Chapter 780: Devouring

A cold wind blew from the open country, making one involuntarily wrap their clothes tighter. The cold wind on the Ukrainian plain was enough to make even people in thick cotton clothes feel the chill. For those who lacked food and clothing, it was an utter disaster.

About 400,000 men were eventually surrounded in the pocket near Donetsk. These Soviet troops trudged with difficulty through the icy, snow-covered landscape, attempting to escape this huge encirclement. But in the end, they failed. They were compressed into a small space, unable to even break out.

Although these Soviet Red Army troops still had a small numerical advantage, and even an absolute advantage against the German forces on each side of the encirclement, they lacked ammunition and food. They had even abandoned their baggage on the road of retreat. Now they were vulnerable and lacked fighting spirit, completely unable to cope with the German army’s pursuit and blockade.

Hundreds of cannons were abandoned on the road of retreat. Mortars were discarded in the fields like scrap steel pipes. Anyone could find the shells for these mortars not far away, as well as the disassembled gun carriages and aiming devices. If one searched carefully, one could occasionally find empty ammunition boxes, empty fuel drums… In short, in the eyes of the German army, this was an absolutely disorganized and undisciplined rout.

What made these frightened birds of prey despair was that at the end of their rope, they heard the news that the entire army on the Crimean Peninsula had been wiped out. The 190,000 soldiers there had laid down their arms and surrendered. Including the soldiers who had been routed and captured earlier, nearly 300,000 were being herded to concentration camps in Poland and Ukraine.

Fortunately, these Soviet soldiers did not have many vehicles and almost no heavy equipment like tanks, so their demand for fuel and spare parts was not very large. It was also for this reason that these Soviet troops had not yet shown signs of a large-scale collapse. If the main force of the Soviet army under Zhukov’s command had been surrounded, they would have already collapsed by now due to being unable to fight.

But where there were advantages, there were naturally disadvantages. Because this force lacked heavy weapons and had no source of ammunition resupply, they had no ability to break out at all. To simply use soldiers to assault the dense German firepower net was no different from sending them to their deaths. After trying a few times, no one was willing to use their bodies to challenge the German tanks anymore. After all, there were not many thoroughgoing madmen like the Japanese.

In the beginning, the Soviet commanders and soldiers had been looking forward to the arrival of winter, and when winter came, the weather had indeed helped the Red Army a great deal. But now, the Soviet army in the Donetsk encirclement was hoping for winter to pass quickly, because they did not have many winter supplies in reserve.

The conditions for the Soviet defenders near Donetsk were slightly better. After all, they could still share some of the welfare benefits provided by the city. But the days for the troops stationed on the periphery of the entire encirclement were not so good. They lacked winter tents, and every day people would freeze to death in the cold trenches.

What made the defenders most desperate was that their food reserves were about to run out. When they were first surrounded, they had even abandoned some of their grain in order to lighten their load and flee to the rear. In the impression of all the Soviet frontline infantry, the grain reserves in Donetsk should still be abundant. Unfortunately, by the time they arrived here, they discovered that the grain was now in the Caucasus. This was the order for a rush transport issued by Zhukov. In order to ensure that the supplies did not fall into the hands of the German army, he had callously ignored the large Soviet army within the encirclement.

In Zhukov’s plan, the Soviet soldiers in the encirclement were supposed to “proactively break out due to a shortage of grain, fight a bloody battle with the German armored forces on the main front, break out and reach the Caucasus, and participate in the subsequent battle to encircle the Caucasus.” However, any high-ranking general who had participated in the drafting of this order had on their own initiative interpreted this order as “I’ve taken the grain. If you don’t want to starve, find your own way out! The only use you have left is to pin down Guderian to the death for me!”

“Damn bastard! He wants to starve us to death in Donetsk!” a Soviet company commander cursed, squatting in a trench and loudly reviling the Soviet commander-in-chief on the Minsk front. His hands were clasped together from the cold and tucked into his sleeves, and he shivered as he held his Mosin-Nagant.

That wise and decisive frontline commander-in-chief was, in his mouth, no different from an idiot or a fool. This was the thinking of the grassroots soldiers. Whoever gave them food and didn’t send them to their deaths was a truly great general. As for the rest, it was all just floating clouds in the sky, or bullshit right next to them.

Beside him were other Soviet soldiers. Although they were wearing old military greatcoats, they were still shivering from the cold wind. They were all huddled in the simply constructed trenches, waiting for the Germans on the other side of their position to come and take their small, pitiful lives. Every man on this position had only a dozen or so rounds of ammunition left, and the ammunition resupply from their superiors had not yet been issued. Some of the well-informed were spreading rumors everywhere that even the division headquarters did not have much ammunition in stock.

