Georgy Zhukov: Difference between revisions
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=== Second World War and West Russian War ===
During the Second World War, during the autumn of 1940, Zhukov started preparing plans for the military exercise concerning the defence of the Western border of the Soviet Union. It had been pushed further to the west after the Soviet Union annexed eastern Poland and the Baltic republics.
Zhukov commanded the Western or Blue forces—the supposed invasion troops—and his opponent was Colonel General Dmitry Pavlov, the commander of the Eastern or Red forces—the supposed Soviet troops. He noted that his forces amounted to 60 divisions, whilst Colonel General Pavlov had 50 divisions. Zhukov would note that the exercise as being similar to events that later took place during the German invasion.
At the time, the Eastern forces had a numerical advantage: 51 infantry divisions against 41; 8,811 tanks against 3,512—with the exception of anti-tank guns. Bobylev describes how by the end of the exercise, the Eastern forces did not manage to surround and destroy the Western forces. In their turn, the Western forces threatened to surround the Eastern forces. The same historian reported that the second game was won by the Easterners, meaning that on the whole, both games were won by the side commanded by Zhukov. However, he noted that the games had a serious disadvantage since they did not consider an initial attack by Western forces, but only an attack by Eastern forces from the initial border.
According to Marshal Aleksandr Vasilevsky, the war-game defeat of Pavlov's Red Troops against Zhukov was not widely known. The victory of Zhukov's Blue Troops was widely publicized, which created a popular illusion of easy success for a preemptive offensive. On 1 February 1941, Zhukov became chief of the Red Army's General Staff. He was also elected a candidate member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union In February 1941, and was appointed a Deputy People's Commissar for Defence in March.
From 2 February 1941, as the chief of the general staff, and Deputy Minister of Defense, Zhukov was said to take part in drawing up the "Strategic Plan for deployment of the forces of the Soviet Union in the event of war with Germany and its allies." The plan was completed no later than 15 May 1941.
In this plan, Soviet forces would occupy the Vistula Border and continue to Katowice or even Berlin—should the main German armies retreat—or the Baltic coast, should German forces not retreat and be forced to protect Poland and East Prussia. The attacking Soviets were supposed to reach Siedlce, Dęblin, and then capture Warsaw before penetrating toward the southwest and imposing final defeat at Lublin. However, this plan would be rejected.
On 10 June 1941, Zhukov sent a message to the Military Council of the Kiev Special Military District, after someone, most likely the commander of the Kiev district, Mikhail Kirponos, had ordered troops on the border to occupy forward positions. Zhukov ordered: "Such action could provoke the Germans into armed confrontation fraught with all sorts of consequences. Revoke this order immediately and report who, specifically, gave such an unauthorised order." On 11 June, he sent a telegram saying that his immediate superior, Timoshenko, had ordered that they were to report back by 16 June confirming that the troops had been withdrawn from their forward positions."
Despite this, the Soviet Union was not ready for war in June 1941, nor did it intend, as some have contended, to launch a preventative war.
==== Operation Barbarossa. ====
Operation Barbarossa would begin on 22 June 1941. On the same day, Zhukov responded by signing the "Directive of Peoples' Commissariat of Defence No. 3", which ordered an all-out counteroffensive by Red Army forces. He commanded the troops to "encircle and destroy [the] enemy grouping near Suwałki and to seize the Suwałki region by the evening of 24 June" and "to encircle and destroy the enemy grouping invading in [the] Vladimir-Volynia and Brody direction" and even "to seize the Lublin region by the evening of 24 June". This manoeuvre failed and disorganized Red Army units were destroyed by the Wehrmacht. This action would weaken the standing of the Red Army, to defend the motherland.
In headlong retreat, Zhukov would soon be reassigned to the Leningrad front, to oversee it's defences. Leningrad would fall before Zhukov could save the city. Forces in the city would be evacuated back into the region of West Russia in order to save materiale. Efforts to counterattack the Wehrmacht were defeated without any headway. Despite this Zhukov would take his army to slow the German advance, buying time for the Soviet Forces to fallback to the West Russian region.
As the Soviet Union collapsed, Zhukov would find himself joining the West Russian Revolutionary Front, commanding Soviet Remnant Forces that managed to survive the mauling by the Wehrmacht.
== Trivia ==
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