Chapter 162 The Battle of Poland (25)

Under the integrated air and ground offensive of the German army, the Polish army's front completely collapsed. Coupled with the total surrender of Serchiak's military headquarters and the fall of the Brasi River Bridge, the German army marched straight in and was overwhelming.

Although he had waited for the news that Britain and France had declared war on Germany, Marshal Śmigły had to issue an order for a general retreat from the front line.

According to the order, Modlin Group Army and the Narew Group (3rd Army Division) that reinforced them should retreat to the Vistula and Narew rivers north and northeast of Warsaw to cover the Vistula and Sanrew rivers from the west. The right flank of the retreating corps was on the river.

The task of the Lodz and Prussian armies was to retreat to the Vistula River south of Warsaw, and the task of the Kraków and Carpathian armies was to retreat to the San River.

The Poznan Army Group in Poland (4th Army Division, two cavalry brigades, the commander is General Kutsheba), the Pomeranian Army Group in the north and the Lodz Army Group in the south (the commander is Julius Rommel Lieutenant General), their original mission was to defend the German forces in the direction of Frankfurt (Oder) and Poznan, and threaten the flanks of the German Army Group Northern and Army Group South. If possible, they could also launch an assault on the German forces facing them.

Compared with the depleted state of other Polish troops, the Lodz Army and the Poznan Army, which were deliberately bypassed by the German North and South Army Groups, were still intact at this time, but the two army commanders were not fools. They had already seen that the Germans had bypassed them.

The German troops advanced in depth, apparently trying to join forces with the German Army (Fourth Army) that was attacking Poland from the direction of Pomerania. In this way, the Lodz Army and the Poznan Group on the left would fall into a huge encirclement.

The two group army commanders successively sent requests to Marshal Śmigły to take the initiative to attack the German flanks, but this request was rejected by Marshal Śmigły. At this time, the Marshal only thought about how to maintain the enemy's strength in the shortest possible time. Gather as many troops as possible behind the Sva River.

"The speed must be fast, we must get to Warsaw as soon as possible!" Kutsheba of the Poznan Group shouted loudly in his headquarters. Although he felt sorry for losing such a good defensive position in vain, he did not have the courage to "reject military orders from above" and could only obey the marshal's orders obediently. "We need to arrive at Kutno City first, where we will join forces with the remnants of the Pomeran Group. Fortunately, no regular enemy troops were found on the opposite side of us, otherwise we might really be trapped and die here."

Under Kutsheba's urging, the staff officers sped up their work. Stacks of documents were burned to ashes, and batches of communication equipment were disassembled and loaded onto vehicles.

In the history of the original time and space, it was this Poznan Army that retreated to Kutno City (a transportation hub west of Warsaw) and met up with the remnants of the Pomeran Army. Coupled with some reserve troops mobilized during the war, a powerful force of 10 infantry divisions and 2 cavalry brigades was assembled to launch a fierce attack on the left flank of the German Eighth Army. The 30th Infantry Division, which was responsible for covering the left wing of the Eighth Army, was severely damaged. Among them, 1,500 Germans were captured.

Of course, Wilhelm would not let this fish slip through the net. As early as when the White Plan was formulated, the Poznan Army and the Lodz Army were very unfortunate to be concerned about it. A group had already been secretly deployed here, and the commander was Erwin Rommel.

"The Poles have finally begun to retreat, report it to the High Command immediately!" Rommel ordered with great excitement on the opposite side of the "empty" Army Group in Poznan.

What is interesting is that this time there were three people named Rommel in both camps. Moreover, one of them is German and two are Polish. All three of them are high-ranking officials in their respective camps.

It goes without saying that the name of Erwin Rommel, the "Desert Fox" in the German army, goes without saying. The two little-known Rommels in the Polish army are Julius Rommel and Carol Rommel. These three people not only have the same surname, but if we really want to analyze their blood lineage, the German Rommel and the Polish Rommel are distant relatives.

In the subsequent battles, Julius Rommel and Carol Rommel were defeated and captured one after another, and were imprisoned in the center camp. However, both Polish Rommels were very lucky. They both survived in the concentration camps and were later rescued by the Allies. Some people also speculate that the reason why the two Polish Rommels did not die in the concentration camp may be because of the secret care of the German Rommel. Of course, only "God knows" this speculation.

Although Rommel of Germany, who was later promoted to marshal, was famous on the battlefield, he was implicated in the assassination of Mustache in 1944 and was sentenced to death at the age of only 52. As for his two distant Polish relatives, both died in 1967, Juliusz was 79 years old and Carol was 72 years old. In comparison, they were undoubtedly more blessed.

Soon, the headquarters issued an order to attack. "Okay, attack on all fronts!"

The first unlucky one was naturally the slow-moving infantry division in charge of the rear. When they retreated less than five kilometers away, a terrifying scream suddenly came from the sky. The sound was heartbreaking, as if it was a scream coming from hell, shaking people's eardrums and shocking their hearts.

The Polish soldiers stopped in unison and looked towards the direction of the sound with a horrified look on their faces, only to see strange-looking aircraft swooping down from the clouds like goshawks.

"Enemy plane!" Many people screamed in their hearts and wanted to run away instinctively, but the increasingly sharp screams seemed to grab their souls. They were frozen in place and unable to move. They could only watch the planes. It dived to a place five or six hundred meters above the ground before quickly pulling up. At the same time, several bombs on the racks fell off and hit the densest crowd.

The shells of these bombs cracked one after another, and countless black balls scattered down. The shell of the ball was divided into two parts, and it looked like an oversized butterfly from a distance.

"..." The Polish soldiers on the ground stared blankly at the large butterflies they had never seen before spinning and floating down in the air. When they landed more than ten meters above their heads, these large butterflies suddenly exploded. Come on. Scattered shrapnel swept through the Polish soldiers like a storm who were scared to move by Stuka's "hell whistle".

The official code name of this large butterfly is SD2. It is a cluster bomb used by the Luftwaffe for anti-personnel purposes during World War II. It weighs about 2 kilograms. This kind of bomb is not used alone, but is placed in a container for dispersion. There are usually 6 to 108 submunitions in a container, and a Stuka can drop at least seven or eight hundred of these small bombs. If these small bombs can be evenly distributed, the damage area will definitely be considerable, and a Stuka can severely damage the infantry division below.

It's just that this is an ideal situation, and Stuka cannot be just one. As soon as the first Stuka was pulled up, the second and third swooped down one after another, dropping thousands of small bombs and slaughtering the entire infantry division.