Author: Crazy Lee
Unlike most front commanders in the Great Patriotic War, Chernyakhovsky did not experience the test of World War I and civil war. Nor did he experience the immense suffering of the 1921 revolt of the soldiers at the Kronstadt Naval Base. It was not until 1924 that he officially joined the Red Army at the age of 18 and truly became a soldier.
His qualifications were much worse than those of other Soviet generals. But it was for this reason that he received a systematic military education and was exposed to the most advanced military theories in the world at that time in the military academy. This created favorable conditions for him to later command multi-service combined operations. Therefore, he was very different from Zhukov and Rokossovsky, who had not entered military school, but had grown up in the war.
Chernyakhovsky
Among the senior officers of the Soviet Army in World War II, he was considered a representative of the new type of commander, one of the first senior officers capable of commanding tanks and mechanized units. In the understanding and application of new technologies, Chernyakhovsky has a certain similarity with Tukhachevsky, who pioneered the theory of the great depth campaign: similar educational experiences; rich knowledge, continuous deepening of the professional knowledge of different arms; rich imagination...
However, compared with Marshal Tukhachevsky, Chernyakhovsky at this time escaped the Great Purge Of 1937 because of his low rank and position. It was a political movement that took a heavy toll on the Soviets.
Marshal Tukhachevsky
The campaign cleaned up most of the soviet commanders, directly leading to a fault in the military chain of command, and a large number of battalion and company cadres were subsequently appointed as senior officers at and above the division and regimental levels. As a result, in the early days of the Great Patriotic War, the Soviet Army was in a desperate shortage of excellent and experienced commanders on all fronts. The new officers did not have enough prestige to stabilize the morale of the army and organize effective resistance, and it was easy to understand that millions of Soviet troops would collapse under the premise that they had certain advantages in technology and equipment.
Chernyakhovsky was not involved in political turmoil during this period, but was growing. He began his military career in the tank corps, successively serving as chief of staff and battalion commander of the tank battalion. After that, he entered the Mechanization and Motorization College of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army and graduated successfully in 1936. In 1938, he became the head of the tank regiment of the Baltic Coast Military District. He was later promoted to commander of the Twenty-eighth Tank Division.
This was a fairly high starting point, as Marshal Zhukov and others also began their military careers in the position of commander of the tank division.
Early in the war, Chernyakhovsky, as division commander, commanded his Twenty-eighth Tank Division against the Tank Group of the Sixteenth Army of the Nazi General Busch (later promoted to Marshal) and The Fourth Tank Group of Admiral Hepner.
Faced with the superior strength of the German army, the Twenty-eighth Tank Division suffered heavy casualties and tank losses, so it was reorganized into the 241st Infantry Division. But their struggle also brought great losses to the enemy, and the most important thing was to delay the enemy's advance. Admiral Busch, as an opponent, later concluded in a summary of the campaign that the Germans failed to take Leningrad in time in large part because of the stubborn resistance and continued entanglement of the 28th Tank Division.
Give
His performance in battle in 1941 led to his promotion to the rank of major general in May 1942, and a month later he was promoted to commander of the 18th Tank Army, commanding troops in the defensive battles near Voronezh. During the battle, chernyakhovsky's command post effectively guaranteed the defense and withdrawal of the 60th Army, but in terms of operational principles, he had differences with the leaders of the army group and even the leaders of the front: he insisted on concentrating his forces and opposed the demands of his superiors in the division of troops... For this reason, he was nearly removed from his post.
However, General Vatutin, who took over as commander of the Front, and Marshal Vasilevsky, chief of the General Staff, discovered his talent and supported him in the most difficult times. For his sake, the two Bó Lè boldly sought Stalin's appointment, and Chernyakhovsky was promoted to commander of the 60th Army, just over a month after he was appointed commander.
Admiral Vatutin
In the following year or so, under the command of Vatutin, Rokossovsky and Zhukov, he participated in a series of important military operations such as the Battle of Kursk, the Battle of Zhytomyr, and the Battle of Berkichev, and made great achievements.
In February 1944, Zhukov gave him a high evaluation of his military prowess in a telegram to the High Command and proposed that he be promoted to the rank of general. Soon after, when selecting the commander of the Western Front (later the Third Belorussian Front), Vasilevsky boldly recommended the young general to Stalin, and received unconditional support from two marshals, Zhukov and Rokossovsky.
Soviet forces in World War II
At this point, Chernyakhovsky, who was under the age of 38, became the youngest commander of the Front of the Red Army and was promoted to the rank of general. And he also set a record that as soon as he took office, he dared to directly advise Uncle Steel, asking for the transfer of Meris, who was a member of the Military Committee of the Front. Several commanders in front of him did not dare to make such a request.
Perhaps his courage came from his own strength, and later Soviet/Russian military experts considered him to be flexible, long-term, quick to grasp and accurately judge complex situations. Extremely creative and determined.
Chernyakhovsky attached great importance to the reconnaissance work, and even personally led the team to conduct the reconnaissance. As a result, he was able to understand the intentions of his opponents and make reasonable adjustments to the battle plan. Marshal Rokossovsky once spoke highly of this, and the rapid advance of his troops in the battle to liberate Kiev in 1943 opened the door to Kiev.
He was also accustomed to hitting his forces to attack a certain point. In the 1943 Voronezh-Castornoye Offensive, he concentrated most of the army group on the 12 km wide attack position, leaving only 2 infantry divisions and 2 infantry brigades on the remaining 100 km front.
In the Battle of East Prussia, commanded by the Commander of the Front, he showed independence and firmness, regardless of the intentions of his superiors, he only determined his own optimal battle plan, and found the weak points of his opponents to attack. As a result, the Soviets successfully took all of East Prussia and completely controlled the land of Longxing in modern Germany.
Captured Germans
As for his art of command, Galeev, who was the president of the Russian Academy of Military Sciences, summed it up in one sentence: Not according to conventional practices, not in accordance with military art standards, but to consider the battlefield situation to the greatest extent, timely adjustment, and sudden defeat of the enemy. Because there is no routine and standard, and it is difficult for the opponent to grasp his thinking, it is also a headache every time he faces his enemies, because he can never guess what his next move is.
However, his habit of reconnaissance ended his legend. In February 1945, while inspecting the front lines, Chernyakhovsky was attacked by German artillery and shrapnel hit him in the chest. On the way to the health team, the general passed away.
Marshal Vasilevsky
When the secretary reported the news of Chernyakhovsky's death to Stalin, Uncle Steel was half speechless. According to Sta's original plan, Chernyakhovsky would take over the Soviet high command. And now, all plans have been shattered. After a long silence, Stalin gave the order to his secretary: "124 salutes are fired 24 times in Moscow to mourn for our young commander-in-chief."
As a hero who liberated the Baltic states, he was buried in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, his body was buried in the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow, where he guarded the spiritual homeland of the Russians with Marshals Moskalenko and Ogarkov.