Leonid Ilderkin. red banner over the Carpathians. Reflection in culture and art

The partisan formation of Sidor Artemyevich Kovpak began in 1941 near Putivl with a small detachment of 13 people. And his first combat operation was the destruction of an enemy truck. However already...

The partisan formation of Sidor Artemyevich Kovpak began in 1941 near Putivl with a small detachment of 13 people. And his first combat operation was the destruction of an enemy truck. However, soon Kovpak’s detachment united with the group of another outstanding partisan commander, Semyon Vasilyevich Rudnev. Subsequently, they were joined by other partisan detachments, and they began to represent a formidable force for the German occupation forces. Kovpak became the commander of the Sumy partisan unit, and Rudnev became its commissar.

Before the war, both partisan leaders already had serious combat experience. Sidor Artemyevich was a participant in the Brusilov breakthrough during the First World War and received two St. George Crosses for his courage. He also fought in the Civil War, and as part of the 25th division of V.I. Chapaeva. Semyon Vasilyevich Rudnev served in the Red Army since 1918, until 1939 he was a career officer.

From 1941 to 1943, the Sumy partisan unit repeatedly defeated the German invaders and operated in the Sumy region of Ukraine, in nearby regions of Russia and Belarus. The partisans went on campaigns throughout the Sumy, Oryol, Kursk and Bryansk regions, reaching the Right Bank of Ukraine. In August 1941, Kovpak participated in a meeting of the leaders of the partisan movement with Stalin in the Kremlin.

On June 12, 1943, the formation under the command of Kovpak set off for the Carpathian roadstead. Historians are still arguing about what was the main goal of this campaign. Although, most likely, there were several goals. First of all, it was important to organize a center of people's war in the rear of the German troops, to divert part of the enemy forces and create among the occupiers the feeling of “burning earth under their feet.” Another goal could be the destruction of the Carpathian oil fields, which supplied fuel to Hitler’s tank armies. In addition, this raid could inspire the population of the occupied territories and show that the fight against the Nazis does not stop and is going on everywhere.

S. Kovpak, S. Rudnev, V. Voitsekhovich are developing operational plans for the destruction of oil fields, Carpathians.

More than one and a half thousand partisans set out on a campaign from the north of the Zhitomir region to the Carpathians. They were well armed, came with cannons, machine guns, mortars, and took with them so much food and ammunition that the convoy stretched along the road for 10 kilometers. A significant part of what they carried with them were trophies taken in battle. “My supplier is Hitler,” said Kovpak.

Kovpak's formation bypassed the city of Rivne and went south through the Ternopil region. At the same time, on the eve of the Battle of Kursk, the Kovpaks disabled the railway junction in Ternopol, through which up to 80 enemy trains could pass to the front per day. Then the partisans crossed the Dnieper and headed into the mountains. Almost immediately, the German command sent a large detachment to the Carpathians to capture them. The danger that the partisans posed to the German troops was such that an entire SS cavalry division was withdrawn from the front to fight them and an entire SS cavalry division was sent against Kovpak, tanks and planes were sent. About 20 times the partisans were surrounded, but always came out of it, inflicting heavy losses on the Nazis. In one such battle in the valley of the Prut River near the city of Delyatin, the detachment commissar, Kovpak’s “right hand”, Major General Rudnev, was killed.

The campaign of the Sumy partisan unit lasted about 100 days, during which time the partisans covered about 2 thousand kilometers. During their raid, they destroyed almost 50 railway and road bridges, blew up 19 military trains, and burned a large amount of enemy equipment and warehouses. In the Carpathian region, Kovpak’s troops blew up many oil derricks and oil storage tanks, destroyed three oil refineries and an oil pipeline. In total, the partisans destroyed, according to various estimates, from 3 to 5 thousand Nazis and even shot down several planes.

The significance of this raid was such that after its completion, many partisans received high state awards, and Kovpak was awarded the second Star of the Hero of the Soviet Union. True, when the campaign was nearing completion, Sidor Artemyevich was seriously wounded, and at the end of 1943 he was sent for treatment to liberated Kyiv. After that he never fought again. And his famous Sumy partisan unit was renamed the First Ukrainian Partisan Division named after S.A. Kovpaka.

The most powerful was the formation of Sidor Kovpak, which controlled a significant part of the territory of Ukraine. For his unprecedented raids, even during the war, he was twice awarded the star of the Hero of the Soviet Union. A peasant son, born in the Poltava region and living in Kyiv after the war, Kovpak was the real pride of the Ukrainian people for many years. However, after the Maidan everything changed. Thus, in the town of Yaremcha in Western Ukraine, Bandera nationalists smashed a memorial plaque in honor of the legendary commander with sledgehammers. And on the site of the monument to the dead partisans they are going to erect a monument to the “heavenly hundred”. The hero's name is consigned to blasphemy and oblivion.

In July 1941, Sergeant Fedor Karpenko’s reconnaissance group went behind the front line, and when he returned a few days later, he had already rolled far to the east. “If we don’t break through to our own, we’ll fight here,” the fighters decided. However, Karpenko soon learned from the locals that there were already partisans here - “some kind of Kovpak.” At the same time, the villagers warned: the local forester and the policemen sniffed around, carefully. And then one day the sergeant saw an elderly man with a stick on the path. He behaved quite confidently. That's right - a forester, the sergeant decided.

Shoot him, comrade commander,” one of the scouts suggested.

Karpenko and two fighters rushed after him and caught up. One more jump and the matter would have been over, but then the old man turned around and calmly asked:

Well, what do you guys want from me?

Hearing that they were going to put it to use, he dashingly snatched a small Browning from the First World War from somewhere and yelled at Karpenko:

I received two “Egories” when you were still walking under the table, you brat! I am the commander of a partisan detachment.

Where is your squad? - the scouts did not believe it.

In response, the old man calmed down:

But you will be my squad...

This is how, somewhat curiously, the history of one of the largest partisan formations of the Great Patriotic War began. In the first weeks after the Nazi attack, party organizations everywhere organized detachments to fight behind enemy lines. The chairman of the Putivl City Executive Committee, 54-year-old Sidor Kovpak, was appointed head of one of them. An experienced soldier, he went through the German and Civil Wars, fought with Chapaev himself. With education, however, not much - only a parochial school, but at the same time a sharp natural mind, a subtle understanding of human psychology. Not everyone would have emerged with honor from the situation in which the future twice-Hero found himself in the first months of the war.

Even before the arrival of the Germans, sausages, jam, chocolate, tea, other non-perishable products, household utensils, and clothing, including winter clothes, were stockpiled in the surrounding Spadshchansky forest. And, of course, explosives. At the beginning of September 1941, Kovpak sent future partisans selected by the party committee into the forest, and he himself left the city two days later - when German tanks entered Putivl. However, he did not find his people. He began to walk around the surrounding villages and agitate the peasants to join the “active partisan detachment.” To the cautious question: “And who are you, grandfather?” - answered: “Kovpak.” And so it happened that rumors about him ran ahead of the detachment. The situation was further aggravated by the fact that the “commander without an army” did not know the exact location of the “cache”, because the director of the local incubator Korenev, who also went into the forest and has not yet been found, was directly involved in laying them.

When the scouts heard this story, they laughed. They changed their minds about shooting the “grandfather,” but they were in no hurry to recognize him as a commander. A few days later they met the same Korenev and confirmed Kovpak’s story. The matter took a completely different turn: it turns out that the grandfather was not on his own, but was appointed by the party. Korenev also showed secret warehouses, which completely melted the ice of mistrust. Gradually, a detachment began to form around this core. People left behind by the city committee were found, and volunteers from the villages came forward. Many had civilian experience.

