On June 22, 1941, General Pavlov buried the Soviet Western Front and himself with a single blow, and this general who was trusted and valued by Stalin before the war fell from the peak of his life to the bottom, and countless Soviet generals angrily accused him of poor command and even collaborated with the enemy to betray the country, and finally the unfortunate general came to the end of his life a month later, becoming the supreme general of the Soviet army executed in the Great Patriotic War.
So what are the credits and faults of Pavlov, the much-maligned general? Was his last minute in the Soviet military tribunal really as weak and incompetent as rumored?
< h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > before becoming a general</h1>
The protagonist of the story, Dmitry Grygrievich Pavlov, was a senior Non-Commissioned Officer of the Russian Army in World War I, became a fighter against Tsarist rule in the Russian Civil War, and after the establishment of the Soviet Union, he was able to study and write in various military academies.
Pavlov entered the Leningrad Military Transport Academy in 1931 to study logistics command, and many armored generals during World War II studied this course at military academies in their respective countries, including the German lightning general Guderian. It can be seen that the Soviet army focused on pavlov, and our Pavlov did live up to expectations, he showed amazing organizational ability in the military school, diligent and hard-working attitude, and soon became a well-known bully in the school.
After graduation, Pavlov became the commander of the Fourth Mechanized Brigade of Bobruik in 1935, and after taking office, he showed extraordinary training ability to make the formation and training of the troops more rational, while Pavlov paid great attention to logistics to ensure the combat endurance of the troops, and the Fourth Mechanized Brigade almost achieved the level of supplying an average truck for a tank. Soon after, in early 1936, the Soviet Union held a military exercise in which Pavlov's mechanized brigade demonstrated a strong surprise and endurance capability, which successfully attracted Stalin's attention to Pavlov.
Later, when the "Spanish War" broke out, Pavlov went to Spain as an adviser to participate in the war, he assisted the Spanish Republican Army in forming a tank school, and even personally commanded the battle in the line of fire and repeatedly turned the tide and hammered the Italian tank soldiers, Pavlov also invented a tank short assault tactic, which was well received by General Meretskov and was later popularized to the entire Soviet mechanized army. Thus Pavlov received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union and became deputy director of the Soviet Panzer Corps upon his return.
Pavlov's Spanish operational report also influenced Soviet tank design, he also participated in the testing of the T-34 tank prototype and the KV-1 tank prototype, and personally drove the T-34 tank to complete the most difficult and final obstacle crossing test, after several ace tankers had failed to get the T-34 prototype through the project. In addition, he made some insightful suggestions for the development of the two tanks, which helped the designers optimize the design of the tanks, and eventually became the director general of the armored corps for his exploits.
< h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > second, after becoming a general</h1>
In 1940 Pavlov assisted General Timoshenko in turning the tide in Finland to save the Soviet situation, after which he left the Soviet Panzer Bureau and was appointed by Stalin as commander of the Western Special Military District, and promoted to general.
At this time, Pavlov had two tasks, one was to focus on the defense of the western part of the Soviet Union, as the core of the entire western defensive line and the only general of the western border defense military district, General Kuznetsov, who presided over the Northwest Special Military Region, and General Kilbonos, who presided over the Southwest Military Region, had to adjust at any time in line with his defensive arrangements. Pavlov's second task is to continue to participate in the construction of the Soviet armored forces and find more reasonable combat tactics and formation methods for armored troops.
Pavlov made many attempts to organize the Mechanized Unit of the Soviet Army during this period, the most proud of which was the 15th Mechanized Division of Belarus, which was equipped with 257 tanks, 49 armored vehicles, 98 artillery and 50 anti-aircraft guns, 1,000 trucks, and surpassed all previous Soviet mechanized divisions in combat effectiveness and combat endurance.
Soon after Pavlov made another exploration of the formation of mechanized troops, this time he intended to adjust the mechanized army, according to the plan the new mechanized army will consist of 2 to 3 tank divisions and the same number of motorized infantry divisions, with a total of about 1,000 tanks and more than 3,000 trucks. However, this attempt was not successful, because the size of the legion was too bloated, resulting in a very troublesome command change, and the entire legion needed to carry out several days of preparation before it could participate in the battle, so this structure was not fully promoted.
After the end of the French campaign, Pavlov came up with another way of organizing and fighting mechanized troops through the German intelligence obtained, and he believed that tank warfare above the size of tank brigades in local areas was unlikely in future wars, so the number of tanks of mechanized units was reduced, and the tank units were dispersed in the western military district based on brigade units.
Pavlov did not have a clear direction in presiding over the defense work, as he repeatedly tried to form a new mechanized force, he was not proficient in the layout and construction of the fortifications, and was almost entirely entrusted to his subordinates, while he himself was unaware of the progress of the construction of the fortifications at the front.
When a forward officer wrote to him pointing out the flaws in the fortifications, he also ridiculed the officer, and even when MarshalStros Timoshenko and Voroshilov suggested that he should pay attention to the defenses of the northern region of Corodno and southern Brest, he took the advice of the two marshals as a deaf ear.
In early 1941 the Soviets held a military exercise in which Pavlov buried the Western Military District and himself in a mock battle, and Zhukov broke through the defensive line from northern Gorotno and southern Brest and surrounded most of Pavlov's forces in one fell swoop. However, when Zhukov pointed out the shortcomings of his deployment, Pavlov argued that war was a game, and that winning or losing was all about luck, and once again refused to correct his flaws.
