The landing of the Middle East Army Group was like a heavy weight that suddenly pressed the already somewhat shaky scales, instantly upsetting the fragile balance and shaking the entire Caucasian front. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ

Although Tyulenev urgently dispatched reinforcements, including the 15th Cavalry Corps, to try to plug the gap, he obviously did not know how many German troops landed on the landing, let alone what kind of troops they were. All the way, with the Great German Division as the main force, outflanking the rear of the Red Army to the Caucasus passes on the right flank, and opening up contact with the Turks.

By the afternoon of 6 April, the vanguard of the Viking Division had made contact with the 22nd Panzer Division of the 1st Panzer Army in the Kleist cluster, and the two sides had surrounded 5 incomplete Red Army infantry divisions, 2 cavalry divisions, and 2 artillery divisions, totaling nearly 40,000 horses; The rapid and fierce attack of the Great German Division on the right flank directly cut off the retreat of the defenders of the Caucasian passes, and the Turks, who were deeply encouraged, launched a general offensive on all fronts, and although the fierce fighting continued until after April 10, it was now clear that the more than 70,000 Red Army had no way to retreat. At the same time, the main forces of the Turkish army, which had attacked from the front line of Baku, under the leadership of Bok, bypassed the eastern section of the Caucasus Mountains and launched an offensive towards Grozny, more than 500 kilometers away.

In the Stalingrad headquarters, looking at the continuous extension of the German offensive arrows, everyone frowned and did not say a word. After the successful landing of the German army in Sochi, the Caucasian Front had fallen into complete chaos, and Tyulenev could not make up his mind on the three methods of "counterattacking, retreating, and holding on to the spot", he himself wanted to counterattack, but Zhukov's request for 2 tank armies was rejected by Zhukov on the spot, because now there are simply not so many troops, and even if there is, it is too late to rush to the front; The troubled troops sent telegrams to the front headquarters to retreat, but they were besieged because the rear road was cut off; Stalin's stern orders came from Moscow, asking him to stay the course and buy time for the defense of Stalingrad - but this meant a massive loss of troops.

By the evening of 6 April, the situation had become very clear, and the Kleist group, which had been immobile for several months, was ready to attack, the sharpest spearhead being the 1st Panzer Army, which had made many meritorious achievements, and now that the army was no longer a flank threat - the left flank was covered by the rapidly advancing Manstein cluster, and the enemy forces on the right flank had been cleared, and it was completely possible to launch a deep offensive without all concerns. Not only did General Kleist receive enough fuel and supplies compared to the latter part of Operation Blue, but his tank force was replenished by half as much as it had been at the beginning - and all of them were better No. 4 tanks. To his surprise, he was even supplemented by an additional 509 heavily armored battalion.

"If the main forces of the Caucasian Front do not retreat again, Comrade Tyulenev will fall into a three-sided offensive of the Kleist cluster, Army Group Rommel and the Turks." Vasilevsky carefully looked at the map and the current situation of the enemy and us, although the situation reported by various parties was very chaotic, he still grasped the main situation, sighed and said, "The 100,000 troops along the Caucasus will definitely not be able to be saved, and the most important thing now is to retain the other 300,000 troops of the front." ”

"What do you want to do?"

"To retreat to the Astrakhan line, at least the main forces of the 45th, 46th, and 47th armies must be retained, and the rest of the troops will resist on the spot and delay the Axis attack."

"Give up Grozny?" Zhukov asked in an uncertain tone.

"I can only give up and arrange for the troops to blow up the relevant facilities today."

Rokossovsky, who had been listening, shook his head again and again, he didn't have any particularly clever methods, after the General Staff transferred Chuikov's 62nd Army to him and joined the Stalingrad defensive battle, the front finally stabilized, and the pressure on him was not too great.

Zhukov sighed slightly, and no longer continued to dwell on the matter of Grozny - after the fall of Baku, the Soviet crude oil production plummeted to less than 12 million tons per year, and Grozny is a very important oil producing area in the remaining oil fields, providing nearly 3 million tons of crude oil a year, and losing this area means that the Soviet Union's crude oil production will fall to less than 10 million tons. From a military point of view, Vasilevsky was completely reasonable, but he did not think that things would be so simple, and Comrade Stalin would have thought otherwise.

Sure enough, a few minutes later the staff officer brought a telegram from Moscow, and Zhukov glanced at it and his face became ugly: Stalin agreed in principle to the retreat of the Caucasian Front, but hoped to hold on to Grozny for 2-3 weeks in order to dismantle the relevant oil production facilities to the Urals. This requirement cannot be miscalculated, because if the output of the Urals is to be expanded, there must be sufficient facilities, and demolition and relocation are the most effective.