It was necessary to start acting, but no one really knew how. Meanwhile, it looked like someone was already beating up the Nazis in the area: several blown-up German cars were seen on the road. It turned out that in some village an 18-year-old boy had taken root, having broken away from his unit. Sapper. The ground in the area was littered with mines. Every now and then a cow would blow itself up while grazing, and people would die. The boy agreed to clear the mines in the meadows for a generous meal. Although I meant service. He made land mines from neutralized charges and single-handedly waged a “mine war” with the enemy. So the detachment got its own demolitionist, who, with the light hand of someone who read “Schweik,” was dubbed Sapper Vodichka. And while other detachments were still watching and their main task was basic survival, Kovpak was smashing the enemy with all his might.

Grandfather, as the partisans called him, was lucky with personnel. On October 17, his detachment linked up with Semyon Rudnev’s group. An extraordinary figure, many believe that without him, the Kovpak connection would never have become such a powerful force. A career military man, with the Military-Political Academy behind him, experience in commanding large military formations, on his chest - the Order of the Red Star, received back in 1936 in the Far East. Becoming, trained, disciplined, even in the forest always in military uniform and clean shaven. The complete opposite of the bald Grandfather with his teeth eaten away from his worn civilian jacket, but at the same time a complement. And, of course, the ability to understand people is no worse than Kovpakov’s. It seems more logical for him, an officer, to take command of the united detachment. However, he himself proposed: you, Sidor Artemyevich, command as you commanded, and I will be your commissar. That's what they decided on.

And two days later - a new luck. Kovpak and Rudnev invited the leaders of small detachments operating individually to a meeting to convince them to beat the fascists together. The meeting was interrupted by Nazi tanks. The Kovpakovskys did not flinch, quickly organized a response, and mined the way back. As a result, one tank was blown up while retreating, the other circled through the forest until it got stuck in a swamp. The guests were amazed by such dexterity, and without talking they stood up to Grandfather under arms.

At Headquarters they learned about Kovpak after his first raid - from the Sumy region to the Bryansk region. We walked along the German rear, entered villages in formation, singing Soviet songs. The people were amazed that the Red Army was still alive, even in such an unusual form. Many who could hold weapons joined the detachment. With his outlandish for Russia carts with Magyar, German, Romanian tents, he resembled a gypsy camp, later wrote in his famous novel “People with a Clear Conscience” by an employee of the intelligence department of the Bryansk Front, Pyotr Vershigora, who became Kovpak’s deputy for intelligence, and after his illness at the end In 1943 he headed the formation.

“At all the intersections there were heavy machine guns and mortars of the most diverse systems and armies,” recalls Vershigora, “the sentries at the outposts smoked aromatic tobacco or cigars, contemptuously spitting through their lips and looking condescendingly at the local partisans. In a word, before I even reached Kovpak, in this region so remote from the Dnieper plains, I felt the native smell of Ukraine, the aroma of the Zaporozhye Sich, as if revived from centuries.”

For this raid, Kovpak was awarded the first Hero Star, while Rudnev was given the Order of the Badge of Honor. The news of this found them on their next trip - back to the Sumy region. They say that Kovpak was not too happy about the award, but ordered to repel Stalin: “My commissar is not a milkmaid to be awarded the Badge of Honor.” The radio operator replied “yes,” but wisely did not send such a radiogram.

Grandfather ironed Hitler’s rear areas several times with his raids. The number of his unit grew to 2000 people, and it had its own artillery. The guns from the mainland were delivered by plane to pilots from the air regiment of the famous Valentina Grizodubova. At the end of 1942, Kovpak made another march - to Right Bank Ukraine. The main success was the undermining of the large railway junction of Sarny, which went down in history as Operation Sarny Cross. On the night of December 5, five railway bridges around the station were simultaneously blown up, which paralyzed its work for at least half a month. The supply of German troops was interrupted during the battle of Stalingrad.

But the most notorious was the Carpathian raid, which lasted from June 12 to October 1, 1943. Kovpak received the task personally from the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. “Oh, comrade Stalin has a strong hand, boys,” Grandfather loved to tell about the meeting in the Kremlin in the evenings around the fire. The partisans fought more than 2,000 km, blew up 19 military trains, 52 bridges, 51 warehouses, and several power plants. Particular emphasis was placed on oil fields: 10 oil rigs, 13 oil storage facilities with 2,290 tons of oil, 3 oil refineries, and an oil pipeline near the village of Bystritsa were liquidated. The destruction of the railway junction in Ternopol significantly complicated the transfer of troops to Kursk - four days before the battle of Prokhorovka. From 3,000 to 5,000 German soldiers and officers were destroyed.

The fame of Kovpak reached Hitler. The partisans found out about this when they discovered a secret document on the captured officer, signed by Himmler and stamped “on the personal instructions of the Fuhrer.” The Reichsführer, who arrived in Western Ukraine, gave the troops the order to defeat Kovpak’s detachment at all costs and personally led the operation. Regular jäger units were deployed against the partisans, and the SS cavalry division Florian Geier was transferred from the Eastern Front. It was hard. In one of the battles, Commissioner Rudnev was killed, and a few days later, near the town of Kolomyia, his 19-year-old son was seriously wounded. The bloodied guy was picked up on the battlefield by a local Ukrainian family and nursed for several days, but the wound turned out to be fatal. There is no need to say what would await these people if the Germans found out about their attempt to save the young partisan. It would seem that these were the most Bandera places, but the majority of the local population supported the Soviet detachment, and not the “independents” who had allied themselves with the Nazis. And in the formation itself, by the way, there were about the same number of Ukrainians as Russians. With huge losses, breaking into small groups, the detachment broke out of the encirclement. Grandfather himself was seriously wounded, and at the end of 1943 he was sent for treatment...

After the war, he lived in Kyiv and was a member of the Presidium of the Supreme Court of Ukraine. He died in 1967, at the age of 80, surrounded by honor and respect. His memory is immortalized in the names of streets, schools, films and books. A true hero of Ukraine, Taras Bulba of our time.

After perestroika in the “independent” era, another raid began to gain strength - this time against the memory of the hero. He was declared not a commander, but a screen for the Moscow security officers - they say, a semi-literate peasant son could not lead such a large formation. Posthumously they drove a wedge between him and Rudnev: they accused him of organizing the murder of the commissar because he allegedly treated Ukrainian nationalists with understanding. There is no evidence of this; the surviving participants in the events refuted the slander in court. The nature of Rudnev's wounds indicates that they were received in battle. Nevertheless, now in Ukraine this lie is presented as a fact, even in university history courses. As for the attitude towards the UPA (Ukrainian Insurgent Army), just read the commissar’s diary: “The commander of the reconnaissance group... reported that he fought with the nationalists for 40 minutes, there were two soldiers killed, and the ammunition was running out. There are a lot of nationalists... Well, bastards, the challenge has been thrown - we accept it.” So if there were no major clashes with the “drunks,” as Rudnev called them, then it is a matter of tactics - not to get involved in minor skirmishes when you are faced with a much larger task.

The summer of 2013 marked the 70th anniversary of the Carpathian raid. The communists of Ukraine proposed to celebrate this significant date, but the Verkhovna Rada did not support the idea. And in November the Maidan began. The descendants of Bandera's followers rushed to take revenge on Grandfather. A memorial plaque in Yaremche was demonstratively destroyed. How can one not recall the words from the commissar’s diary: “Well, bastards, a challenge has been thrown...” He was received in Novorossiya - and they responded. Yes, so much so that it doesn’t seem a little.

