Chapter 199: Iron Gates Slam Shut, Encirclement Of Kyiv
“Commander! We can’t keep dragging it out with the enemy like this! We should completely abandon the southern Krivoy Rog and Sofiyivka surrounding areas right now, pull back all troops to concentrate on the Northern Front, and block the Germanian east-west advance to the death!
Otherwise, in just a few days, they will close the great encirclement around Kyiv behind us! At a time like this, the troops of the 4th and 7th Army Groups should not appear in the south anymore!”
December 5th night, that is, the third night after Lelouch and Bock advanced toward each other from east and west from Poltava and Chernihiv respectively.
Inside the Lusha Southwestern Front Headquarters in Kyiv City, a fierce quarrel broke out.
The newly appointed Lusha 6th Army Group Commander, Lieutenant General Joseph Misylo, issued the harshest admonition to his immediate superior, Southwestern Front Commander Pavel Plev, no longer minding the hierarchy between superiors and subordinates.
In normal times, in the Lusha Army where a higher rank crushes a lower one, a lieutenant general army group commander would never dare speak to a general front commander like this.
Moreover, this army group commander Joseph Misylo was under-equipped.
Normally, Lusha army group commanders also need to hold the rank of general to take office. They just use more generals who have been promoted not long ago, with relatively shallow seniority and merit.
While front commanders are also generals, they often need to be relatively senior ones with outstanding merit.
Joseph Misylo was just a corps commander a few months ago because the original Lusha 6th Army Group Commander General Evert was executed for desertion on the battlefield, and the vacant position had no one to fill it temporarily, so he was promoted on the spot.
Plus, at that time the 6th Army Group had been beaten to almost nothing left, actually equivalent to only 1 corps, so with his abilities, commanding it was not much of an obstacle. As for later pulling in a large batch of new recruits to supplement the 6th Army Group and restoring it to actual army group scale, that was a later story.
And in the last day or two, as the enemy on the Northern Front resumed a fierce offensive, Joseph Misylo finally realized something was wrong and that they risked being completely encircled.
Just two days ago, before Bock changed tactics, Joseph Misylo still felt he had a slim hope of holding on.
Because at that time Bock was still trying to shrink the encirclement and make it hug as close to Kyiv City as possible.
This gave Lieutenant General Joseph Misylo, who was frantically digging trenches to strengthen defenses and expand the fortified zone, an opportunity.
His new recruits were completely incapable of fighting field battles and wars of maneuver, lacking the quality and morale. But having them defend in place and fill gaps was barely manageable.
Unfortunately, Bock’s trial and error only lasted a short day and a half, and after Bock learned from mistakes on the spot, Joseph Misylo could no longer see even a shred of hope.
His young soldiers were repeatedly penetrated and overrun, watching helplessly as Bock thrust to Pryluky. If nothing unexpected happened, the next step would be thrusting to Priluki, completely cutting off the east-west railway between Kyiv and Poltava.
Only then was Joseph Misylo forced to grit his teeth and strongly advise Southwestern Front Commander Pavel Plev, hoping he would recognize the situation, completely abandon the Southern Front, and fully contract the troops.
However, as a front commander, Pavel Plev had many more things to consider.
“Although Krivoy Rog City and the mines have been lost, that area is still within range of our army’s long-range artillery fire. As long as our army doesn’t retreat, the enemy cannot resume reconstruction and production of the mines. In the battle reports to His Majesty, we still write ‘situation around Krivoy Rog mining area is under control.’
The Austrian Army’s combat effectiveness is indeed far inferior to the German Army; they lack the ability to continue deep offensive. Twenty days into the campaign, besides their initial across-the-board advance of 20-30 kilometers, they have basically been in static standoff with our army afterward…
If we suddenly withdraw now, it is very likely to cause a full-line collapse, and when held accountable then, it would be a decision-making error of voluntarily abandoning a strategic key point. His Majesty will not let us off!”
After chain-smoking several Frankish imports, General Plev said this helplessly and painfully.
Half a month before this campaign erupted, the aftermath of the Tsar executing General Evert on the spot was still fermenting and expanding its influence.
It was like a virus with an incubation period; there was no feeling right after the act, but when the body’s condition deteriorated, all the previously latent problems emerged.
The Germanians’ strategy was very insidious; they took advantage of the moment when the Lusha Army’s central breakthrough reached the end of its tether to suddenly connect the two wings’ counter-pincer deep breakthrough.
Moreover, the Germanian placed the weakest Austrian 3rd Army Group in the center line, letting them peck at each other like chickens with the Lusha main forces’ 4th and 7th Army Groups.
After Lelouch launched the breakthrough toward Kharkiv, for a full two weeks, the 4th and 7th Army Groups only detached some troops to extend to the flanks and support friendly forces, but the core main forces of these two army groups never dared to stray too far from the vast area around Krivoy Rog.
