23rd of June 1941 11:30 Stavka HQ
A night long of vodka and listening to Stalin’s expectation for the war (Zhukov had to listen to Stalin’s dream offensive’s, he expected Soviet armies to reach Warsaw by mid August). Chief of staff general Zhukov knew he had to tell Stalin the truth about the strategic situation this morning at some point. He was going to do it right after the boss would enter the map room. Right now he was going to look at the situation himself.
Karelian & Leningrad Front
Reports were coming in that Finnish troops under the command of field Marshall Mannerheim were crossing the border near Sortvala. Fighting erupted a few hours later when a full scale attack was launched on our lines.
Finnish infantry on the move near Sortvala.
Stavka ordered both fronts to implement the plan that was made pre-war in case of a Finnish attack.
General Frolov moved his reserves North to try to prevent a siege of Murmansk. A mechanized formation of the Leningrad Front was ordered to support the defense of Sortvala.
Baltic Front
The armored reserve of the Baltic front did arrive at Siauliai. The two infantry divisions of the 8th army under command of Lt General Sandalov were ordered to retreat to Panevezys, to dig in while Konev’s forces slowed down the Germans.
The Luftwaffe started to make it even more difficult to hold Siauliai any longer. Iraq declared independence, who cares!
1st Baltic air defense did their best to fight off the Luftwaffe.
Belorussian Front
The forces in Lutsk on the southern flank of Byelorussia did not see any actions yet, the foot infantry was ordered North to dig in the marches around Sarny. The battle for Brest-Litovsk to the north was still going on, but the troops could not hold out for very long. The Mechanized and cavalry formations were kept in position
Wolkowysk is already under attack by German forces that captured Lomza, the divisions from the Bialystok-Lomza Bulge are in danger of being cutoff.
Ukrainian Front
Zhukov looked at the reports, it seemed the Germans and it's Romanian and Hungarian allies were very busy in this sector. Many commanders asked for permission to retreat or to be supported by the mobile reserves of the 1st Ukrainian Front.
Zhukov wanted to see for himself what the best place was to use these formations.
Przemysl is under heavy pressure from German Panzers and mobile infantry, a retreat should be ordered soon.
Stryj needed to hold out to cover the retreat of the forces from Przemysl. But they were forced to retreat.
The forces around Cernauti are under heavy pressure by the legendary German 6th Army that captured Paris in 1940. Needs to retreat!
Movement of the reserves and retreat of forces in the south. Axis forces are desperately trying to cross the first river out of Romania.
Conclusions After 2 days of war.
Two cities are captured: Lomza and Przemysl
T-34’s and heavy tanks shock the German troops.
Three battles are still not decided, Konev is still resisting in the Baltic, Sortvala in Finland and the very important battle in Wolkowysk to save 12 divisions (some 140.000 soldiers) from being captured.
To feed are wartime economy we need to start importing energy, rare materials and oil.
Other news
Government and army high command agreed to start printing the first war propaganda.
The commonwealth forces started a offensive to break the siege of Tobruk, 2 divisions were trapped there after the last Axis offensive that started in March this year. General Rommel who got worldwide attention because of this victory commanded these forces, he is now commanding the first Panzer group part of Army group south.
The war in China was still going on, a Chinese collapse would be disastrous for us, the Japanese could unleash their whole army in China on us. We should support them Communist or non Communist.
The Serbian territory in occupied Yugoslavia under German military administration got a fascist puppet administration.