Petr Petrovich Vershigora. "People with a clear conscience" (compendium)
http://lib.ru/MEMUARY/WERSHIGORA/kovpak.txt

October 42: Kovpak at the head of a large detachment of approx. thousand people set out from the Oryol forests to the rear of the Germans with the task of settling in Western Ukraine. Mainly in Volyn: “Transferring the experience of large partisan detachments from the Bryansk forests to the right bank of the Dnieper, Polesie, Kiev region, Rivne region and Zhytomyr region - this was the political goal of the raid; during the raid, attacks were made on military-industrial facilities and communications centers enemy - it was a military target." The main military goal, apparently: to hang over Kiev, settling on the impact of the Zhitomir and Rivne regions.

At the same time, Keimakh was attacking Minsk and Baranovichi. Linkov generally created a sabotage network of a strategic level in Belarus, mainly in Western Russia, and received a powerful communications center. Brinsky performed near Kovel in November. Medvedev had already settled near Sarny-Rovno in November. Kovpak-Saburov brought with them approximately the same manpower to control the territory that he convened near Lepel in the summer of 42. Lobanok. Then, similarly, the TsShPD created a mass partisan in the presence of professional saboteurs of the Republic of Uzbekistan everywhere. Without mass detachments that controlled large territories, saboteurs were ineffective.

Volyn was quite realistic in the autumn of 1942. - turn the spring of 43 into the same serious almost continuous partisan zone that Pinsk and Brest Polesie and the Alibok Forest became.

This means that Kovpak and Saburov went to the rear of the Germans through an analogue of the Surazh Gate in the Bryansk region. Polesie was essentially clean from the Germans. The detachment walked without any problems. The enemy is mostly collaborators. The Dnieper was crossed approximately on November 7, 1942, capturing the city of Loev, Gomel region. BSSR. In Loev we met with a similar detachment of Saburov.

Saburov also, around October, left the Bryansk forests behind the Germans, walking a parallel route and also with the goal of gaining a foothold in Polesie and Volyn. The detachments insured each other both during the raid and, apparently, in terms of completing the task at the place where they were moving.

On November 19, both detachments (only Kovpak?) crossed Pripyat. End of November - in the Lelchitsy area, close to Linkov’s base: “On the night of November 27, along a good sled road, we moved in the direction of Lelchitsy. The operation was designed to completely encircle and destroy the enemy, who from Lelchitsy had entangled this entire large area with its tentacles.” 27.11 The Lelchitsa garrison was defeated and the city was taken.

“Having defeated Lelchitsy, we cleared the way for the creation of a partisan region in the middle Pripyat basin. At the same time, Saburov defeated Slovechno, thereby expanding the emerging partisan region to the south. Thus, the vast territory south of Mozyr and Pinsk was free from German garrisons. For now. only the dotted outline of the partisan region promised to be several times larger than Bryansk both in territory and in terms of coverage of enemy communications.
At first the Germans apparently did not attach much importance to this. And only a month later, when the newly formed partisan region made itself felt, the Nazis came to their senses and began to take action. But it was already too late.
The partisan region that Rudnev dreamed of had already been created...
Having dealt with the Germans in Lelchitsy, we settled to the southwest - in the villages of Glushkevichi, Pribylovichi, Kopische.
The headquarters and the first battalion were established in Glushkevichi, the second and third in Kopischi, and the fourth battalion in Pribilovichi.
We stood there for about a month. "

Yeah, after Lelchitsy, that means they decided to immediately take all the way to Sarny: “In those days we were fascinated by the idea of ​​​​destroying the Sarny railway junction, and we had no time for Turov.” Wow. This is the paralysis of an entire important railway in the rear of the German army fighting at Stalingrad.

Yeah: the boundaries of the task at hand, the partisan region being created: “On the table, in the hut of Kovpak’s headquarters, is a map of Right Bank Ukraine. In the north are the forests and swamps of the Pripyat Basin. In the south are the steppes. The new partisan, which appeared on Stalin’s orders, is already indicated on the map with homemade marks region. The railroads stretch like black veins. Junctions: Sarny, Shepetovka, Fastov, Zhmerinka..."

Wow...

So, first they decided to blow up all the bridges around the sarns. along all 4 railway lines (wow). Blew up:
"It was on the night from the fourth to the fifth of December 1942. That night, one and a half thousand kilometers east of us, the troops of the Red Army near Stalingrad completed the encirclement of the armies of Paulus. And the “Sarn Cross” was all possible help from the Kovpak partisans of the heroic Red Army An army that has now begun a turning path to great victories.
The next day the companies returned, and from their reports we were finally convinced that the job was completely successful. The black tentacles of the railways were cut off on all sides, and one even cut off twice. It was clear that the fat “spider” would wither away for a long time.”

Then - defensive battles at the end of December 42. against the Germans. The partisan region was preserved. Although they no longer tried to take Sarny.

“We left Tonezh with the intention of going north in search of a landing site for planes, which we desperately needed. In the area of ​​the Pinsk swamps and huge forests, the ice field of the lake was the only flat place capable of receiving huge machines flying towards us directly from Moscow On the night of January 1, 1943, we stopped on the Turov-David-Gorodok highway, in the village of Olshany and other villages."

Ha! And here comes Linkov! Where would we be without him? Which means all attacks are coordinated and controlled from the center. if it goes well and professionally. In fact, Linkov’s airfield saved the entire partisan region of Kovpak. And the entire partisan group hanging over Sarny, the entire order of Comrade Stalin to create a partisan region...

“Together with Bazyma and me, they began to discuss whether it was worth going into a military operation on David-Gorodok at night or not. Commissioner
was inclined to move north without stopping and quickly equip an airfield for receiving aircraft. Kovpak wanted to “touch” David-Gorodok. I hadn’t paid much attention to Semenisty’s conversation on the phone before, but then I remembered about it and told Kovpak. The grandfather became furious and ordered to call a scout. He questioned him and scolded him for a long time, and then attacked me. Indeed, this conversation disrupted all the commander’s plans.

Essentially, the Germans were warned about our proximity, and, without realizing it, the boy blurted out our plans. We had to abandon the plan, and we spent New Year's Eve on the march. At dawn we went to Pripyat, and then, crossing the Kalinkovichi - Luninets railway, we found ourselves in the area Prince of Lakes."

Well, this is Vershigora bragging and nicely hiding the role of the GRU in saving the Kovpaks. The airfield on Prince Lake in its various forms has existed since August 42, when Linkov was relocated here from near Lepel. Mainly in the form of a drop point for cargo and paratroopers. But the choice of location itself was determined precisely by the task of having an airfield here. This means that the raid to create the largest partisan region behind German lines in eastern Volyn (right-bank Ukraine) ended at the base of comrade. Linkova. Nah...

“On January 1, 1943, we crossed Pripyat. Burdened with wounded, we went north to the large lake Chervonnaya, or Prince Lake, as the locals called it.
We decided to receive planes on the ice of this lake.
Thus ended this great raid."

In June-July of this year we will celebrate the 70th anniversary of the brilliant Carpathian raid of the partisan unit led by Sidor Artemyevich Kovpak.

The Ukrainian headquarters of the partisan movement (USHPD) at one time described this raid as “the most brilliant” of all that were carried out by Ukrainian partisans during the war years. American historian Walter Ze"ev Laqueur will call the Carpathian raid the "most impressive" partisan operation of 1942-1943. The campaign of the Kovpak unit deep behind enemy lines is still being studied by specialists in guerrilla warfare, and military historians are showing great interest in it all over the world.

