Page 452 - Le Operazioni Interforze e Multinazionali nella Storia Militare - ACTA Tomo I

452 XXXIX Congresso della CommIssIone InternazIonale dI storIa mIlItare • CIHm

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The 2 Belorussian Front conducted Bialystok operation, advanced to more than 300
km, approached the area near the Eastern Prussia border and provided good conditions
for further offensive on the Warsaw direction.
In July – August the 1 Belarusian Front liberated a number of Belorussian towns
st
(Baranovichi, Pinsk, Brest) and in the course of Lublin-Brest operation crushed the stub-
born resistance of the enemy, crossed the Polish border, reached the Vistula River in the
zone of 120 km wide and captured four beach-heads on its western bank.
Concluding remarks. The Operation “Bagration” lasted for 68 days. The scale of the
offensive was 1100 km in width and 600 km in depth. During the operation the whole
Belorussia was finally liberated, the German troops were driven out of a substantial part
of Lithuanian territory, some areas of Latvia and Ukraine. The Soviet troops defeat-
ed one of the strongest German army groupings – Army Group “Center”, and reached
Vistula River and Eastern Prussia border. 17 enemy divisions and 3 brigades were com-
pletely destroyed and 50 divisions lost more than 50 % of their strength. According to
a very rough calculation the German losses were about 500 thousand men. To reinforce
and stabilize the situation the Wehrmacht Command had to redeploy 46 divisions and 4
brigades from other directions, that substantially weakened the German forces deployed
against Allied troops in France.
In comparative view the Operation “Bagration” to a very significant extent was a
mirror image of the German “Barbarossa” Plan both from the operational and strategic
point and the point of terms. The Soviet Command took well planned disinformation
measures to make Germans believe that the main effort would be in the south where
there was allegedly concentrated massive tank force. However the main strike was de-
livered in the direction of Minsk where a massive German grouping was finally encir-
cled and destroyed or took captive. It was a kind of Stalin’s revenge for June 1941 Hitler
sudden strike that was delivered also in the direction of Minsk where a big grouping of
the Soviet Army was also encircled and destroyed or captured.
The Operation “Bagration” is a very good example of swift breaching the enemy
tactical defense and then achieving operational success by means of skillful using tank
formations that advanced at a high speed deep into the enemy rear. Strong blows de-
livered on six sectors in a wide zone cut the enemy defense into pieces, and denied the
capability of the German Command to reinforce its troops at every threatened sector and
thus dispersed its reserves.
Soviet Command had gained the experience of preparing and conducting operations
aimed at quick encirclement of big enemy forces both in tactical and operational depth.
The terms of time of final destruction of the encircled enemy forces reduced greatly
compared to the previous war periods. It took just a few days to rout the enemy: at
Vitebsk – 2 days, at Bobruisk – 3 days, Minsk – 6 days, at Vilnius and Brest – 2 days.
The important feature was that Soviet troops did not stop and continued their advance.
That also denied the ability of German Command to organize cooperation between the
encircled and the main forces, and greatly impeded the ability of the encircled troops to
break through the encirclement.
Another important feature was combined use of armor mechanized troops at all the