Tolbukhin, Marshal Fedor

Tolbukhin, Marshal Fedor (1894–1949),Red Army officer who served as a captain in the tsarist army. He did not join the Communist Party until 1938, and was rumoured to have a strong religious bent. In short, he was not the preferred type for Soviet high-level command, and his career most significantly exemplifies the dearth of fully competent leadership in the Soviet wartime forces.

In July 1942 he was deputy commandant of a rear area command, the Stalingrad military district, when the fighting suddenly arrived on its doorstep. He then commanded an army at Stalingrad and in the Soviet counter-offensive that followed, and in March 1943 he took over South front (army group), which became Fourth Ukrainian front later in the year. In May 1944, he moved to Third Ukrainian front, which he commanded in the August 1944– May 1945 march through the Danube Basin.

In September 1944, after Stalin refused to accept Bulgaria's surrender without an occupation, Tolbukhin took his armies into the country, and Stalin advanced him to Marshal of the Soviet Union to enhance his status vis-à-vis the British and American representatives on the Allied Control Commission for Bulgaria.

In March 1945, after participating in the nearly four-month battle for Budapest, his armies beat off a German counter-offensive in the Lake Balaton area and advanced on Vienna, which they occupied on 13 April. In July, Tolbukhin became the commander of Soviet forces in Romania and Bulgaria, staying on thereafter until January 1947, when peace treaties were signed and the Allied Control Commission was dissolved.

Earl Ziemke