"What? You say they all surrendered? "On March 23, the Kremlin received shocking news: more than 60,000 remnants of the Red Army, with no supplies or reinforcements, had laid down their arms and surrendered in despair. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

"Yes, Comrade Stalin, this is the case, both with the intelligence we have and the last telegram from the Baku side."

"Traitor! Traitor! I'm going to hang them all!" Hanged! Stalin lost his temper in anger, and everyone was silent.

Zhukov and Vasilevsky glanced at each other and showed helpless eyes: they could not have imagined the surrender of the Baku defenders in any case, but it was reasonable to think about it carefully. Moscow only emphasized that the troops should persist in fighting "to the last man", but did not give any aid or supplies, nor did it transport through Caspian ships, and only one-sided nonsense about the "fearless revolutionary momentum", which of course could not make the defenders hold out to the end. Although it was difficult to carry out large-scale transportation through the Caspian Sea in the face of the enemy's fierce air raids, how could it be possible to keep them out to the end, without even giving hope to the defenders?

Stalin's attempt to use these defenders to deplete the Axis forces was ruined, and the Red Army lost 170,000 men in the entire Transcaucasian campaign, including casualties, prisoners, and surrenders, but the losses they inflicted on the Axis - including the Germans, Iranians, and Turks together were only more than 20,000 men, of which the Germans accounted for only 45%.

From the beginning of the offensive at the beginning of this month to the formal surrender of the defenders of Baku, the Axis group not only took a large part of the territory of Transcaucasia but also occupied Baku, an important oil town of the Soviet Union, in just about three weeks. Finally, the defenders still had a little conscience and blew up Baku's oil facilities into ruins before surrendering, but this did not help, and Soviet oil production fell to the terrible figure of more than 10 million tons at once.

This victory (because the Germans lost nearly 10,000 troops, many of them elite troops, and therefore were not perfect in Gauss's eyes) gave great encouragement to the two new little brothers in the Axis: Turkey received nearly 160,000 square kilometers of land at once, including Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, while Iran not only recovered all of its territory, but also with the acquiescence and connivance of Germany, under the pretext of many years of traditional national power and territorial disputes. Nearly 30,000 square kilometers of land were seized from neighboring Armenia and southern Azerbaijan. Although Turkey is unhappy with this, what the Iranians say is not without reason, plus the essence of the Transcaucasia and the Baku oil fields are in Turkish hands, and the Turkish Foreign Minister muttered a few words and did not make a sound.

In fact, this victory not only did not relieve the pressure on the Turkish president Inonu, but brought him more difficulties: he originally just wanted to take it as soon as he saw it, and he could temporarily end talking to the Soviets by taking back the territory of Transcaucasia, but he did not expect that this easily obtained result greatly stimulated the ambitions of the hawks in the army, and almost forced the government to agree to expand the army by another 600,000"Taking advantage of the situation for peace talks" are treated as traitors.

Moreover, President Inonu also found that his strategy of divide and conquer the army was gradually failing, because the Germans sent Field Marshal Bock, and several major high-ranking members of the Turkish military could not buy each other, but in front of the veteran German Field Marshal, who had served as the commander of Army Group Center, Bock, without exception, they all behaved respectfully, not only because of Bock's reputation and previous achievements, but also because of the great fighting power of the German army, which was led by the Germans in the most difficult battles in the Transcaucasia. The surrender of the defenders of Baku was also the credit of the German army. The Red Army habitually maintained contempt for the Turkish army, which was several times more numerous than them, but was crushed in front of equal or less German troops.

Not to mention Iran, the newly succeeded Pahlavi is enough to stabilize the domestic situation by virtue of its two achievements in recovering the country and expanding its territory, and Germany has no intention of colonizing Iran except for its demand for oil, and has also given Iran great support in other aspects, and even promised to provide the latest Tiger tanks, and also said that a batch of escort boats and torpedo boats can be given to Iran in the future for coastal defense and oil export, which makes the country's already very strong pro-German forces even more desperate. Pahlavi recruited six new divisions in one go, ready to hand them all over to Rommel - he thought very clearly that he could no longer fight for the Transcaucasian region because of Turkey, but the northeastern part of Iran bordered the Soviet Turkmenistans, and there were no ethnic Russians on it, so as long as the troops were trained, there was a lot of room for operation.

