Bagramian's Progress

The fury of battle had died down. Now weary, haggard, bundle-laden refugees slipped out of the forests, bent into the icy wind and snow, plodded across the pitted battlefield. Before them lay Gorodok -- the "Little Town" -- charred, ruined, stinking of dead flesh and gunpowder.

A few miles to the south guns boomed. Day & night, Red cannon shelled Vitebsk, 15 miles away, and its "escape railway" to the west. From the city and the railroad came the dull, angry answer of German salvos. Things were going badly for the Wehrmacht, but it fought on. Vitebsk was a dam; it had to be held. Its fall would imperil the strongholds of White Russia --Orsha, Mogilev, Zhlobin, Polotsk -- perhaps lead to retreat beyond the prewar Polish border.

Tough Town. Small, sleepy Gorodok was one of the keys to Vitebsk. All through the summer the Germans fortified its approaches with steel, timber, concrete. They buried old tanks, to serve as pill boxes. They strung out miles of barbed wire, sowed the swamps with mines. They had hoped to stay in Gorodok a long, long time: the dugouts were large; the officers' quarters had hardwood floors.

To reduce Gorodok, the Red command used the new First Baltic Army, with its winter-trained Siberian regiments, which fought at Moscow, Stalingrad, the Don. It massed heavy artillery, tanks, planes. Then, in a heavy snowfall, the Siberians struck out from three directions.

The Red cannon pulverized enemy defenses. Despite wind and snow, the Red Air Force bombed and strafed the foe, special officers attached to each column directing the air attacks by radio. Soon panic spread through the German ranks. Their lines gave. Savage fighting boiled over into the streets of Gorodok. By 2 o'clock one afternoon last week, the German garrison--two infantry divisions, one tank division--gave up the battle. In Moscow, 124 cannon boomed a salute to victory.

Tough Non-Slav. The laurels went to an obscure Armenian, Ivan Christoforo-vich Bagramian. Army files in Moscow held little but Bagramian's dry record; Army men knew little of this Armenian, save that he was the only non-Slav to command a front.

When Hitler invaded Russia, Bagramian was a colonel. Five months later, tough Bagramian was a lieutenant general. He became tough Marshal Semion Timoshenko's Assistant Chief of Staff, tasted the bitterness of defeat, learned precious lessons.

What he had learned, Bagramian put to good use in the 1942-43 winter offensive, born in Stalingrad's ruins. At the head of "X Army," he fought last spring on the approaches to Kharkov, won the Order of Kutuzov, First Class. Still later, in the fields of yellowing grain near Kursk, he took part in the great and decisive summer battle, was promoted to colonel general, became one of the chosen few to wear the treasured Order of Suvorov, First Class. Six weeks ago--probably after he took over the First Baltic Army--he became a full general.

Tough Job. If Bagramian takes Vitebsk, he will rank with other Red greats: Konstantin Rokossovsky, now inching toward Vitebsk from the under side; Nikolai Vatutin, fighting in the Kiev bulge, 350 miles to the south; Stalin's pal, Ivan Konev, long stalemated in the Dnieper bend.

But Bagramian's job will not be easy. The German command has poured tanks, aircraft, armored trains into Vitebsk.

Many of the tanks at Vitebsk may have been shifted from the Kiev bulge, as earlier they had been rushed south to halt a Red push into the Dnieper bend. Now the Red command played its old, shrewd game of "dispersing punching." With the German strength in the Kiev bulge sapped to help other sectors, the Russians struck inside the bulge with all their strength.

Late last week, General Vatutin's army --estimated by the Germans at 150,000 men -- broke through on a 50-mile front, advanced 25 miles to the west, killed 15,000 Germans in three days. Before it lay an objective the Red command would love dearly to regain: Zhitomir, which Vatutin captured last November, lost to the Germans six days later. In Russian hands, Zhitomir as well as Vitebsk could well become a springboard for a jump onto the eastern ramparts of the once great Reich.

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