George Konstantinovich Zhukov, the greatest commander in the military history of the Soviet Union, many officers and soldiers said that he was calm and rational, and many officers and soldiers said that he was cruel and ruthless, and his tactics have long been criticized by countless people. But it was he who in 1941 turned the tide under the city of Moscow, strategized on a front that ran through the Soviet Union for more than 3,000 kilometers from north to south, buried the Axis forces that invaded the Soviet Union, and led the Soviet army to plant the flag of the General on the Reichstag.
In 1896, the cries of children were heard in a peasant family in Maroja Roslawice, a military stronghold of Tsarist Russia in Kaluga Province. The man of the house, Konstantin Artmeyevich Zhukov, named his son George Konstantinovich Zhukov.
Although Zhukov's family was not wealthy, Maloja Roslawice was an important military town in Russia, and from the 15th century onwards, the local tradition of military tuns was preserved, and people joined the army to fight for the Tsar during the wartime, so zhukov the elder Still paid enough money to send his son to the church school of Prince Nikolai Gritsyn.
Although it is a church school, this school is still quite unique, in short, this school is full of martial arts. Because it is located in a military town, it is also a famous Russian general, and the military training inspector of the Russian General Staff - General Nikolai Syrgaevich Gritchen was created by him, so the school attaches great importance to organizational discipline, and students learn basic culture and religious culture at the same time, they also have to line up every day to exercise, which also creates the tough and calm character of the little Zhukov, affecting his future.
Zhukov, who had completed his basic studies, was sent to Moscow by his mother to exercise with his uncle Sergei. Sergey, a Moscow fur merchant, runs a fur shop and a leather workshop. Zhukov also worked 15 hours a day in his uncle's workshop, and often had to pick up deliveries at home, so he exercised the ability to observe the color and laugh, which also had a great impact on his future.
In his spare time, Zhukov studied at a social night school on Tver Straße and passed all the examinations to obtain a diploma. The following year Zhukov took up a job at the Nizhny Novgorod Exposition, but the good times were short-lived, and in 1914 the outbreak of the First World War, Zhukov was conscripted into the army, because of his high level of education, he was sent to the 189th Battalion of the 5th Cavalry Regiment in Kaluga as a corporal.
In 1916, Zhukov was sent to the South-West Front after completing his cavalry sergeant training, under the command of the 10th Dragoon Regiment. This unit is a genuine dragoon regiment, but not the name of the Far East Coastal Dragoon Regiment. Usually, the rural Han would be excluded even if he took the appointment order when he first arrived, but Zhukov was born in a military town, received professional training, and was highly educated and eloquent, so he was quickly recognized by the aristocratic officers.
Zhukov showed his courage and talent for the first time in 1916, commanding his squad to beat a German cavalry unit on the first battle, and he personally captured a German cavalry officer, thus receiving a St. George's Medal. However, during the fighting in October of the same year, Zhukov was wounded by a shell and was transferred to the rear for concussion and hearing impairment, and was transferred to the reserve cavalry regiment. However, due to his wounds, Zhukov was again awarded a St. George Medal and promoted to a sergeant.
After his recovery, Zhukov continued to serve in the Russian cavalry unit and received a third St. George Medal. In December 1917, the cavalry hero Zhukov returned to Moscow after retiring from the army and soon returned to his hometown, but then he fell ill with typhoid fever and lay in bed for a long time.
Soon after, Zhukov was inspired to join the Soviet army, and Zhukov read out the draft enlistment declaration written by Trotsky at the induction ceremony as a local recruit representative. Zhukov then served as a cavalry corporal under Tukhachevsky and Frunze, and fought against the Polish Intervention Army, the German Intervention Army, the Denikin Russian Army, the Wrangel Russian Army, the Kolchak Russian Army, and the Makhno Gang.