Unfortunately, Ukraine will not adequately celebrate this glorious anniversary at the state level. I believe a lot was spent on the recent event “To Europe without Nazis!” These funds would be more than enough for a truly anti-fascist action - to mark the 70th anniversary of the legendary partisan raid deep behind enemy lines.

The authors (V. Babich, P. Tsibenko, O. Levchenko - all Communists) proposed to recommend to the Cabinet of Ministers to create an organ committee for the preparation and conduct of events dedicated to the anniversary of the Carpathian raid, “including up to the second level representatives of the central and local authorities of the royal government, local authorities self-government, enormity and veterans of the war and the underground partisan movement.”

The State Committee for Television and Radio Broadcasting was asked to provide “broad coverage in the methods of mass information access, which is carried out in connection with the assignments of the 70-River Carpathian raid of the partisan unit of Sidor Kovpak and organize thematic television and radio broadcasts, publications of documents and materials related to the military - the patriotic activities of the partisan unit Sidor Kovpak, as well as the participation in the mass media of historians, politicians, military, local self-government bodies and It is clear that other workers are of the same opinion.”

Finally, the state enterprise Ukrposhta was asked to publish a series of postage stamps dedicated to the glorious anniversary.

However, there were not enough parliamentary votes in support of the resolution - only 211 were in favor. At the same time, in the Party of Regions faction, 12 deputies were absent, and for some reason 23 did not vote. It is not difficult to calculate that even half of these 35 votes of the “regionals” would be enough for this resolution to gain legal force.

At the insistence of the Communist Party faction, an attempt was made to return to consideration of this issue. Alas, here the voting results were even more depressing: 187 “for”. In the Party of Regions, 11 were absent and 43 did not vote.

But this vote took place just 3 days after large-scale “anti-fascist” actions organized by the Party of Regions. It would seem that here the anti-fascists would have their cards in hand - such an opportunity to deliver a historical blow to the brown plague through events at the state level in connection with the 70th anniversary of the partisan feat. But... Such an indifferent attitude towards the memory of anti-fascist heroes once again demonstrates what “anti-fascist” rhetoric is for the party in power - PR and political technologies.

Unfortunately, nothing of the kind happened. Either the initiative did not reach the head of state, or Viktor Fedorovich is busy with much more important matters - for example, developing plans for a campaign to Europe “without fascists.”

It is very indicative with what rage the Svoboda faction voted against this resolution. As a rule, deputies who do not support a particular bill simply do not vote. But in this case, all 36 Svoboda members voted “against”. Which, I believe, once again demonstrated whose spiritual heirs they are. However, this is also an argument in favor of all real - and not declarative - anti-fascists ensuring with their votes that events are held in honor of the partisans of the Kovpak formation. Moreover, as we remember, during their “anti-fascist” actions, representatives of the party in power often recalled Svoboda as the main carrier of neo-Nazi ideology.

2000 km in 100 days behind enemy lines

Map of the Carpathian roadstead

The Sumy partisan unit set out on the legendary raid on June 12, 1943 from the territory of the Zhitomir region (from the village of Milosevichy, on the Ukrainian-Belarusian border), about a month before the start of the Battle of Kursk. In total there are over one and a half thousand fighters. In his diary, Sidor Artemyevich Kovpak even indicates the national composition of those who went to the Carpathian raid: Russians - 684, Ukrainians - 598, Belarusians - 405, other nationalities - 197, non-subjects of the USSR - 19. The Kovpakovites were tasked with striking at the enemy’s rear communications and organizing sabotage in the oil fields of Galicia.

__________________________
1 Guerrilla war in Ukraine. Diaries of commanders of partisan detachments and formations. 1941-1944. - M.: Tsentrpoligraf, 2010.

On June 20, Kovpak’s unit will come into contact with the detachment of another famous partisan commander, Dmitry Medvedev. The meeting will be accompanied by an incident: Kovpakovites and Medvedevites mistook each other for Nazis and opened fire. In the future, the “Winners” - a detachment commanded by Hero of the Soviet Union Medvedev - will provide all possible assistance to Kovpak’s unit, primarily with intelligence data. In his diary, Kovpak even mentions the legendary Soviet intelligence officer Nikolai Kuznetsov (although he does not name his last name, obviously, it was unknown to him): “Medvedev’s representative, who works as a t(ain) a(gent) in Rivne as a guard officer, has 2 crosses and several wounds, received permission to meet with Koch. Koch asked how things were at the front, the mood of the soldiers, why he received crosses, etc. The generals who were present at this conversation listened to our man’s lies, and then shook his hands. He spoke pure German, and the brilliance of his appearance could be the envy of any German officer.”

On June 21, the Kovpakov troops crossed the Sluch River. On the night of June 24-25, the formation crossed the Kostopol-Alexandria highway and the Sarny-Rivne railway at the Gura-Kamenka crossing. All transitions are accompanied by sabotage of enemy communications.

It should be noted that every crossing of a railway or highway, crossing a river is an extremely dangerous and difficult event for a partisan column up to 10 km long! But thanks to his vast experience in partisan warfare, including leadership of large partisan formations, Kovpak manages to lead his ten-kilometer columns under the nose of the enemy.

The Sumy partisan unit enters the Carpathian raid. Summer 1943

When hiking, don’t be afraid to make a detour

Sidor Kovpak

In the book of memoirs “From Putivl to the Carpathians,” Sidor Artemyevich will explain the secret of his success: “Coming out of the forests and swamps of southern Polesie into the fields of Western Ukraine, we had to go through three regions - Rivne, Tarnopol and Stanislav, cross several large rivers, cross up to a dozen railways. Can a partisan column stretching 8-10 kilometers along the road make such a march secretly without being detected?

__________________________
2 Kovpak S. A. From Putivl to the Carpathians. - M.: Military Publishing House NKO USSR, 1945.

During our maneuvering operations, we gradually developed our own iron laws of partisan marching. Go on a hike after dark, and during daylight rest in the forest or in remote villages. Know everything that is happening far ahead and to the sides. Do not walk for a long time in one direction, prefer roundabout roads to straight roads, and do not be afraid to make a hook or loop. When passing by large enemy garrisons, protect yourself from them with barriers. Destroy small garrisons, outposts, and ambushes without leaving a trace. Do not, under any circumstances, disturb the formation of the movement, do not leave anyone from the ranks. Always be prepared so that two minutes after the enemy appears, the marching column can take up a perimeter defense and open fire to kill from all types of weapons. Some guns move to positions, while others fire directly from the road. The main forces move along remote country roads, paths, roads that are known only to local residents, and sabotage groups go out onto highways and railway lines, closing them to the enemy - tearing bridges, rails, wires, derailing trains. Where the partisan column marches at night there is silence, but far around everything thunders and burns.”

On June 29, the connection crosses the Lutsk-Zdolbunov railway. “In order to prevent a train with manpower and avoid a battle when crossing a railway road with a convoy, I am sending sabotage groups to the right and left of the crossing, which at 23.00 must at all costs mine both railway tracks )d (road) canvas,” Kovpak writes in his diary. The proximity of the capital of the Reichskommissariat (which, as you know, was the city of Rivne) - in the event of the discovery of a partisan detachment - made it possible for the Nazis to quickly raise their forces. Therefore, exceptional caution and maximum coherence in the actions of the fighters were required. At 23.15, writes Kovpak, two explosions were heard to the west of the crossing, and at 23.25 explosions were heard from the east (from the crossing). Result: “5 echelons lowered. When the column had already passed 2-3 km from the crossing, and the tail of the column, having crossed the road, covered the trail of the convoy with a cut birch tree, which was carried by a pair of oxen, two trains were burning on the road in the dark, shells and bombs were cracking.”

