Burning Moscow

Chapter 1589 The defeat of the Polish Army

On the way to the church, while the commander of the Polish army was not there, I curiously asked Rokosovsky: “Comrade Marshal, what happened? The Polish army has not already advanced outside Warsaw, so why is it so easy? Was it defeated by the German army?”

Rokosowski sighed and said: “Lida, you don’t know anything. When the Polish army was advancing to the outskirts of Poland, it was suddenly ambushed by a superior German army. Under the cover of armored vehicles, they launched an attack on the Polish army equipped with only light weapons. In just ten minutes of battle, the commanders of the two battalions were killed or injured, and the rest could only hide in the gully on the side of the road. Resisted.”

“What about the insurgents in Warsaw, where are they?” I heard this and raised my voice and asked: “Didn’t they say they want to go out of the city to meet the Polish troops going north and liberate Warsaw together?”

“Lida, the reason why the insurgents in the city did not come out to respond. So far, we have no way of knowing.” Rokosovsky was unwilling to struggle with this issue, and asked: “You and Cuikov both adopted What measures have been taken to rescue the troubled Polish army?”

“All the equipment for crossing the river was handed over to the Polish army. We were unable to cross the river to support them, so I had to ask General Cuikov to deploy artillery and tanks by the river, and when the friendly forces retreated, I would use artillery to cover their retreat.” , We have come to the outside of the church, looking at the soldiers standing guard at the door, both our army and the Polish army, so I quickly stopped the conversation and said to Rokosovsky: “Comrade Commander, we are here. , Let’s go up.”

When we came to the clock tower and observed the situation across the river with a telescope, I found that the situation was worse than we thought. The Polish soldiers on the opposite bank have basically lost their organizational system and run wild, while the German tanks are parked at the edge of the forest in the distance, reaping the lives of these soldiers with tank guns and airborne machine guns. Perhaps in order to prevent our army from crossing the river for reinforcements, the German long-range artillery bombarded the surface of the river continuously, stirring up water columns one after another.

“Comrade Marshal, you are here.” Seeing Rokosovsky’s appearance, Bellinger seemed to have caught a life-saving straw. He put his hands together and asked respectfully: “Please, save Poland. Soldiers of the army, if this continues, they may be wiped out.”

Before Rokosovsky could speak, Cuikov rushed to say: “Comrade Marshal, we are powerless now. All the equipment for crossing the river has been handed over to the comrades of the Polish Army. Our troops cannot cross the Vistula River. Artillery troops are deployed near the river, but the troops on the opposite bank have lost their organizational structure. There are mountains and plains everywhere. If we fired artillery, we would accidentally injure our own people.”

“General Bellinger,” Rokosovsky waited for Trikov to finish, and immediately comforted Bellinger: “We will never watch the Polish soldiers be wiped out by the Germans. But the situation on the other side is now. It’s too chaotic, we can’t fire the cannon, otherwise the cannonball will fall on our own head.

Bellinger sighed deeply when Rokosovsky said this, his face was full of deep regret. He may be thinking that if a few hours ago, he agreed to Rokosowski’s proposal and let our army send a troop to cross the river, the pressure on the Polish army staying on the other side would be much less. .

It turned out that the real Polish army staying by the river, seeing that the troops marching towards Warsaw had been defeated by the German army, I couldn’t help but panic. They abandoned their positions and ran towards the river, trying to use the ships here to return to the east bank. .

As soon as many soldiers jumped on the wooden boat, they immediately grabbed the oars, and then rowed desperately to get the boat off the shore and toward the east bank. But they were less than half of the line, they were discovered by the Germans in the distance, and they immediately concentrated their artillery fire on this section and imposed a fire blockade on the river.

Sudden artillery shells exploded the river surface, and the skyrocketing water jets that exploded one after another hit the ship’s hull violently. Then the screaming became more and more intense, and more and more shells fell from the sky. How could the wooden boats withstand the steel shells? With the violent explosion of the shells hitting the ships, the wooden boats carrying soldiers burst into flames one after another. The soldiers either dived to escape or were burned alive by the fire.

The shells came suddenly and went fast. The Germans saw that the ships on the river had disappeared, and immediately stopped the intensive shelling, using only sporadic shelling to prevent the possibility of crossing the river by our troops on the east bank. I saw dozens of wooden boats returning from the West Bank before being blown to pieces. The burning wreckage was still floating on the water with billowing black smoke, and the overturned boat was sinking quickly. Looking around, the blood-stained river surface is full of broken ship fragments and soldiers’ corpses. In the icy river, the fighters who escaped by diving were thumping desperately, like dumplings boiled in a pot. Although there were not many ships surviving on the river, the soldiers on the ships were not eager to escape, but slowed down to rescue the soldiers floating on the nearby water.

“My God,” Old Bellinger said in tears: “Fifty or sixty wooden boats, hundreds of lives, in just a few minutes, were destroyed by German artillery fire.”

“Comrade Cuikov,” Rokosovsky saw this, feeling unbearable, and turned around and ordered Cuikov: “Immediately order the artillery to fire on the other side!”

“But, Comrade Marshal.” Hearing this order from Rokosovsky, Cui Koff said with some embarrassment: “Now firing the gun, he might accidentally injure himself…”

“Okay, General Trikov.” Before he could finish speaking, Rokosovsky interrupted him severely: “Seeing that our comrades are making constant sacrifices on the other side, we can’t do nothing. I am now Order you to suppress the German offensive forces with artillery fire, and cover the Polish soldiers to retreat to the East Bank!”