In 1926, Zhukov went to the Belarusian University for further studies, where he studied military cartography. After graduation, Zhukov served as brigade commander of the 2nd Cavalry Brigade of the 7th Samara Cavalry Division, with whom Rokossovsky worked, and rokossovsky took over his post after his transfer. Since then, Zhukov has been serving in the Belarusian Military District, and under the guidance of Tukhachevsky, he participated in the military construction and defensive line construction of the Belarusian Military District. By 1937 Zhukov had become commander of the 3rd Belorussian Cavalry Army, and the following year he was promoted to deputy commander of the Belorussian Military District.
In 1939 Zhukov was sent to the Nomonkan region to fight the Japanese, Zhukov obtained more supplies through the connections of his old superior Voroshilov, including the support of 6,000 trucks, and then Zhukov reorganized the chita military district troops with the troops stationed in Mongolia and actively prepared for the war. Although Zhukov and the commander of the Chita Military District, General Stern, had some differences in tactical decisions, the two generally agreed to work together against the Japanese.
Although the Japanese army made careful preparations and occupied air superiority in the early stages of the battle, the number of Soviet troops was twice that of the Japanese army, the tanks were three times, and the transport vehicles were twice that of the Japanese army, considering that the Japanese transport vehicles were limited by the original road environment restrictions and the need to draw vehicles from all aspects, so the actual available vehicles of the Japanese army could not even reach 1/2 of the paper data, and the Soviet army had relatively close railway and hardened road support in the Mongolian region, and the logistics efficiency of the Soviet army was actually at least four times that of the Japanese army.
After learning the lessons of the initial air battle defeat, Zhukov brought in elite aviation from the western part of the Soviet Union, equalized the air situation, and used a large number of tank troops to crush the Japanese army. Although Zhukov won the battle against the Japanese army, his reckless and reckless actions also led to the loss of many officers and soldiers. Most typical of these was his reckless order for tank soldiers to attack without infantry support, and General Gregory Stern tried to stop him, but was sued to Moscow by an enraged Zhukov, saying that General Stern had blocked the command, indirectly causing Beria to keep an eye on Stern.
Zhukov proved his ability and loyalty at Nomenkan, and subsequently regained the attention of Stalin, and in June 1940 was appointed commander of the Kiev Special Military District. During this period, Zhukov grasped military construction on the one hand and military intelligence on the other, Zhukov was very concerned about the intelligence of the German army attacking France, and he combined the large-depth tactical theory created by the wisdom of many soviet generals to analyze the intelligence of the German mechanized operation and learned from it.
Zhukov then launched a Ichigun air-ground integrated pincer offensive in a blitzkrieg against Romania on 20 June, which was also his first attempt to carry out a theater-level encirclement operation. Under Zhukov's command, the Soviets succeeded in encircling the remnants of the Bessalabia army group in Romania, which had not yet been completely withdrawn, and it was this successful blitzkrieg that caused Hitler to spend nearly two more months reassessing the Soviet army's combat capabilities and adjusting Barbarossa's offensive deployment.
In January 1941, Zhukov participated in military exercises organized by the Soviet General Staff, in which he played the role of commander of the Central Army Group of the German Army and commander of the Southwest Military District of the Soviet Army, one against Pavlov and the other against Pavlov's attack. As a result, he both times blew up his old classmate at the military academy, General Pavlov, and he patiently pointed out Pavlov's mistakes, and incidentally taught Admiral Gilbernos a lesson. As a result, no one expected that these two exercises were a preview of the German attack on Belarus in 1941 and the Soviet counterattack in Ukraine in 1944.
After the exercise, Zhukov became the chief of the Soviet general staff and deputy commissioner of defense, and cooperated with Marshal Timoshenko to follow the movements of the German army. In May, he met with Marshal Timoshenko stalin to persuade Stalin to order the Western Frontier Forces into a state of combat readiness. However, Stalin did not heed their advice, and as a result, on June 22, 1941, the German army staged the textbook Barbarossa Operation.