After the war in the Transcaucasia was over, the focus of the axis offensive was on the passes and strongholds of the Caucasus Mountains, and these tasks were not suitable for mechanized troops, so the task of attacking the fortification was handed over to Iran and Turkey, and Rommel only sent the SS division of Prince Eugen to help in the battle, so as to give full play to the division's expertise in mountain warfare. Encouraged by the early victory, the Turks and Iranians fought frantically, but due to the terrain and the enemy's desperate defense, they could only play a 1:1 exchange ratio, and the speed of advance was not fast.

"The main passes of the Caucasus Mountains were under the combined onslaught of the Germans, Iranians and Turks, and Comrade Tyulenev fought very hard and repeatedly asked us to send him reinforcements, at least enough technical weapons, especially aircraft." Zhukov said, "I was going to transfer 6-8 aviation regiments to him, but ......"

In the Caucasus Mountains, tanks are not the first, and artillery is difficult to push to the front line for large-scale use, but aircraft are indispensable. In terms of air power, Germany had a significant advantage, with the Ju-87 converted into a ground attack aircraft playing a huge advantage, and incendiary bombs were in many cases more effective than ordinary bombs. Without the help of German planes, it would have been difficult for the Turks and Iranians to take these passes.

"But what?" Stalin heard Zhukov's unspeakable answer and asked suspiciously.

"The General Staff estimates that the enemy will soon launch a large-scale offensive in the Don River valley, and at such a critical moment, all aviation forces must remain in the most critical places."

"You have reliable information? Why is there such a judgment? Stalin asked, puzzled, "Haven't the Germans remained relatively calm for the last one or two months?" ”

"First, Manstein was too calm, which did not fit the situation of the confrontation of the large army, nor his style and habits; The second important factor is that the weather is warmer, and then spring will be. ”

"The weather is warmer ......," Stalin pondered over these words, showing a thoughtful expression.

Spring does not begin until late April or even early May in the alpine regions of northern Russia, but in the south this process is brought forward to mid-April. On the Eastern Front, the beginning of spring is a very important reference for the war, which means that the thaw of the land will soon begin, and large areas of land that are frozen hard and run over like concrete will soon turn into a mud, and in severe cases, vehicles will not lose half of their wheels - those wheeled trucks and half-track armored vehicles will soon be immobile, and the staggered overlapping load wheels that are made of precision and strong shock absorption will continue to be stuck due to the mud entering the cracks between the wheels. Only the T-34's characteristic full-track, large-load wheels can offset this effect to the greatest extent. In a word, the German mechanized units were about to enter a difficult period.

"That's a good thing, I'm planning to spend this period withdrawing the armies of the three fronts on the Don front." Stalin nodded slightly.

"We think that the enemy will soon launch a large-scale offensive, and the target is the armies of those three fronts." Vasilevsky explained, "Manstein's Army Group South was relatively calm in the early stage and was not inactive, we have reliable intelligence, the enemy has used these two months to accumulate a large number of troops and equipment, a large-scale offensive will soon be launched, and this window is very short, entering April, especially in mid-to-late April, after the land thaws and becomes a mess, it is not suitable for the movement of German mechanized troops." ”

"When will it be if the enemy attacks?"

"If it's fast, it's next Monday, and if it's slow, it's the end of the month." Zhukov reported, "And it won't be for a long time, maybe a month at most." ”

Stalin was silent: the great offensive now was the same as the one in early winter, the only difference being that the land was frozen just after the ploughing period, and now it was about to enter the ploughing period - all avoiding the bitter cold while maintaining maximum traffic.

In the midst of the silence, shocking news suddenly came: Two hours ago, on a front of more than 500 kilometers, the German army on the southern flank launched an offensive on all fronts, 400,000 rounds of large-caliber artillery shells were poured out in a short period of time, the number of German fighters over the theater was as high as 1,500, and more than 200 Red Army fighters that took off to meet them were all shot down within half an hour. At first, the armies of the various fronts thought that this was just a diversionary attack by the German army, but it was not until the forces of four armored divisions and three heavy armored battalions as the assault force appeared in front of them that the commanders of several front armies understood that this was not an ordinary attack, but an offensive by the German army on all fronts.

"It seems that neither next Monday nor the end of March, the large-scale offensive of the enemy is today." Stalin looked at the map, turned to Zhukov and Vasilevsky and asked, "Are you confident that you can stop the fascists?" ”

"Yes! Comrade Stalin, I'll go to the front right away. Zhukov was very embarrassed by Manstein's surprise attack at noon, and replied loudly: "We have a series of plans for the German offensive in the past two months. ”

"Very good, order the comrades at the front to hold back the enemy troops and not retreat an inch." (To be continued.) )