23 kilometers south of Grodno
June 1st, 1942
Timoshenko massaged his throbbing forehead. For the past several days the Soviets had engaged in a desperate defense of the ramparts they had thrown up around Bialystok. The Germans had been attacking outward from the pocket with feverish frequency and ferocity, and other Germans had been attacking inward toward it with grim resolution to save their beleaguered comrades. Timoshenko shook his head, entire Fronts had been swapping positions daily as Timoshenko attempted to hold the two supremely important provinces of Suwalki and Bielsk, and also keep on the offensive around Konigsberg moving forward so that the pressure on Suwalki could be reduced. Timoshenko nearly envied Vasilevskij. The man had been allowed to leave his post in he Kremlin to command just a single army, at Tarnopol, as it seemed that there was nothing more for Vasilevskij to strategize.
Timoshenko shook his head. Vasilevskij had been overpowered at Tarnopol. It was a stain on his otherwise distinguished performance during the war as a strategist. The chances of him reversing Ulex’s juggernaut had, however, been slim. Vasilevskij’s 1st Tank Army had comprised a total of twelve divisions, half of them light motorized infantry and only a third of them actual armored divisions with the final sixth comprising mechanized infantry. There was no possible way this force, combined with a very shattered Shock Army, could have held back a tide of twenty armored and ten motorized divisions. Zhukov’s 2nd Tank Army had already withdrawn northward toward Rowne. Vasilevskij’s forces last nearly twenty-four hours before they were pressured into emulating that exodus. Ulex’s thirty divisions, badly battered, were able to advance on Tarnopol.
The final defense of Tarnopol, in the midst of a Soviet counterattack, at noon on the 26th.
The next event of note had occurred two days later, as Timoshenko had attempted another assault on Bialystok. This assault was in response to a German push toward Slonim, which to Timoshenko seemed quite counterintuitive. Slonim was in exactly the opposite direction from where the Germans actually wanted to go, which in a sector comprising anywhere between northwest and south. Nevertheless, the Germans gave twelve Soviet divisions a heavy shellacking and forced them to withdraw toward Baranowicze. It, however, did them little good in any other way. In his first attack, Timoshenko had fielded fifteen divisions, in this one he had commanded fifty-seven, which was a very dramatic increase and one his own headquarters could not handle on their own. The German pocket consisted of an amazing
forty-eight divisions, which following the standard German practice were 2/3 armored and 1/3 motorized infantry. This allowed for thirty-two armored divisions and sixteen motorized infantry divisions.
The second attack on Bialystok.
Following the initiation of this new assault on Bialytok, and the defeat of the previous push toward Konigsberg, Timoshenko ordered all three Baltic Fronts to temporarily focus on that important, troublesome city. Thus, those three Fronts threw forty-five divisions against a mere fifteen German divisions. Those German divisions were already battered from incessant drives toward Suwalki, and even more frequent battles for Konigsberg. The armored divisions were on average at three-quarters strength according to Soviet intelligence, and the motorized infantry divisions as shockingly low as thirty percent strength. Timoshenko shook his head; the coherence of the German units despite such high casualties was frightening and awe-inspiring. There was no hope for them to snatch another victory at Konigsberg. Finally, it would fall to the Soviets for good.
A final, massive assault on Konigsberg.
At the same time as the Germans were being shattered at Konigsberg, they were crossing the River Bug into murderous fire at Bielsk. Rommel threw fifteen infantry divisions across the river in an attempt to cut a path to Bialystok through the redeployed 3rd Belarussian Front, which had marched up from Brest-Litovsk. Timoshenko shook his head again at the Germans. Their efforts were strenuous, but coordinated about as well as the limbs of an infant trying to learn to walk. The divisions at Konigsberg were attacking toward Suwalki, being passively watched by their compatriots at Torun and Lomza, whose forces totaled twenty-one vital divisions. Their attack from Lublin toward Bielsk was watched languidly by the eighteen divisions in Lomza, whose help would have undoubtedly prevented Rommel’s forces from being devastated with losses that had begun approaching fifty percent. As all this was going on, the Germans at Konigsberg were indulging in a push toward Slonim, away from both Suwalki and Bielsk! Such wild flailing was dangerous but had very little potential to be fatal.
Another battle for Bielsk, with the Germans taking extraordinarily heavy casualties.
Rommel’s offensive petered out so quickly that the 3rd Belarussian Front actually went onto the offensive at Lomza, as some of those eighteen divisions finally began attacking Suwalki as the sun set on the 28th with units from Bialystok, but only because the original attackers, from Konigsberg, had been decimated and routed out of Konigsberg. The Front made little headway for, despite the heavy casualties the Germans had previously suffered and were continuing to suffer in battle, their organization remained quite high and they were able to multitask effectively enough to attack and defend at the same time. Timoshenko was quite heartened by the contents of an intercepted German communiqué from the front to Hitler in Berlin. It concluded by asserting that “it’s about as bad as it can get.” Timoshenko was not going to argue: in the immediate area around Bialystok the Soviets had amassed nearly one hundred divisions and another eighteen were marching toward Slonim at the moment. Additionally, Ulex was pushing forty-five divisions up from the Ukraine which were then at Rowne and the carefully hoarded remnants of the Red Air Force, some ten close air support divisions, had begun pounding Bialystok.
“It’s about as bad as it can get.”
Timoshenko suddenly realized that his headache was gone. He was unsure why, but didn’t think about it too hard. He did not want to bring it on again, and certainly not by thinking about something as trivial as that. He’d rather instigate it again by planning for his hopefully final assault on Bialystok, which he had tentatively assumed for the 2nd.