The Battle of Thelo Heights, which took place in April 1945, was seen as a typical battle of The Soviet offensive in World War II, regardless of casualties. In this battle, more than 9,000 artillery pieces of the Soviet army were discharged for tens of kilometers, and the German army was indiscriminately bombed, which is also very rare in the history of human warfare. However, there are still views that at that time, the Soviet army formed an overwhelming advantage over the German army, wanted to attack Berlin, the choice was really very much, but in the end it chose to be tough, and paid more than 100,000 casualties in the case of victory, which should not be. Zhukov, the famous general of the Soviet army who was in charge of command, was even more criticized for "fighting a war by relying on many people", which was not only questioned by the enemy, but even within the upper echelons of the Soviet army, some people dared to say so.
As we all know, on the eve of the outbreak of World War II, Zhukov did not achieve such a high status as "one man above ten thousand people", on the contrary, a general of Pavlov's level could even be compared with Zhukov. The Andrei Ivanovich Yelyommenko we are going to introduce in this article is very similar to Pavlov, and most importantly, both of them are very unaccustomed to Zhukov, but in contrast, Yelemenko is even more amazing.
Who is Yeliamenko? This man was born in cavalry, fought bravely, and was quite courageous. At the end of World War II, he was one of the commanders of the Soviet Army's Ten Fronts; in 1955, Yelemenko was promoted to marshal, and in 2002, the Russian Military Academy named him one of the leaders of the 20 strategic directions, ranking him 15th. Looking at this series of positions and titles alone, this jun seems to be very powerful, but it is worth noting that Yelyommenko's historical evaluation can be described as polarized, and interestingly, his arrogance and incompetence did not bury his career, but saved his life.
In June 1941, the Germans blitzed the Soviet Union and achieved a huge military victory in a very short period of time, and after winning the Battle of Minsk, the German troops pointed directly at Kiev, the third largest city in the Soviet Union and the super military powerhouse. It should be known that at that time, Kiev had a huge southwestern front, well-equipped, many famous generals, and the soviet top brass was also optimistic about the situation. In contrast, the Germans developed a quick and resolute roundabout plan aimed at winning a single blow.
In August 1941, Yelyommenko was appointed commander of the Bryansk Front, mainly responsible for defending Moscow from the southwest. However, Yelyommenko somehow ate the leopard's bile and actually led his army to attack Guderian's army. However, Yelyommenko's military brilliance was too mediocre, the German army was almost unscathed, and the attack of the Bryansk Front came to a standstill; due to Yelyommenko's blind attack, the operational deployment of the entire battlefield was disrupted, which indirectly led to the German attack on Kiev.
The Soviet army lost the Battle of Kiev very badly, the commander and chief of staff of the front army were all killed, 6 armies were completely annihilated, nearly a million people were lost in the battle, only a few troops and senior generals were able to escape, and Khrushchev, Temusingo and others were almost killed. Yelyommenko was not much better, and the Germans immediately turned to him after cleaning up Kiev, and in the process of breaking through, Yelemenko was seriously injured; when he fled in the plane, the plane crashed in mid-air. When Yeliamenko was found, he was nearly frozen alive.
Perhaps because Yelemenko's suffering was so tragic that even Stalin could not bear to execute him, but ran to the hospital to visit him, and Yelemenko escaped the tragic end of Pavlov's "killing chickens and monkeys". However, this fiasco also made him lose trust, and after being discharged from the hospital, he could only run to the level of the group army and reluctantly mixed up a post.
It is worth mentioning that when Yelemenko was in the military academy, he was vaguely called "relatively clumsy" by Rokossovsky, doing things recklessly and recklessly, and after the outbreak of World War II, his performance was also very humiliating, but Yelyommenko's career was not without remarkable points. After the Battle of Stalingrad, Stalin believed that Yelemenko's resolute fighting style was very suitable for leading troops to defend stalingrad. For this reason, Yeliamenko, who had been hanging out for a long time, was finally entrusted with a heavy responsibility again. This time, he lived up to the expectations of his country and his leaders and defended the city with impeccable performance. The Battle of Stalingrad was another important turning point in his career, and he commanded the Front until the end of World War II.
It is worth mentioning that Yeliamenko "healed the scars and forgot the pain", and just achieved this achievement, he became blind. He once openly declared: "Zhukov's art of combat is that he must have 5 to 6 times the strength of the enemy, otherwise, he will not start fighting, without numerical superiority, he will not fight at all, and his current position of prominence is exchanged for the blood of countless soldiers." In fact, Yeliamenko's overall mediocre command ability and arrogant personality have really offended many people. For example, in the campaign to liberate Crimea, Vasilevsky showed strong dissatisfaction with it. In fact, Stalin knew people to use well, and he knew all about Yeliamenko's abilities. Therefore, Stalin did not give the latter the rank of marshal until his death. It was not until Khrushchev ascended the throne that Yelyommenko picked up a bargain and was promoted to marshal in 1955.
In order to "repay" the new leader, Yeliamenko tried to take the lead in getting the marshals to sign and make Khrushchev a marshal. However, the Yeliamenke human set has long since collapsed, and all the big guys are too lazy to take care of it. Exactly how many pounds he had, the generals who rose to high positions by merit during the war were all clear. Therefore, although Yeliamenko was a marshal, today, the historian's evaluation of him is still very polarized.