Out of ammunition, out of food, lacking clothing and provisions. This was a true portrayal of the Soviet army besieged near Donetsk. And all around them were German soldiers in white winter camouflage. These German soldiers wore thick sweaters and cotton-padded clothes, and even their boots were thickened snow boots. What was even more despairing was that these German soldiers had ample ammunition, more than enough to deal with any attempted Soviet breakout.

On their path of retreat was the most elite G Army Group of the German army. Just looking at its previous combat record was enough to make one lose any desire to fight. To their north were the rear guard forces of the defensive master, Model. To be able to break through Model’s defense line, you’d at least have to be a deputy commander-in-chief to get away with it. To their south was the Black Sea, a dead end. And although there were not many German troops on their front, to fight their way back and run into the arriving M Army Group under Manstein’s command was no different from suicide.

The Soviet forces on the Crimean Peninsula at least had the Sevastopol fortress complex and the Kerch fortress as their support. At the very least, they could still struggle a little and display a heroic spirit of choosing death over dishonor. Unfortunately, the area around Donetsk only had simple trench fortifications, and the defenders had no real support at all.

It wasn’t that there weren’t fanatical patriots who wanted to fight a street battle, but firstly, they didn’t have enough ammunition, nor did they have enough food. To implicate the civilians in the city of Donetsk and fight a battle that could not be sustained for long was really unnecessary. And so, after this dilemma, the Soviet defenders had adopted a passive posture of waiting for death, waiting for the German army opposite them to attack first.

“Look at them, eating hot canned food in the cold weather. Not only do they dare to build a fire, but they also have candy and snacks to eat,” a Soviet sentry said to his comrade, watching the German soldiers eat their lunch opposite them. “I can even smell the meat. Really. If they could just share some of their canned food with us, that would be great.”

“Don’t talk nonsense, I’m really hungry already. Look at them, they’re soldiers, and we’re soldiers. How can the difference be so great?” a Soviet soldier holding a rifle complained beside the sentry. They had also been eating just now, but the Germans had fired a few 60mm mortar shells over, and their lunch had been completely ruined—one shell had hit the iron pot, blowing away half a pot of water and two cooks.

The Soviet army here no longer cared about so-called supervision. Their helpless situation had already made them lose all hope. The political commissars who had fled here with them were even more desperate than the ordinary soldiers, because the well-informed among them had heard that the treatment of political commissars in German concentration camps was the worst, with a bit of a “professional discrimination” flavor.

“Hey! Look over there! Look over there! Maybe we’ll be eating the Germans’ tin cans soon,” the Soviet sentry who was on watch shouted in a low voice, pointing into the distance. “Look, quick! I’ve seen those people before. They’re high-ranking officers from our army!”

The few Soviet soldiers who heard him shout all stood up from the trench and looked not far from their position. There, a dozen or so Soviet officers were holding a white flag in their hands, slowly walking towards the German-occupied position. They walked cautiously, as if afraid that their own friendly forces from behind or the enemy opposite would open fire. By the time they were close to the German trench, they had lowered the conspicuous white flag in their hands.

In the evening, these Soviet officials returned from the German position. They returned to their own position and walked through a group of soldiers whose eyes were filled with anticipation. No one here was willing to continue fighting. Many of the armies with a large number of Ukrainians had already begun to experience uncontrolled incidents of mass surrender.

The next day, 407,000 soldiers of the Soviet Red Army in the Donetsk sector laid down their weapons. They surrendered to the G Army Group, commanded by Guderian, on their path of retreat, handing over their military flags and the documents they were carrying.

According to the agreement between the two sides, all documents concerning the political commissars of this army group were to be burned, and all the political commissars of this unit were to be broken up and assigned to the combat units, to be treated as ordinary prisoners.

The surrender agreement stipulated that soldiers of Ukrainian origin could directly lay down their arms and leave the army to return to their hometowns. Those who were unwilling to leave could accept reorganization under Vlasov. As for the Soviet soldiers of Russian origin, they were sent in batches to the concentration camps in Poland as laborers.

Within a huge encirclement, two partial German army groups had devoured the entire 400,000 soldiers of the Soviet army around Donetsk. Army Group G and Army Group M were completely freed up, and they now posed a high-pressure situation for the entire Caucasus. With just one order, these two units could break into the Soviet heartland, threaten the oil-producing base of the Caucasus, and press on to Stalingrad.

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