And the other 3 Lusha army groups defending the two wings and rear had even worse combat power than the 4th and 7th. Especially the 6th and 9th Army Groups, which were almost wiped out and then rebuilt. With such low morale, it’s no wonder they collapsed across the line easily after being rushed and penetrated frontally by tanks and armored cars.
Yet General Plev still didn’t dare to completely strip the center line without reason, at least his actions were relatively sluggish. This hesitation further exacerbated the deteriorating situation.
At this moment, when Lieutenant General Misylo was urging General Plev to stop clinging and fully contract the entire army, completely abandoning the southern defense line, that tone, that situation,
was just like Manstein in Rostov in 1942 on the Earth plane advising Paulus in Stalingrad to get out quickly.
But Paulus feared military law, and Plev also feared military law.
His fear had been planted as a vicious seed back when Lelouch designed to induce the Tsar to execute Evert.
Encountering such a cunning opponent, it was his own bad luck.
……
In the end, General Plev still hesitated; his actions were slow, and when withdrawing the full main forces of the southern 4th and 7th Army Groups northward to reinforce, he ultimately left 2 corps in each army group to hold the frontal defense line.
The troops pulled back amounted to about 5 corps, and this still caused massive transport chaos, while creating even more low morale and panic throughout the entire transfer process.
These various mistakes ultimately made everything too late.
Lelouch, Bock, and Rommel did not give them a chance.
They finally mustered their potential, made a final push with two days of fierce mutual thrusts; Lelouch advanced 80 kilometers, Bock advanced 40 kilometers, and as expected, they victoriously met at the town of Priluki on the Kyiv-Poltava railway line.
Along the way, 2 divisions of the Lusha 6th Army Group and 3 divisions of the 7th Army Group were all routed by the Germanians’ assault.
Part of the personnel from these 5 routed divisions scattered northward along the front line at the time, which could be considered escaping the encirclement by a stroke of luck.
But the other troops were not so lucky.
In the end, besides the several divisions in the slightly northern defense sector of Lusha 13th Army Group that were initially routed by Bock’s “Imperial Division” and Marshal Leopold’s 10th Army Group;
as well as those deserters from the troops routed by Lelouch and Bock along the way who fled north in these days;
plus the several remnant divisions of Lusha 9th Army Group and Cossack Cavalry Division that escaped before the “triangular kill” encirclement around Kharkiv-Dnepropetrovsk-Donbas closed.
The remaining entire main force of the Lusha Southwestern Front was completely encircled in the massive encirclement south of the Kyiv-Poltava line.
The pocket had closed, the iron gate had fallen.
The Southwestern Front’s total troops were 5 army groups.
The 4th Army Group was completely bagged in the pocket, not a single person escaped.
The 7th and 6th Army Groups escaped a tiny bit, less than 1 full corps scale each.
The 9th and 13th Army Groups escaped more people, exceeding 1 corps, plus those Cossacks.
But overall, 4 out of 5 army groups were bagged, for sure.
This was already the largest encirclement in human war history.
After all, at the moment the encirclement closed, the east-west widest point was over 200 kilometers, and the north-south depth exceeded 150 kilometers.
The encirclement’s total area was about 30,000 square kilometers; if placed in Western Europe, it would exceed the national territory of Belgium, between Belgium and the Netherlands.
So theoretically, if General Plev wanted to continue resisting, he could fight on for a long time.
Anyway, there were plenty of supplies in the great Kyiv encirclement; Kyiv was originally a huge logistics base with lots of ammunition reserves, and military rations were impossible to lack.
It was equivalent to if a Western European small country was fully encircled nationwide before the war started—would they not resist?
On the Earth plane, Paulus fought on for 50 days after being encircled until surrender, and it was 50 days of intense combat under enemy high-intensity attacks, not just besieging without attacking.
However, General Plev was evidently not even as good as Paulus; how exactly he could hold out, outsiders couldn’t predict recklessly, only time would tell.
……
“Fiedler! You really delivered! When the marshal had you lead the 2nd Armored Division back then, you really did him proud.”
At the same moment, in a church in the town of Priluki, Lelouch, who had arrived early and just set up his armored division command post, finally welcomed Brigadier General Fiedler von Bock himself.
The two men, upon meeting, gripped each other’s shoulders, embraced arm in arm, and celebrated the victory. Lelouch very considerately didn’t say it was he who recommended the other for 2nd Armored Division commander, attributing it all to leadership, saying Bock did the marshal proud.
Bock of course knew full well, and his gratitude and admiration for Lelouch deepened another layer.
He just tightly gripped Lelouch’s arm, shook it hard a few times, said nothing. Finally, he suddenly grabbed a bottle of champagne nearby, shook it a few times to pop the cork, then took another for Lelouch,
the two clinked bottles, and Bock downed his first with gusto.
“With you here! The Empire will win! Whatever you say from now on, I’ll believe!”