June 30 is another difficult transition: the Rivne-Lviv-Przemysl railway. The formation had to make a march of 57 km. “The people didn’t have a good rest. But the mood is good. The road is slippery, clayey, endless ups and downs over hills and valleys, but no one complains. Today they are going particularly well."- Kovpak will note.

On July 6, the partisan unit entered Galicia. In the border villages, small German garrisons basically simply scatter when the Kovpaks approach. Those whom the partisans manage to take by surprise are routed. “After the defeat of the town of Skalat, they made a long march of up to 45 km and stopped in the district of Lysa Gora for a day,” Sidor Kovpak writes in his diary on July 9.

Realizing that a large partisan detachment was operating in the fascist rear, the Nazis increased pressure on the partisan unit. On July 13, German aviation was already sent against the Kovpaks, which “fired and bombed” the partisans. 5 people were injured. But the raid continues.

On July 15, the connection crosses two railways (Stanislav - Ternopil and Stanislav - Lvov), and on the night of July 16 it crosses the Dniester River. “It was necessary to cross the Dniester and approach the oil rigs of Drohobych before the Germans organized their defense and concentrated superior forces against the partisans who had broken through into the mountains,” Kovpak wrote in the book “From Putivl to the Carpathians.” A bridge north of Galich was chosen to cross the Dniester. In a sudden and daring night assault, the bridge guards were taken by surprise and destroyed: “On the dark night of July 15, Lenkin’s cavalry secretly approached the bridge near the village of Sivki, north of Galich. With a cry of “hurray,” the horsemen who emerged from the darkness fell like lava on the stunned guards, and they were cut down before they could open fire. By morning, the partisan formation was already on the other side of the Dniester” (ibid.). At the same time, the railways were mined in such a way “that passing trains would explode in the morning,” Kovpak writes in his diary, “and the bridge across the Dniester River was blown up and burned after the passage of the partisans.

Sidor Artemyevich Kovpak bids farewell to the partisans

Learning the art of maneuver

Semyon Rudnev

Having crossed the Dniester, the partisan unit entered the mountains, in which it had no experience of combat operations. Sidor Kovpak admits this to himself (in his diary). Commissioner Rudnev notes the same thing in his notes.

__________________________
3 Guerrilla war in Ukraine. Diaries of commanders of partisan detachments and formations. 1941-1944. - M.: Tsentrpoligraf, 2010.

Almost immediately after entering the mountains, the connection was blocked by the Germans. Subsequently, Kovpak and his fighters will repeatedly fall into the “bags” (at least 20 times!), but time after time the partisans, along the way learning the art of maneuver in the mountains, will break through the encirclement, without forgetting to carry out the sabotage tasks assigned to them .

On July 19, the formation crosses the last transverse road before the Carpathians and takes the village of Rossulna by storm. “The Krauts in their underwear jumped out of the windows and, shooting back as they went, left the village,- Kovpak will write in his diary. — As a result of a 2.5-hour battle, the enemy fled, leaving the regimental headquarters with documents and many vehicles and killed soldiers and officers. Trophies were taken: four 75-mm cannons, about 40 vehicles, 5 passenger cars, 1 staff bus, mortars, machine guns and many other weapons.”

July 20 was the most productive day during the Carpathian raid of the Kovpak unit - the Galician oil fields, which were actively used by the Nazis to supply fuel to their war machine, were destroyed. It is especially important that this happened at the height of the Battle of Kursk, in which Hitler relied on armored forces, the combat effectiveness of which, as is known, depends on the supply of fuel and lubricants.

“On the night of July 20, all our battalions sent demolition groups under the cover of machine gunners to destroy oil fields. The flames of fires illuminated the slopes of the Carpathian Mountains. Partisans love the night, silence, but here even at night it was as bright as day, and there was such a crackling sound all around from the burning oil, the air trembled so much that we couldn’t hear the roar of the engines of the German planes, which gave us no rest even at night. The enemy rushed from place to place, but could not stop us. We attacked all areas simultaneously,”— Kovpak will remember in his memoirs “From Putivl to the Carpathians.”

The sabotage groups of the Kovpak compound landed oil rigs and oil refineries into the air. On July 20 alone, 32 oil rigs were blown up, over 600 tons of oil were burned, two oil pumping stations and a laboratory were destroyed.

On July 29, 1943, the following entry appears in Kovpak’s diary: “The enemy launched an offensive, closed all the passages and exits of the detachments due to our inexperience, (cut) us off from the food base. Three Magyar regiments, the 13th, 14th, 23rd regiments of the Germans, one battalion of Belgians and one battalion of Caucasian prisoners of war took part in the offensive against us. Ten aircraft supported the advance. For 30 km, the enemy occupied dominant heights and roads. The battle ended in our favor, and the enemy, who had contact with us, fled under the pressure of infantry and artillery. He ordered the artillery to be blown up and an exit through the mountains without roads. When going off-road, we lost up to 100 horses.”

From July 29 to August 3, the formation maneuvers in the mountains, trying to escape from encirclement. A decision is made to storm Delyatin, the capture of which opened the way to the crossing of the Prut. Further along the valley of this river it was supposed to go east. Some (for example, the then intelligence chief of the formation P.P. Vershigora) attribute the authorship of this plan to Commissar Rudnev.

The surprise attack on Delyatyn on the night of August 4 was successful. “The defeat of Delyatyn, 4 highways and 3 railway bridges and 40 vehicles with manpower and ammunition were destroyed. After entering the Carpathians, in Delyatyn, for the first time, soldiers, commanders and political workers ate bread,” Kovpak writes in his diary. He decides to split the formation into 7 groups, “of which 6 are combat groups and one is passive, with the wounded, which he sent into the depths of a large forest.”

to be continued....

However, many researchers do not share this point of view.

So, according to Michael Florinsky, the main task of the Carpathian raid, like other partisan raids of 1943-1944, was still to create a sense of the “omnipresence” of Soviet power, and its constant presence even in the territories occupied by the Nazis, and in addition to remind of the inevitable the return of communists to these lands and the inevitable punishment of all accomplices and assistants of the fascists. Also, the Soviet partisans were entrusted with the task of giving battle to the fascist minions, which they did in full.

An Argentine scholar of the Soviet partisan movement, Enrique Martínez Codo, suggests that in addition to capturing oil fields, the guerrillas' missions included moving west to make contact with the communist partisans of Slovakia, and further south with Marshal Tito's Red partisans.

According to Ukrainian journalist Yuriy Sandul, sabotage in oil fields, studying the situation in occupied Western Ukraine, demonstrating Soviet power to its residents - all this was Kovpak’s secondary task. The main thing is to come to the Carpathians and stay there. Create a partisan region in the mountains, prepare a base for other partisan formations to come there.

Progress of the raid

The beginning of the Carpathian raid of the partisan unit of Sidor Kovpak can be indicated literally down to the hour - on June 12, 1943, 18:00, 1517 fighters set off from the village of Milosevichy on the Ukrainian-Belarusian border (north of the Zhytomyr region) to the Carpathians. The artillery of the formation consisted of two and five 45-mm cannons, several mortars of different calibers. The partisans' carts were overloaded with explosives and ammunition, the convoy stretched along the road for 8-10 kilometers, moving only at night, along non-main, abandoned roads. A barrier was set up opposite each large garrison (small garrisons were destroyed), sabotage groups continuously committed sabotage far from the convoy (outside its path), drawing the enemy’s attention to themselves.