“Yes!” Seeing Rokosovsky’s anger, Cuikov no longer insisted on his own opinion, raised his hand to salute, turned and went down the clock tower, and called the artillery unit.

A few minutes later, our artillery units deployed in advance on the east coast opened fire. The intensive artillery fire blasted the German troops assembled in the forest area to howling ghosts. At the same time, more than a dozen bombers of our army, in a four-plane formation, flew over our heads to bomb the German artillery positions.

Looking at the bombers flying farther and farther, I felt extremely curious. The only one who could mobilize the air force was Rokosovsky, General Malinin, the Chief of Staff of the Front Army Headquarters. But when I accompanied Rokosovsky to this church, I didn’t see who he called. How could the bombers of our army show up in such a timely manner?

When Rokosovsky turned his head to talk to Bellinger, he saw my pensive expression and asked curiously: “Lida, what are you doing here alone?”

“Comrade Marshal,” I asked curiously, pointing to the looming bomber in the air, “We have arranged for our air force to bomb the German artillery positions long ago, or was it sent by someone who called the air force commander. What?”

“We came here from Trikov’s headquarters together. When did you see me calling?” Rokosovsky explained to me with great interest: “I thought of the Polish army attacking Warsaw yesterday. We may need to provide them with air support during the battle in the United States, so we can arrange for the air force to attack at this time to bomb the German artillery positions in order to reduce the pressure on the friendly forces during the offensive.”

With the suppression of the German army by our air force and artillery, the enemy’s force toward the Polish defense zone weakened, giving the soldiers the opportunity to use the remaining ships to retreat to the East Bank in an orderly manner.

Seeing his troops landed on the East Bank one after another, Bellinger wanted to personally meet the soldiers who had escaped from the dead, but was stopped by Rokosovsky. He kindly reminded: “General Bellinger, the river is still the area where German artillery fires, so their artillery was bombed by our air force, but for the sake of safety, you still don’t go. If you want to meet you The troops, let them go to Cui Kefu’s headquarters.”

Regarding Rokosowski’s proposal, Bellinger thought for a while, and finally nodded in agreement. As the supreme commander of the Polish army, he did not have the right to let himself take risks.

Almost two hours later, Colonel Varesak, the commander of the Polish Third Division, arrived at Trikov’s headquarters. The colonel looked embarrassed, his face blackened by gunpowder smoke, his clothes dirty and torn, and his bandaged left arm hung on his chest.

“Colonel, can you explain to me what the **** is going on?” Bellinger asked his subordinates sternly. In order for us to understand their conversation, he deliberately used Russian.

“Comrade Commander, we are not to blame.” The colonel raised his head and said dissatisfied: “It turns out that we are progressing very smoothly. We have broken through the three lines of defense of the German army. At least more than 300 German soldiers have been killed. …”

When I heard this, I couldn’t help but curled my lips in disapproval. I said to my heart that you had five or six thousand people in a division. It took more than ten hours to kill and wound more than three hundred enemies. This kind of victory made me feel embarrassed to come out.

“We approached the agreed location, but did not see the insurgents who came to meet us, only the German troops who had been ambushing here…. Our troops did not have heavy weapons. We faced the German tanks and armored vehicles rushing over. It is powerless…” The colonel said with a sad face, “…The casualties of the troops are too great, I can only order everyone to fight and withdraw, and find a way to retreat to the east bank of the Vistula…”

Rokosovsky waited patiently for the Colonel to finish before interjecting and asked: “Comrade Colonel, can you tell me why the insurgents whom I had agreed with you in advance did not appear in time to join you outside the city? ”

The colonel did not directly answer the reason, but looked at Rokosovsky and said: “Comrade Marshal, I met a soldier of the Lyudov Guards who escaped from the city on the road. I think he can answer you. problem.”

“Colonel, where is he?” Rokosovsky quickly asked when he heard the colonel say so.

Vareshak walked to the door and shouted outside: “Come in!”

Following Vareshak’s shout, a middle-aged man in casual clothes and a peaked cap walked in cringly. “Comrade Crook,” Colonel Vareshak raised his intact right hand, put it on the shoulder of the middle-aged man, took him to our front, and said to him kindly, “Please make things happen in the city. Tell the commanders about the matter again.”

Crook nodded, his mouth was Polish that we didn’t understand. Vareshak quickly reminded him: “Comrade Crook, don’t you speak Russian? Just speak Russian, otherwise these commanders will not understand.”

Rokosovsky realized that the middle-aged man named Crook in front of him must be aware of the current situation in the city. He quickly stepped forward and asked with a serious expression: “Comrade Crook, hurry up and talk about the city. So what happened?”

“What else can you do? Killing!” Crook said, looking at Rokosovsky with a bitter expression on his face: “There are killings everywhere, not only the Germans are killing our people, but even We ourselves are killing each other.”

“The people in the city are killing each other?” As soon as Crook finished speaking, everyone except Vareshak, who knew the inside story, was stunned, including me.

“Comrade Crook, what the **** is going on?” Bellinger asked anxiously, “You tell us quickly, why are you fighting each other?”

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