Page 205 - The Chief Culprit

166 y e Chief Culprit

Army had five railroad brigades. Zhukov immediately increased this number to thirteen,
ten of them in the west of the country. Each brigade consisted of one regiment, two sepa-
rate battalions, and supply units. Almost all railroad troops were concentrated in the west-
ern border regions and worked intensively to modernize old railroads and build new ones
right up to the border. Some of the new railroad lines were: Proskurov—Ternopol—Lvov;
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Lvov—Iavorov—state border; Lvov—Peremyshl—state border; Timkovichi—Baranovichi;
Belovezha—Oranchitsa—state border. e names of some of these stations demonstrated
that the Soviet leadership regarded the border area as its own rear zone, where in the event of
a quick advance to the west the Soviet army would have to deliver millions of men, millions
of tons of ammunition, fuel, and other supplies.
Simultaneously with the construction of railroads, automobile roads were built in the
western regions (for example, Orsha—Lepel, Lvov—Peremyshl, Belaya Tserkov—Kazatin,
Minsk—Brest). What were those roads built for?
During preparations for a defensive war, roads parallel to the front line are laid down,
so that reserves could be moved from passive areas of defense to dangerous areas. ose
roads must not be near the border, but much deeper in the country, leaving the border
regions as clear of roads and bridges as possible. But the Red Army was building roads and
railroads from east to west, which was usually done when preparing for advance, for a quick
transfer of reserves from the depths of the country to the borders, and for further supplying
the troops after they crossed the borders. New roads led to border towns: Peremyshl, Brest,
Iavorov. Zhukov remembered: “ e web of automobile roads in Western Belorussia and
Western Ukraine was in poor condition. Many bridges could not hold the weight of the me-
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dium tanks and artillery.” Zhukov should have rejoiced at that fact. He should have com-
manded his men to covertly weaken the support beams on those bridges and thus lure the
attacking enemy to send his tanks to those weakened bridges, to their sure demise. Instead,
he built roads and replaced old bridges with new ones, so that any tank and any artillery
could pass through.
e official History of the Kiev Military District stated: “In early 1941, Hitler’s forces
began to build bridges, railroads, and field air bases.” Obviously, these were signs of prepara-
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tions for attack. e Soviet railroad forces were doing exactly the same: “Railroad troops in
Western Ukraine worked to develop and strengthen the railroads.” Railroad brigades, created
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by Zhukov’s order, completed a tremendous amount of work on the Soviet territory, but their
main job was planned to be on enemy territory: they had to follow the advancing army and
quickly get through the enemy’s security pale, repair enemy roads and bridges, and change
the European narrow gauge to the broad Soviet standard one. Right on the borders, they piled
huge reserves of railroad tracks, demountable bridges, construction materials, and coal.
In addition to the ten railroad brigades in the western regions, almost all the Soviet
engineering troops were concentrated along the western borders. Various construction units
and squads were active before the war in the border strip. e task was to prepare the “initial
points for attack, [the] foundation of passageways for columns, . . . operational and tactical
camouflage, organization of joint action in the storming groups with infantry and tanks;
[and] to provide the equipment for crossing rivers.”
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On the eve of the war, the USSR launched a gigantic campaign to modernize and
widen its road network in the western regions. All that work harmed the USSR very soon.