The headquarters (while discussing the idea of ​​Commissar Rudnev) made a decision to storm the city of Delyatin, the capture of which opened the way to the crossing of the Prut River in order to go east through the valley of this river. The partisan attack on Delyatin on the night of August 4 was successful and led to the destruction of 4 highway and 3 railway bridges. Kovpak in his report estimated enemy losses at 500 soldiers and officers, 1 tank, 1 armored vehicle, 85 cars, 3 motorcycles. For the first time in many days, people ate bread and stocked up on food. The success of the formation's escape from encirclement greatly depended on the capture and retention of the crossing over the Prut. The vanguard, led by Commissar Rudnev, managed to capture the bridge across the river. The Germans, trying to prevent the partisans from breaking out of the encirclement, began to transfer additional forces to Delyatin in convoys. The partisan vanguard of Rudnev ran into a convoy of a German mountain rifle regiment moving from Kolomyia to Delyatin near the village of Belye Oslavy. Commissioner Rudnev made the fatal decision to give a counter battle and died with most of the detachment. In 1946, on instructions from the Ukrainian government, an expedition was sent to the Carpathians to find out the fate of Commissioner Rudnev. It also included P. Vershigora. In his book, he will report on the results of the search: “On Mount Dil and in the Dilok tract we found the graves of those killed in the Delyatino battle. 72 of our comrades remained there forever.” Rudnev’s corpse was also found there.

Later, Kovpak decided to divide the formation into 7 groups, “of which 6 were combat groups and one was passive, with the wounded, which he sent into the depths of a large forest.” From Kovpak’s report: “Putivl partisan detachment into three groups, Glukhovsky, Shalyginsky and Krolevetsky partisan detachments in detachments and a medical unit under the cover of the 10th company of the Putivl partisan detachment.” ... From August 6 to October 1, the unit moved in groups, having almost no communication between groups, despite the fact that each group was assigned a walkie-talkie. Obviously, technically, our radio installation is not capable of fully providing communication at any distance. Each group individually walked 700-800 kilometers independently along an independent route dictated by the situation. ... Some groups passed secretly, evading battles, while others, stronger ones, distracted the enemy. This gives the remaining groups the opportunity to safely pass through the most enemy-saturated areas.”

Upon returning from the Carpathian raid, Kovpak, in order to break away from the persecution of punitive forces, temporarily banned radio broadcasts altogether. They were resumed when the Germans lost track of the connection. In total, the partisans covered 2,000 km in 100 days behind enemy lines, sometimes covering up to 60 km per day.

The end date of the raid can be considered October 21, 1943. Then Kovpak signed his report on the raid for the Ukrainian Headquarters of the Partisan Movement (USHPD), in which he indicated that the lack of topographic maps greatly hampered the entire raid: “Such a “trifle” as topographic maps, which the Ukrainian Headquarters of the Partisan Movement did not bother to supply the units with, ruins big things. They promised to hand it over, but went into the raid without maps. The detachment did not immediately attack Borislav and Drohobych only because there was not a single map of this area ... "

A blow to the German-Hitler war machine

The potential threat from the raid into the Carpathians for the fascist German authorities was such that the 8th SS Cavalry Division “Florian Geier”, in full strength with equipment, was urgently transferred from the front to the places where the Kovpak partisans were supposed to appear. According to various estimates, during the raid, from 13 to 17 fascist garrisons were destroyed, 19 trains were derailed, 10 oil rigs, 13 oil storage tanks with 2290 tons of oil, 3 oil refineries, one oil pipeline (the village of Bystritsa) were blown up, and from three to five were killed thousands of German soldiers and officers, prisoners taken - 96. Also, the partisans disabled the Ternopil railway junction for a long time, significantly complicating the transfer of troops to Kursk, in the midst of the Battle of Kursk, four days before the Battle of Prokhorovka.

Raid ratings

According to the assessments of the party leadership of the republic and the Ukrainian headquarters of the partisan movement, the Carpathian raid turned out to be “the most brilliant raid of all committed by the partisans of Ukraine.”

In his study of the history of partisan warfare, American historian Walter Laqueur calls the Carpathian Raid the most impressive partisan operation of 1942-1943. According to the Canadian historian of Ukrainian origin Orest Subtelny, the Carpathian raid did not achieve its military goal - the destruction of the Carpathian oil fields, and the losses during the raid were also high, but the political, moral and psychological effect achieved was truly impressive.

German military historian Timm Richter calls the Carpathian raid of the Kovpak unit the most famous of all partisan raids of World War II.

As Canadian researcher Paul Magosi notes, Kovpak’s bold raid deep in the rear of the German troops “pushed” other partisan formations into armed action.

Memory

In the city of Yaremche, a monument was erected to the Soviet partisans who died during the raid. Activists of the Trizub society in the summer of 2013 damaged (scratched) the memorial plaque to Kovpak in Yaremche, allegedly “in response” to the actions of local communists (who, despite a ban from local authorities, held commemorative events on August 4, 2013 on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Carpathian raid under the leadership of Kovpak).

Reflection in culture and art

In poetry

One of the commanders of the partisan units, Platon Voronko, who became a famous Soviet poet after the war, published his first book of poems and songs “Carpathian Raid” in 1944, dedicated to the events and people of the famous partisan raid in the Carpathians.

In theatrical and cinematic productions

The final film by director Timofey Levchuk from the film trilogy “The Thought of Kovpak” - a three-part film called “Carpathians, Carpathians...” (1978), also shows the events of the Carpathian raid, where, thanks to Kovpak’s military skill and the courage of the partisans, the fascists’ attempts to encircle and destroy military formations fail partisan The role of Kovpak is played by People's Artist of the USSR Konstantin Stepankov.

Write a review about the article "Carpathian Raid"

Notes

Sources

1. Michael T. Florinsky. Partisan movement // McGraw-Hill encyclopedia of Russia and the Soviet Union (English). - McGraw-Hill, 1961. - P. 411. - 624 p.
2. Martínez Codó, Enrique. Capitulo I. El teatro de operaciones // Guerrillas tras la Cortina de Hierro (Spanish). - Buenos Aires: Ed. Ucranio, 1966. - P. 58.
3. Sandul Yu.// Newspaper in Ukrainian. - 12/26/2008. - No. 757.
4. .
5. Artemyev I. N. The air is getting crowded // . - M.: Military Publishing House, 1971. - P. 93. - 136 p. - (War memoirs). - 65 thousand, copies.
6. Reitlinger, Gerald. Chapter Seven. The Outlaws - The Partisans and the Jews // The House Built On Sand: The Conflicts of German Policy in Russia, 1939-1945 (English). - Viking Press, 1960. - Vol. 1. - P. 248. - 459 p.
7. (1944) “The Soviet Guerilla Movement (English).” USSR information bulletin(Embassy of USSR) 4 (1-74): 11.
8. Chapter IX. The Great Patriotic War (1941-1945) // A short history of Soviet society (English) / Edited by Y. Polyakov. - M.: Progress, 1977. - P. 378. - 661 p. - (Books about the USSR).
9. Laqueur, Walter. The Twentieth Century (II): Partisans against Hitler // . - Originally published in 1976. - New Brunswick, New Jersey: Seventh printing, 2009. - P. 211. - 462 p. - ISBN 978-0-7658-0406-8.
10. Subtelny, Orest. Twentieth Century Ukraine. During the Second World War // . - 4th. - Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press, 2000. - P. 476. - 736 p. - ISBN 0-8020-8390-0.
11. Richter, Tim C. 1.2 Von der sojetschen Gegenoffensive bei Moskau (05.12.1941) bis zum Unternehmen “Zitadelle” (05.07.1943) // . - Münster, DE: LIT Verlag Münster, 1998. - P. 14. - ISBN 3-8258-3680-0.
12. Magocsi, Paul Robert. Chapter 8: 1939-1944 // . - Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press, 1983. - P. 215. - 299 p. - ISBN 0-8020-2482-3.
13. Brief literary encyclopedia. - M.: Sov. encyclopedia, 1962. - T. I. - P. 1943.
14. Zorina G. G. Andrey Mikhailovich Lobanov: Documents, articles, memories. - M.: “Iskusstvo”, 1980. - P. 97. - 405 p.

