In June 1941, just one month after the outbreak of war between the Soviet Union and Germany, Soviet General Pavlov went to the supreme court for trial, and finally sentenced Pavlov to death.
For a general who has been fighting for many years, it is not a brave death in the war to kill the enemy, but to be shot on the execution ground, which is an extremely cruel and humiliating way of sentencing. Judging from the verdict, Pavlov's lack of command and mistakes in the war can be imagined.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="3" > a good hand of cards</h1>
Pavlov joined the army in his early years, and in the Spanish Civil War in 1936, Pavlov served as a tank brigade commander, and pavlov became famous for his excellent combat ability.
In 1941, Pavlov was awarded the rank of Soviet general, and he was appreciated and trusted by Stalin, who emotionally preferred Pavlov to the famous god Zhukov. Because Pavlov was a very romantic man, his emotional intelligence was very high; Zhukov was extremely military and leadership, but slightly lower than Pavlov in terms of emotional intelligence.
On the eve of the outbreak of the Soviet-German war, Pavlov was entrusted with a heavy responsibility, and at the age of 44, Pavlov became the commander-in-chief of the Western Front, one of the few heavy army groups in the Soviet Union.
Under the Soviet system at that time, the experience of the commander of the Front Army escorted Pavlov into the highest leadership of the Soviet Union in the future. Soviet President Khrushchev served as commander of the Soviet Southwestern Front.
In this view, it can be said that Pavlov's road to the highest leadership of the Soviet Union has been smooth. But in the war of 1941, Pavlov ushered in a major turning point in his life
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="5" > stubborn and failed to properly play the role of military intelligence</h1>
In June 1941, when the Soviet-German War broke out, Zhukov served as chief of the general staff of the Soviet Army, and although he held a higher position than Pavlov, he had no military power in his hands.
Before the war began, the German army quietly destroyed many soviet communication lines and killed many Soviet communications groups.
During World War II, intelligence played a huge role in the war. For a war to be won, a lot of military intelligence is essential. It can be said that intelligence is the foundation of combat and the fundamental basis for formulating strategies and tactics on the front line of war.
However, in The View of General Pavlov, the role of military intelligence did not have a significant impact on his decision-making. Pavlov believed that the destruction of communications was carried out by the Poles and no solution was made.
Pavlov also made a fatal mistake in his decision-making on the use of military intelligence. Before the war began, the intelligence team submitted him specific information about German military operations, which mentioned that the various operations being carried out by the German army were likely to attack at any time.
Pavlov thought he knew the Germans very well, and after the defeat of the First World War, Germany launched an attack on the Soviet Union, which would only repeat the mistakes of the past, and he firmly believed that the German army would not go to war.
After that, military intelligence suggested that the German army had changed again, and the German army suddenly increased its strength in the western military district of the Soviet Union, and the German army increased a large number of troops and medicine. At this time, the German army could only compete with Pavlov's defenses.
In such a clear offensive, Pavlov was convinced that Germany would not attack. As it turned out, Hitler launched an offensive.
The Soviet General Staff informed Pavlov of a request for him to strengthen his vigilance and defensive lines, but he did not believe that Germany would not launch an offensive against the Soviet Union without addressing Britain.
Confident in his own military predictions, Pavlov had three armies of the Western Front at the westernmost tip of Belarus, 100 km defensively.
Such an army deployment, from the perspective of military combat terrain, the Soviet army still has a certain advantage in launching an attack. If the Germans had attacked minsk, the Western Front would have been in a defensive position, and most of the troops would have been at a great disadvantage, surrounded and attacked by German forces at the beginning of the war.
Pavlov's military layout was laid out in military exercises a year ago, and Pavlov had such a layout. Chief of the General Staff Zhukov had warned him that such a layout could easily be besieged. Pavlov did not take this proposal to heart at the time.
Today, when the Soviets and Germany are at war, Pavlov has adopted the same layout. He believed that the army in the exercise was Zhukov and not Hitler, so no change was made.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="7" > poor command and lack of contingency measures in the army layout</h1>
During the war, the Germans did not launch an offensive according to Pavlov's vision, and adopted the tactics of breaking through the two wings and holding back the center.
On 22 June, Pavlov imagined that the Germans would launch a powerful frontal attack in the center, and Pavlov mobilized the main mechanized army to the center (Białystok) to block the German attack.
Pavlov's layout undoubtedly created a great opportunity for the German army to win a decisive victory. The German Central Military District directly sent two generals, Holth and Guderian, to attack the north and south ends of Białystok, which directly prompted the German army to break through the defenses of the western flanks of the Western Front in a single day.
After that, the German army surrounded the Białystok Department within 3 days, at which time Pavlov did not take measures based on military conditions at headquarters, but ran to his subordinate unit, the 13th Division, to take command of the operation.
Pavlov did not tell the command of his communication channel, and he could not be found by the troops at all levels. In the fierce war, the commanders of the various departments could not receive pavlov's orders, and could only stubbornly resist, and the army was in a state of extreme chaos.
In the absence of such a leaderless group, without precise orders, and with seriously obstructed communications, the Soviet army fought for 5 full days. It was not until Minsk was attacked that Pavlov appeared.
In the case of being beaten by the Germans, Pavlov plucked up the last courage and took a breakout, and the Soviet army was attacked by German troops in the course of the operation, and the Soviet army suffered heavy losses and casualties.
Until the fall of Minsk, the original 620,000 troops, in such a chaotic war, suffered heavy casualties, leaving only about 200,000 soldiers to survive, in just 7 days, lost the entire war zone.
In the end, Pavlov could not take care of the remaining army and fled to Gomel by plane.
It is even more ironic that during this short war, the General Staff did not receive information from pavlov's Western Front. It was not until the German victory was broadcast on soviet radio that Stalin was informed of the defeat.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="9" > conclusion</h1>
Pavlov was ineffective in command and lacked the ability to anticipate military forecasts. Ignoring the reminders of the General Staff, it can even be said that he was stubborn, which led to the loss of hundreds of thousands of personnel by the Soviet army in vain, a large amount of material and weapons losses, which caused the Soviet Union to suffer heavy losses in the war.
In war, as the commander of the Western Front, you should be ready for changes in the enemy at any time, rather than stubbornly believing in your own judgments and predictions.