Stalin's General (15 page)

Zhukov delivered his report on Christmas Day. His theme was the lessons of contemporary wars for offensive operations. His main conclusion was that contemporary armies now had at their disposal forces—airpower, tanks, highly mobile artillery, and motorized infantry—that enabled them to deliver speedy and powerful offensive blows. His most detailed example of offensive operations in contemporary warfare was the battle of Khalkhin-Gol. This operation, said Zhukov, had been carefully prepared and characterized by close coordination of tanks, artillery, infantry, and aviation. Another example he used was the German invasion of Western Europe, characterized by audacious and decisive forward thrusts by tanks and mechanized corps supported by airpower and by the independent exploitation of breakthroughs by the same units. The speed and uninterrupted character of contemporary offensive operations was demonstrated by the time it had taken the Germans to conquer Poland (eighteen days), Holland, Belgium, and northern France (twenty days), and central and southern France (eighteen days). German victories were the result, Zhukov argued, of single strategic operations being conducted along a broad front and in several different directions. From this experience Zhukov concluded that strategic offensive operations should be conducted along a 250 to 300-mile front and aim to penetrate 50–100 miles. Such operations would require 85–100 rifle divisions, 4–5 mechanized corps, 2–3 cavalry corps, and 30–35 aviation divisions. Zhukov envisaged breakthrough battles in such operations taking a similar form to Khalkhin-Gol but on a much larger scale. Enemy main forces would be pinned in the center while powerful mobile forces attacked on the flanks, creating openings and encirclements that would be exploited by strong reserves. To succeed, such operations would need to destroy between one third and one half of the enemy's forces in the opening phase and maintain an advance of ten to fifteen kilometers a day. “The contemporary development of the means of struggle—artillery,
tanks, motorized forces, aviation and so on,” summarized Zhukov, “is creating a broad basis for the conduct of offensive operations and makes possible their conduct at high speed over great distances.”
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There were six contributors to the discussion of Zhukov's paper. Their comments were mostly technical arguments about the forces required for large-scale offensives, when and how these forces should be deployed, the timing and different phases of such operations, and the tempo of advance. The most controversial contribution came from General P. L. Romanenko, the commander of the 1st Mechanized Corps in the Leningrad Military District, who said that Zhukov's ideas reflected the thinking of 1932–1934 and did not take proper account of the experience of German operations in the west. These operations showed the need to form massive “shock armies” of 4–5 mechanized corps, 3–4 aviation corps, 1–2 airborne divisions, and 9–12 artillery regiments. These shock armies should be involved not just in the exploitation phase of offensive operations but in the breakthrough phase as well. The most detailed commentary was made by General Shtern, perhaps stung by Zhukov's passing remark in his speech that during the first phase of operations at Khalkhin-Gol (when Shtern was in overall command) the 57th Special Corps had been ill-prepared for battle. Shtern said the experiences of World War I as well as the current war had to be taken into account. Both conflicts showed that it took a long time to prepare offensive operations, and the same applied to Khalkhin-Gol. Harking back, perhaps, to disagreements with Zhukov at Khalkhin-Gol, Shtern's most pointed comment concerned the timing of the introduction of tanks into breakthrough attacks. Zhukov favored relatively early deployment whereas Shtern thought they should not be deployed until assault infantry and artillery had done their work, especially when faced with strong and deeply echeloned defenses. During the Great Patriotic War Zhukov came around to Shtern's view and tended to delay the introduction of independent tank formations into battle until multipurpose field armies had made the necessary breakthrough. At the conference, however, Zhukov made no comment on Shtern's arguments and in his brief reply to the discussion stated there were no fundamental disagreements with his report.
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The companion piece to Zhukov's paper was General Pavlov's presentation on the use of mechanized forces in armored warfare. Like Zhukov, Pavlov commanded a military district (the Western) vital to implementing Soviet plans for an offensive war against Germany. As head of the Red Army's Armor Directorate in the late 1930s, Pavlov had played an important role in developing Soviet tank doctrine. During the Finnish war Pavlov had come to doubt the value of tank units dispersed broadly throughout the army, an assessment reinforced by the successes of German panzer divisions in Western Europe. Pavlov's report reflected the new thinking of, instead, deploying massed, concentrated tank forces as an independent arm of offensive operations. Throughout Pavlov emphasized the compatibility of his comments with those of Zhukov and reiterated Zhukov's view that tanks could be used to penetrate enemy defenses to their full depth (50–100 miles), destroy opponents' reserves, and achieve strategic operational success.
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In his concluding remarks Timoshenko strongly endorsed the offensivist thrust of the Zhukov and Pavlov papers, including their estimation of the speed and power of modern means of attack. The conference had also considered the question of defense and Timoshenko's closing speech included a whole section on this topic. He argued strongly that there was no “crisis of contemporary defence,” as some had claimed, and he contested the idea that the rapid defeat of Poland and France proved the futility of defending against modern firepower and highly mobile attackers. Effective defense was possible in modern conditions, said Timoshenko, but it had to be defense in depth with a number of zones and echelons. But Timoshenko was unequivocal in stating that “defence is not the decisive means of defeating the enemy: only attack can achieve that in the end. Defense should only be resorted to when there is insufficient force for attack, or when it helps in the establishment of conditions necessary for the preparation of an attack.”
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Stalin did not attend the conference but on January 2 the most senior participants, including Timoshenko, Meretskov, Zhukov, and Pavlov, gathered in his Kremlin office for a two-hour meeting to brief the dictator on its proceedings.
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According to Zhukov the meeting had been convened unexpectedly by Stalin, who took the opportunity
to complain that he had been up all night correcting Timoshenko's closing conference speech but the defense commissar had delivered it before he had a chance to send him corrections. Timoshenko pointed out that he had sent the conference timetable to Stalin as well as the draft of his speech. Stalin was not mollified, saying that he could not be expected to read everything.
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That same day the General Staff started the first of two war games. These were map-based exercises in which participants were allocated certain forces and resources and their moves and countermoves were assessed by an independent jury. Heading the jury were Timoshenko, Meretskov, Shaposhnikov, and other luminaries of the Soviet military establishment, while the team that drafted the games was headed by General N. F. Vatutin, the General Staff's chief of operations. The aim was to give higher commanders a chance to practice the planning and conduct of contemporary offensive and defensive operations, at least on paper.