Literature

• Vershigora P. P. Book two. Carpathian raid // . - K.: Political publishing house. Ukrainian literature, 1982. - 742 p. - (Memoirs). - 200 thousand, copies.

Guerrilla movement by regions of the USSR Partisan formations Partisan operations and raids Leaders and commanders partisan movement (Heroes of the Soviet Union) Partisan regions and zones Miscellaneous

An excerpt characterizing the Carpathian raid

- Why are you going? I know you think it is your duty to join the army now that the army is in danger. I understand that, mon cher, c"est de l"heroisme. [my dear, this is heroism.]
“Not at all,” said Prince Andrei.
- But you are un philoSophiee, [a philosopher,] be one completely, look at things from the other side, and you will see that your duty, on the contrary, is to take care of yourself. Leave it to others who are no longer fit for anything... You were not ordered to come back, and you were not released from here; therefore, you can stay and go with us, wherever our unfortunate fate takes us. They say they are going to Olmutz. And Olmutz is a very nice city. And you and I will ride together calmly in my stroller.
“Stop joking, Bilibin,” said Bolkonsky.
– I tell you sincerely and in a friendly manner. Judge. Where and why will you go now that you can stay here? One of two things awaits you (he gathered the skin above his left temple): either you don’t reach the army and peace will be concluded, or defeat and disgrace with the entire Kutuzov army.
And Bilibin loosened his skin, feeling that his dilemma was irrefutable.
“I can’t judge this,” Prince Andrei said coldly, but he thought: “I’m going in order to save the army.”
“Mon cher, vous etes un heros, [My dear, you are a hero,” said Bilibin.