"You can't do that." Vasilevsky immediately said, "Now the enemy has not yet pounced on a large scale, and there is still a glimmer of chance in a timely retreat, if there is a delay of 2-3 weeks in Grozny, I am afraid that the entire Caucasian Front will take it, and then it will not be a loss of a little oil field facilities, but a large number of troops and equipment." ”

"Just call Comrade Stalin back?"

"Good!"

The staff officer turned around and was about to leave, but was stopped by Rokossovsky, who reminded in a slightly hesitant and tactful tone: "This ...... If you can't hold on to 2-3 weeks, can you consider holding on to only one week? We must not only think about military issues, but also about political implications! ”

Zhukov and Vasilevsky were shocked, and in an instant they understood what Rokossovsky meant: if Stalin had been rejected so simply and simply, Moscow would have turned around and sent a telegram asking whether it would be able to hold on to the Caucasian Front, and with Tyulenev's executive power it would have replied that it could hold on, which would have backfired. From the latter's point of view, such a reply is quite normal - the situation in the Caucasus is so rotten, in the end someone must be responsible for this, and Tyulenev is now the number one person responsible, and if he does not "behave" harder, not to mention Stalin, even the Ministry of Internal Affairs will probably not let him go.

Zhukov and Vasilevsky, who had come from the storm and had come out of the storm, immediately agreed with Rokossovsky's proposal, changed the proposal to hold on for a week, and clearly designated the direction of retreat of the Caucasian Front as Astrakhan.

According to Zhukov's idea, after the front was stabilized, the Don Front would hold Stalingrad, the Caucasian Front would hold Astrakhan, and the Stalingrad Front would be responsible for connecting the two fronts, and the Red Army could roughly maintain a continuous front with the Volga River as the boundary -- relatively speaking, this front would be much smaller than the length of the current front, which would help to increase the density of troops. However, these adjustments are difficult to see on the map, and mean that more than 300,000 square kilometers of land in the North Caucasus Plain will have to be abandoned. From the heart of them, the three senior generals of the Red Army were reluctant to give up an inch of territory, but the North Caucasus was a vast plain as far as the eye could see, which was very conducive to the advance of the German mechanized troops, and it was almost impossible to maneuver the enemy on this plain in the face of the enemy's superior armored forces.

After the three of them had examined it, they sent the idea to Moscow and copied it to Tyulenev, hoping that he would read the hints in the telegram -- at least to be in high agreement with the crowd.

"Has the situation gotten to this extent? Not only Grozny can't hold it, but even the entire Caucasus plain can't hold it? Although Stalin's tone sounded calm, the people who were summoned by him to an emergency meeting of the Supreme High Command still shuddered.

In the absence of Zhukov and Vasilevsky, Stalin's anger became Timoshenko, Voroshilov, Budyonny, Molotov and Kuznetsov. Among them, Kuznetsov is the most helpless, a few months ago, after the Red Navy and the Black Sea Fleet were almost destroyed, he kept reminding the Germans that they might launch a landing campaign and asked for targeted arrangements, but the Germans did not come for several months, with the passage of time and the tension of the front-line forces, those anti-landing troops, weapons were gradually transferred to other battlefields, I didn't expect the Germans to suddenly come to such a hand in Sochi.

Timoshenko did not dare to speak, he lost Stalin's trust after the crushing defeat in Kharkov last summer, Budyonny could not give any opinion at all, he was a general from a traditional cavalry who knew what armored warfare? But a little bit he agreed with Zhukov and Vasilevsky, the Caucasus Plain was too big and too peaceful, and if he was still the first cavalry in the world, he would have been able to beat the Germans to the ground with a saber - alas, the world was replaced by a tank!

Voroshilov was in charge of the defense industry, and of course he did not want to retreat so quickly, in addition to the crude oil of Grozny, the Caucasus was also an important grain producing area and half of the lower Volga industrial region, which could provide more than 3 million tons of grain and other mineral resources every year, and the war continued to this day, and the grain output of the whole Soviet Union had fallen to less than 30 million tons, compared with the pre-war production of 95 million tons of grain, only one-third was left, and suddenly it became an extremely food-poor country.

Moreover, of these 30 million tons of grain, about 11 million tons were directly and indirectly used by the army (corresponding to the total number of troops about 10 million people), and together with the material supply guarantees of important party and government organs and scientific research institutions, the remaining 100 million people could receive less than 18 million tons of grain -- these 115 million people were the population actually controlled by the Bolsheviks. If another 3 million tons are reduced on this basis, he can't imagine what the situation will be this year.

He said in a hoarse voice, in an extremely painful voice: "Comrade Stalin, I have a different opinion, the grain and industrial resources of the Caucasus Plain are very important to us and cannot be lost to the Germans, at least not all ......" (to be continued. )