It is said that Zhukov determined on June 22 that the first phase of the German operation was to capture Leningrad in the north, Smolensk in the center, Kiev and Nikolayev in the south, and open up the railway and waterway traffic between the north and south of the Soviet Union. At the same time, he also believed that the German army was in full swing during the offensive stage, at this time the intelligence was still unclear, the Soviet army should block and wait for the opportunity to counterattack, so he refused to issue the third order, but because Malenkov was instructed by Stalin to take the lead in signing his name, the helpless Zhukov and others could only issue this unfortunate wrong instruction.
In order to save the situation, Zhukov, in the name of the Chief of the General Staff on 26 June, managed to support Marshal Timoshenko in leading his troops to the eastern part of Belarus to block the German offensive, and he also cobbled together an air force of about 270 aircraft for Marshal Timoshenko and personally assisted in the blockade, in which the Soviets successfully held off the Germans for two months.
Zhukov, like a firefighter, first went to Leningrad to take over the desperate Marshal Voroshilov to command the defense of Leningrad, although Zhukov bluntly reported to Stalin Voroshilov's dilemma, but also gave affirmation to Voroshilov's success in blocking the German offensive, and he recognized that in the face of the German offensive, no one could necessarily do better than the two old marshals Temusingo and Voroshilov. Of course, except for himself, most soviet generals were too easily hindered by emotions, and Zhukov's mentality was as strong as steel, and he would not be hindered by any emotion. He used the most brutal grinding tactics in Leningrad to hold off the German offensive, draining the Germans and successfully saving the city named after Lenin.
Zhukov then reversed the situation under Moscow, resisted the German offensive, and pushed the Germans back to the Smolensk line in the following counterattack, although he was not optimistic about the counterattack, after all, the Soviet army was also breathing heavily at this time, and the logistics were overloaded. However, Stalin did not heed the dissuasion and insisted on launching a full-line counterattack, and as a result, everyone knew that although the Soviet army forced the German army to retreat, it also suffered heavy losses.
In 42 Years Zhukov and Meretskov planned the defeated Battle of Lyuban, his second attempt to carry out a pincer offensive, after which Zhukov summed up and readjusted tactics in light of the actual capabilities of the Soviet army. So he successfully encircled the Sixth Army led by the famous German general Paulus at Stalingrad, and almost surrounded the famous Manstein. Subsequently, as a representative of the high command, Zhukov also coordinated Marshal Budyonny's defeat of the German army that invaded the Caucasus, and even nearly blocked Chrysler's Panzer Army in the Caucasus.
In 1943, under Zhukov's command, the Soviet army repelled the German army at Kursk, Zhukov defeated Manstein, reversed the situation in southern Ukraine, and then in 1944, Zhukov, as the supreme representative of the high command, coordinated the Soviet army on all sides of the Ukrainian battlefield to fight a textbook attack, just like the two military exercises in January 41, killing the Dnieper River from the southern part of Ukraine to the Bessarabia region in a month, cutting down dozens of German divisions. This completely rendered the German Black Panther Line meaningless, and forced Romania to surrender.
Later, in 1945, Zhukov ushered in the peak of his military career, commanding Soviet troops to surround the Nazi lair berlin and plant the Soviet flag in the Reichstag building, completely eliminating German fascism. Despite Zhukov's series of victories in the Great Patriotic War, many people still criticize the brutal and cruel tactics he employed after the war for paying a greater price for the Soviets.
After the victory of the Great Patriotic War, Zhukov commanded the victory parade on Red Square, but after that, he did not receive the treatment he deserved as a commander-in-chief who turned the tide, but sat on the cold bench like Marshal Timoshenko, and Beria even framed Zhukov for stealing tens of thousands of valuable ornaments and items in Germany.
The Knight of Two Victories: Zhukov
"George Zhukov's Victory Star"
The Shadow of Victory
The Battle of Western Moscow
The Secret of Stalin's Power – Zhukov
Bessarabia, 1917-1940