That same night, having bowed to the Minister of War, Bolkonsky went to the army, not knowing where he would find it, and fearing on the way to Krems to be intercepted by the French.
In Brünn, the entire court population packed up, and the burdens were already sent to Olmütz. Near Etzelsdorf, Prince Andrei drove out onto the road along which the Russian army was moving with the greatest haste and in the greatest disorder. The road was so crowded with carts that it was impossible to travel in a carriage. Having taken a horse and a Cossack from the Cossack commander, Prince Andrei, hungry and tired, overtaking the carts, rode to find the commander-in-chief and his cart. The most ominous rumors about the position of the army reached him on the way, and the sight of the army randomly running confirmed these rumors.
“Cette armee russe que l"or de l"Angleterre a transportee, des extremites de l"univers, nous allons lui faire eprouver le meme sort (le sort de l"armee d"Ulm)", ["This Russian army, which English gold was brought here from the end of the world, will experience the same fate (the fate of the Ulm army).”] he recalled the words of Bonaparte’s order to his army before the start of the campaign, and these words equally aroused in him surprise at the brilliant hero, a feeling of offended pride and hope of glory. "What if there is nothing left but to die? he thought. Well, if necessary! I will do it no worse than others."
Prince Andrei looked with contempt at these endless, interfering teams, carts, parks, artillery and again carts, carts and carts of all possible types, overtaking one another and jamming the dirt road in three or four rows. From all sides, behind and in front, as long as one could hear one could hear the sounds of wheels, the rumble of bodies, carts and carriages, the clatter of horses, blows of a whip, shouts of urging, curses of soldiers, orderlies and officers. Along the edges of the road one could constantly see either fallen, skinned and unkempt horses, or broken carts, in which lonely soldiers were sitting, waiting for something, or soldiers separated from their teams, who were heading in crowds to neighboring villages or dragging chickens, sheep, hay or hay from the villages. bags filled with something.
On the descents and ascents the crowds became thicker, and there was a continuous groan of shouts. The soldiers, sinking knee-deep in mud, picked up guns and wagons in their hands; whips beat, hooves slid, lines burst and chests burst with screams. The officers in charge of the movement drove forward and backward between the convoys. Their voices were faintly audible amid the general roar, and it was clear from their faces that they despaired of being able to stop this disorder. “Voila le cher [“Here is the dear] Orthodox army,” thought Bolkonsky, remembering the words of Bilibin.
Wanting to ask one of these people where the commander-in-chief was, he drove up to the convoy. Directly opposite him was riding a strange, one-horse carriage, apparently constructed at home by soldiers, representing a middle ground between a cart, a convertible and a carriage. The carriage was driven by a soldier and sat under a leather top behind an apron, a woman, all tied with scarves. Prince Andrei arrived and had already addressed the soldier with a question when his attention was drawn to the desperate cries of a woman sitting in a tent. The officer in charge of the convoy beat the soldier, who was sitting as a coachman in this carriage, because he wanted to go around others, and the whip hit the apron of the carriage. The woman screamed shrilly. Seeing Prince Andrei, she leaned out from under her apron and, waving her thin arms that had jumped out from under the carpet scarf, shouted:
- Adjutant! Mr. Adjutant!... For God's sake... protect... What will this happen?... I am the doctor's wife of the 7th Jaeger... they won't let me in; we fell behind, lost our own...
- I’ll break you into a cake, wrap it up! - the embittered officer shouted at the soldier, - turn back with your whore.
- Mr. Adjutant, protect me. What is this? – the doctor shouted.
- Please let this cart pass. Can't you see that this is a woman? - said Prince Andrei, driving up to the officer.
The officer looked at him and, without answering, turned back to the soldier: “I’ll go around them... Back!...
“Let me through, I’m telling you,” Prince Andrei repeated again, pursing his lips.
- And who are you? - the officer suddenly turned to him with drunken fury. - Who are you? Are you (he especially emphasized you) the boss, or what? I'm the boss here, not you. “You go back,” he repeated, “I’ll smash you into a piece of cake.”
The officer apparently liked this expression.
“He shaved the adjutant seriously,” a voice was heard from behind.
Prince Andrei saw that the officer was in that drunken fit of causeless rage in which people do not remember what they say. He saw that his intercession for the doctor’s wife in the wagon was filled with what he feared most in the world, what is called ridicule [ridiculous], but his instinct said something else. Before the officer had time to finish his last words, Prince Andrei, his face disfigured from rage, rode up to him and raised his whip:
- Please let me in!
The officer waved his hand and hurriedly drove away.
“It’s all from them, from the staff, it’s all a mess,” he grumbled. - Do as you please.
Prince Andrei hastily, without raising his eyes, rode away from the doctor's wife, who called him a savior, and, recalling with disgust the smallest details of this humiliating scene, galloped further to the village where, as he was told, the commander-in-chief was located.
Having entered the village, he got off his horse and went to the first house with the intention of resting at least for a minute, eating something and bringing into clarity all these offensive thoughts that tormented him. “This is a crowd of scoundrels, not an army,” he thought, approaching the window of the first house, when a familiar voice called him by name.
He looked back. Nesvitsky’s handsome face poked out from a small window. Nesvitsky, chewing something with his juicy mouth and waving his arms, called him to him.
- Bolkonsky, Bolkonsky! Don't you hear, or what? “Go quickly,” he shouted.
Entering the house, Prince Andrei saw Nesvitsky and another adjutant eating something. They hastily turned to Bolkonsky asking if he knew anything new. On their faces, so familiar to him, Prince Andrei read an expression of anxiety and concern. This expression was especially noticeable on Nesvitsky’s always laughing face.
-Where is the commander-in-chief? – asked Bolkonsky.
“Here, in that house,” answered the adjutant.
- Well, is it true that there is peace and surrender? – asked Nesvitsky.
- I'm asking you. I don’t know anything except that I got to you by force.
- What about us, brother? Horror! “I’m sorry, brother, they laughed at Mak, but it’s even worse for us,” Nesvitsky said. - Well, sit down and eat something.
“Now, prince, you won’t find any carts or anything, and your Peter, God knows where,” said another adjutant.
-Where is the main apartment?
– We’ll spend the night in Tsnaim.
“And I loaded everything I needed onto two horses,” said Nesvitsky, “and they made me excellent packs.” At least escape through the Bohemian mountains. It's bad, brother. Are you really unwell, why are you shuddering like that? - Nesvitsky asked, noticing how Prince Andrei twitched, as if from touching a Leyden jar.
“Nothing,” answered Prince Andrei.
At that moment he remembered his recent clash with the doctor’s wife and the Furshtat officer.
-What is the commander-in-chief doing here? - he asked.
“I don’t understand anything,” said Nesvitsky.
“All I understand is that everything is disgusting, disgusting and disgusting,” said Prince Andrei and went to the house where the commander-in-chief stood.
Passing by Kutuzov's carriage, the tortured horses of the retinue and the Cossacks speaking loudly among themselves, Prince Andrei entered the entryway. Kutuzov himself, as Prince Andrei was told, was in the hut with Prince Bagration and Weyrother. Weyrother was an Austrian general who replaced the murdered Schmit. In the entryway little Kozlovsky was squatting in front of the clerk. The clerk on an inverted tub, turning up the cuffs of his uniform, hastily wrote. Kozlovsky’s face was exhausted - he, apparently, had not slept at night either. He looked at Prince Andrei and did not even nod his head to him.
– Second line... Wrote it? - he continued, dictating to the clerk, - Kiev Grenadier, Podolsk...
“You won’t have time, your honor,” the clerk answered disrespectfully and angrily, looking back at Kozlovsky.
At that time, Kutuzov’s animatedly dissatisfied voice was heard from behind the door, interrupted by another, unfamiliar voice. By the sound of these voices, by the inattention with which Kozlovsky looked at him, by the irreverence of the exhausted clerk, by the fact that the clerk and Kozlovsky were sitting so close to the commander-in-chief on the floor near the tub, and by the fact that the Cossacks holding the horses laughed loudly under window of the house - from all this, Prince Andrei felt that something important and unfortunate was about to happen.
Prince Andrei urgently turned to Kozlovsky with questions.
“Now, prince,” said Kozlovsky. – Disposition to Bagration.
-What about capitulation?
- There is none; orders for battle have been made.
Prince Andrei headed towards the door from behind which voices were heard. But just as he wanted to open the door, the voices in the room fell silent, the door opened of its own accord, and Kutuzov, with his aquiline nose on his plump face, appeared on the threshold.
Prince Andrei stood directly opposite Kutuzov; but from the expression of the commander-in-chief’s only seeing eye it was clear that thought and concern occupied him so much that it seemed to obscure his vision. He looked directly at the face of his adjutant and did not recognize him.
- Well, have you finished? – he turned to Kozlovsky.
- Right this second, Your Excellency.
Bagration, a short man with an oriental type of firm and motionless face, a dry, not yet old man, followed the commander-in-chief.
“I have the honor to appear,” Prince Andrei repeated quite loudly, handing over the envelope.
- Oh, from Vienna? Fine. After, after!
Kutuzov went out with Bagration onto the porch.
“Well, prince, goodbye,” he said to Bagration. - Christ is with you. I bless you for this great feat.
Kutuzov's face suddenly softened, and tears appeared in his eyes. He pulled Bagration to him with his left hand, and with his right hand, on which there was a ring, apparently crossed him with a familiar gesture and offered him a plump cheek, instead of which Bagration kissed him on the neck.
- Christ is with you! – Kutuzov repeated and walked up to the carriage. “Sit down with me,” he said to Bolkonsky.
– Your Excellency, I would like to be useful here. Let me stay in the detachment of Prince Bagration.
“Sit down,” said Kutuzov and, noticing that Bolkonsky was hesitating, “I need good officers myself, I need them myself.”
They got into the carriage and drove in silence for several minutes.
“There is still a lot ahead, there will be a lot of things,” he said with an senile expression of insight, as if he understood everything that was happening in Bolkonsky’s soul. “If one tenth of his detachment comes tomorrow, I will thank God,” added Kutuzov, as if speaking to himself.
Prince Andrei looked at Kutuzov, and he involuntarily caught his eye, half an arshin away from him, the cleanly washed assemblies of the scar on Kutuzov’s temple, where the Izmail bullet pierced his head, and his leaking eye. “Yes, he has the right to talk so calmly about the death of these people!” thought Bolkonsky.
“That’s why I ask you to send me to this detachment,” he said.
Kutuzov did not answer. He seemed to have already forgotten what he had said and sat thoughtful. Five minutes later, smoothly rocking on the soft springs of the stroller, Kutuzov turned to Prince Andrei. There was no trace of excitement on his face. With subtle mockery, he asked Prince Andrei about the details of his meeting with the emperor, about the reviews he had heard at court about the Kremlin affair, and about some common women he knew.

Kutuzov, through his spy, received news on November 1 that put the army he commanded in an almost hopeless situation. The scout reported that the French in huge numbers, having crossed the Vienna bridge, headed towards Kutuzov’s route of communication with the troops coming from Russia. If Kutuzov had decided to stay in Krems, then Napoleon’s army of one and a half thousand would have cut him off from all communications, surrounded his exhausted army of forty thousand, and he would have been in Mack’s position near Ulm. If Kutuzov had decided to leave the road that led to communications with troops from Russia, then he would have had to enter without a road into the unknown lands of the Bohemian
mountains, defending themselves from superior enemy forces, and abandoning all hope of communication with Buxhoeveden. If Kutuzov had decided to retreat along the road from Krems to Olmutz to join forces with troops from Russia, then he risked being warned on this road by the French who had crossed the bridge in Vienna, and thus being forced to accept battle on the march, with all the burdens and convoys, and dealing with an enemy three times his size and surrounding him on both sides.
Kutuzov chose this last exit.
The French, as the spy reported, having crossed the bridge in Vienna, were marching in an intensified march towards Znaim, which lay on Kutuzov’s retreat route, more than a hundred miles ahead of him. To reach Znaim before the French meant to have great hope of saving the army; to allow the French to warn themselves in Znaim would probably mean exposing the entire army to a disgrace similar to that of Ulm, or to general destruction. But it was impossible to warn the French with their entire army. The French road from Vienna to Znaim was shorter and better than the Russian road from Krems to Znaim.
On the night of receiving the news, Kutuzov sent Bagration’s four-thousand-strong vanguard to the right over the mountains from the Kremlin-Znaim road to the Vienna-Znaim road. Bagration had to go through this transition without rest, stop facing Vienna and back to Znaim, and if he managed to warn the French, he had to delay them as long as he could. Kutuzov himself, with all his hardships, set out for Znaim.