Less than a week before the outbreak of war, Temusingo called Pavlov to warn him to be vigilant and ready for battle, but Pavlov missed the best time to enter the defense by remembering Stalin's admonition to him, "Do not provoke the Germans, do not leave a pretext for the Germans to attack." It was not until 2 days before the outbreak of the war that Pavlov hastily ordered the supply of weapons and ammunition for the forward troops, and as a result, because he locked a large number of trucks in warehouses, many trucks could not be moved because of insufficient maintenance, and the transportation of ammunition was not completed until the outbreak of war.
The only thing worth mentioning is that Pavlov finally plucked up the courage to order the forward troops to be put on alert about two hours before the outbreak of war, and ordered all forward commanders to open the "red document package" and prepare for battle.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > third, the last moment in court</h1>
On June 22, 1941, Pavlov's nemesis, the German Hans, launched a blitzkrieg against the Soviet Union, and the main offensive forces of the Central German Army group launched a surprise attack along the northern part of Gorotno and southern Brest, Pavlov suffered defeats in these two positions as a textbook, followed by the counterattack order before the "Third Order" was issued like an exercise at the beginning of 41, and buried the main mechanized forces of the Western Front.
The Germans, after breaking through the defensive positions of the Soviet Western Military District, immediately advanced in the direction of Minsk, and in just one week they encircled Minsk, encircling about 80% of the strength of the Soviet Western Front west of Minsk, Pavlov initially hoped to launch a counterattack to break the situation set by the German army, but several counterattacks were like moths to the fire, and the valuable troops were buried in vain. When he found that the situation in Belarus was no longer enough, he issued an order for his troops to break through to the east, and although he took the most difficult step in his military career, many troops were destroyed by the German mechanized forces in the breakout.
The crumbling Minsk was eventually captured by the Germans on 28 June, and Pavlov had to flee the encirclement by plane. Pavlov was greeted at the Moscow airport by Voroshilov and Shaposhnikov, who is said to have turned pale with fright as soon as he stepped off the plane, writing to Stalin two years earlier accusing them of mismatching their abilities with their positions. (This incident is anecdotal, and its authenticity is in doubt.) ）
Pavlov was not immediately arrested in Moscow, stalin did not receive him, but asked him to draft a report on the defeat of the Western Front, and then appointed him as Marshal Timoshenko's deputy and asked him to return to the Western Front to assist the old Marshal in commanding the Smolensk-Megyolev defense. Pavlov was arrested on 4 July, and three days later he was court-martialed.
In court, Pavlov explained his defeat by declaring that his defeat was not entirely due to a command error, and that General Kutsnetsov of the Special Military District in the northwestern Baltic Sea should be responsible for at least 50 per cent of the defeat of the Western Military District, since The premature retreat of General Kuznetsov's army led to a breach of the German defenses on the border between Gorotno and Lithuania.
Pavlov claimed to have done everything he could to try to block the German breakthrough, but he failed. But the failure was not due to his command errors, but the rapid change of the war situation, the destruction of telephone communications in the Western Military District, and his inability to learn detailed information about the German army. (The telephone line of the Western Military District was destroyed three days before the war, but Pavlov did not raise his guard and let it go.) ）
Pavlov denied all allegations during the hours-long interrogation, avoiding questions about why the Western Front had collapsed, repeatedly stressing that he was trying to stop the Germans and stressing that he had not been given orders to be put in a state of readiness before the war broke out. He also asked for permission to meet Stalin, but the court-martial rejected Pavlov's request, and although they did not embarrass him, Pavlov was imprisoned for a full week.
Although Pavlov did not receive any "special treatment" in prison, no one except Zhukov came to visit him, and Zhukov is said to have expressed disappointment and love for him. In the second trial, Pavlov changed his previous attitude, and after taking the defendant's seat, he suddenly admitted that his collusion with the Germans had led to the loss of hundreds of thousands of Soviet soldiers, and hoped to be able to bear all the charges.
In the end, the court sentenced Pavlov to be unsung, the failure to perform his duties resulting in the death of a large number of officers and soldiers and causing a large number of weapons and ammunition to fall into the hands of the enemy, to flee without orders and to issue evacuation orders without authorization, thereby depriving him of his honor and sentencing him to death. It is said that Stalin even wrote a large stroke of his judgment and wrote four big words " as "regarded as treason".
After the verdict was handed down, Pavlov's performance was not as collapsed, weak, crying and begging for forgiveness as anecdotal legend, he walked very calmly to the execution ground and called on all Soviet soldiers to fight bravely and not repeat his mistakes.
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > concluding remarks</h1>
Although many people spurn Pavlov's defeat and criticize Pavlov as a general who was able to rise to the top through Stalin's weight, he actually had some practical achievements before becoming commander of the Western Military District of the SOVIET Union. The general was not as cowardly and timid as many had attacked, in fact he had enough courage to fight and take the most difficult step in his military career and life, and even before he became the commander of the Western Military District, he was not a man of self-commitment and self-sufficiency.
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > references:</h1>
General Pavlov
Testing of the T-34 Tank Prototype
The Court of Heroes: Grand Admiral Pavlov
"A Month After the War Begins"
Past Articles:
General Pavlov, who was executed as soon as the war began, was buried in the Western Military District through what kind of deployment
The war counted down to 20 days, who destroyed the Western Military District? Was it Major General Pavlov?