The scenario for the first game, which ran January 2–6, was an enemy invasion from East Prussia into Belorussia and the Baltic area. The western (i.e., German) side was played by a team headed by Zhukov, while Pavlov commanded the forces of the eastern (i.e., Soviet) side. Pavlov managed to limit enemy penetration of the border and then launched a strong counteroffensive on his left flank designed to envelop Zhukov's forces from the rear. Zhukov responded by allowing Pavlov's forces to become entangled in his fortified lines while simultaneously launching a counterattack on his left flank in the direction of Riga. (See
Map 3
: The First War Game, January 2–6, 1941
.) The second game, which ran January 8–11, focused on the southwestern theater and featured a Soviet invasion of German-occupied Poland and an attack on Germany's allies, Romania and Hungary. For this game Zhukov and Pavlov swapped sides. Once again, Zhukov executed a successful encirclement maneuver that resulted in deep penetration into German-occupied Poland and the destruction of a large number of enemy divisions. (See
Map 4
: The Second War Game, January 8–11, 1941
.) Neither game was played to
a finish but the advantage clearly lay with Zhukov in both cases. One advantage that Zhukov had over Pavlov, of course, was that he had actual experience—at Khalkhin-Gol—of conducting a large-scale operation.

Three aspects of these war games and their outcome are revealing. First was the assumption that the Germans would initiate hostilities and the Soviets would counterattack after a period of frontier battles lasting about two weeks. Second, both games confirmed the advantages conferred by a strategic counterinvasion in the southwestern sector—thus reinforcing the decision of the October war plan to concentrate Soviet forces in that area of operations. Third were the projected troop losses the Red Army could be expected to incur when war broke out, estimated at 120,000 a month—a figure that proved to be a gross underestimate.
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Zhukov apparently remembered only the first game and recalled of it:

It must have been Zhukov's performance during the games, as well as at the conference, that persuaded Stalin to appoint him chief of the General Staff (CGS) in place of Meretskov, notwithstanding his lack of General Staff experience. Other factors working in his favor were Timoshenko's patronage and Zhukov's detailed knowledge of both the Belorussian and the Kiev Military Districts. Important, too, was Zhukov's strong commitment to the doctrine of offensive action expressed in the Soviet war plans. The Soviets intended to fight an offensive war against Germany and Zhukov was seen by Stalin as the man to orchestrate the Red Army's attacks.
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The decision was announced by Stalin at a meeting with Zhukov and Meretskov in his office on January 14, 1940. According to Meretskov
the Soviet dictator said: “Comrade Timoshenko has requested the appointment of Comrade Zhukov to the post of Chief of the General Staff.” This was fine by Meretskov, who had never wanted the job anyway. When Shaposhnikov had fallen ill in summer 1940 and Meretskov was appointed to replace him, he had been told by Stalin it would be a stopgap measure until he could find someone more suitable.
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It seems Stalin thought he had found his man in Zhukov.

Like everyone else Zhukov was in awe of Stalin, and would remain so until the day the Soviet dictator died. Even at the height of Zhukov's own fame and glory in 1945, there was never any doubt that Stalin was the dominant figure in their relationship. But that imbalance in their personal relationship did not preclude the two men from forming a creative and productive partnership—a partnership that was to lead the Red Army to the brink of complete catastrophe before leading it to the greatest victory in military history.