Stalin's intervention? He could only smile bitterly.

Rokossovsky seemed to have seen some clues from the bitter smile of the Chief of the General Staff, and finally sighed: "Let's suspend the attack first. We must stabilize the front line anyway. At least our current losses are not particularly large. We can make up for them by pulling up the reserve troops. The subsequent actions really need to be planned well, otherwise the situation is not optimistic."

In the early morning of November 15, one cold wind after another blew, and the temperature dropped to minus 13 degrees Celsius. The entire Don River, not only the upper reaches and the bends, but also the lower reaches were shrouded in snow. The pressure of the Red Army's crazy attack on Rostov was finally relieved. Colonel Bernard, who had completed the task of water fire control, led the fleet to the downstream with satisfaction. In the battles of these few days, the Romanian Navy showed up greatly. The entire formation's excess ammunition was almost all used up, and many sailors were almost exhausted. He didn't know how many Russians he had killed. Conservative estimates were at least 5,000 people. He was very satisfied with this and felt that the battle had never been so fulfilling.

Under the cover of snow, the German army, which had basically achieved its battle objectives, began to evacuate in batches along the way they came. Although there were still many Red Army troops silted up in the defense points of the Hequ Department, and although many Red Army divisions only left the last frame, as if they could be completely annihilated with a little more effort, this was no longer the German army's key task. Their biggest task was to retreat as soon as possible. Many desperate Red Army officers and soldiers were shocked to find that since that afternoon, the Germans who had been putting pressure on them seemed to have evaporated from the world in an instant, disappearing without a trace. The survivors gasped for breath and were glad that they were saved.

By 4 p.m. on the 16th, the large-scale battle in the Don River Bend was basically over, and the sound of gunfire gradually calmed down. Poor Chistyakov encountered the assault of the Guards Flag Division while leading the army group headquarters to transfer. In the overwhelming firepower coverage of Himmler's organ, this once famous commander and guards were hit and killed - the Red Army soldiers who cleaned up the battlefield afterwards found their poor commander. The Germans did not seem to realize what a valuable target they had killed on the battlefield.

Karpov's luck was better than Chistyakov's. The core troops of the 27th Army were still retained, but the full staffing level was less than 40% of the pre-war level. The troops assigned to him were almost all wiped out. At most, he controlled 7 divisions, but after the battle, he could gather less than 10,000 troops and could only be organized into 2 divisions.

On November 17, the Battle of the Great River Bend came to an end. After four days and three nights of fierce fighting, under the strategic command of Manstein and the exquisite cooperation of the Hoth Group, the German Southern Army Group achieved a comprehensive victory. Most of the Red Army's 21st and 12th Armies were annihilated, the 24th Army was severely damaged, and the 6th, 57th, 62nd, and 64th Armies were severely damaged. In the Don River Bend, the 190,000 Red Army was left with only more than 60,000 people. Together with casualties in other directions, the Red Army's casualties exceeded 300,000, and the loss of tanks exceeded 500,000; the Southern Army Group lost nearly 50,000 personnel (including more than 30,000 German troops) and 150 tanks (more than 80 German troops).

On November 19, the middle and upper reaches of the Don River were frozen, and the German army retreated to the first line of defense around Rostov...