On July 25, immediately following the XX Army-Corps’ retreat, the 20th Rifle Corps, from the 28th Army under General Sjvarjev, attacked Brest from the north, while the 9th Rifle Guards Corps under General Khaluzin from the 61st Army attacked from the east, and the 114th Rifle Corps under General Rjabysjev from the 70th Army attacked from the south. Prior to July 27, the German defenders of the city were surrounded and cut off from the rest of the 2nd Army. During the night of July 27, General Felzmann gave the order to breakthrough towards the west. As a result, the Soviet units on the following morning were able occupy the abandoned city of Brest and, at the same time, encircle the fleeing Tactical Unit “E’” yet again, about ten kilometres east of Janów Podlaski. Given the prospect of General Felzmann’s entire force being annihilated, a rescue operation was carried out and an improvised Kampfgruppe from the 102nd Infantry-Division was sent in, strengthened by a number of companies from the 5th SS-Panzer-Division “Wiking.” Despite this, the Germans came to suffer considerable losses during the retreat and lose nearly all of their heavy battlefield equipment. General Scheller, among others, was captured.
At the same time, on July 28, after the battle for Brest had ebbed out and while intensive fighting for Siedlce raged on; STAVKA issued new orders to Marshal Rokossowski. Order nr. 220162 read as follows:
“After the seizure of Brest and Siedlce the attacks on the front’s right flank are to be expanded in the direction of Warsaw and the mission is to, no later than the 5th — 8th of August, seize Praga and occupy the bridge emplacement on the Narew’s western bank in the area around Pułtusk and Serock.
On the front’s left flank, the bridge emplacement on the Wisła’s western bank is to be seized in the area around Dęblin-Zwoleń-Solec. The seized bridge emplacements shall be used for attacking in a north-westerly direction and thereby neutralise the enemy’s resistance along the Narew and Wisła and thus guarantee the successful crossing of the Narew by the 2nd Belorussian Front’s left flank and likewise over the Wisla by those armies which are concentrated at the front’s central section. Thereafter, attacks shall be planned in the direction of Torún and Łódź.”
Given the situation which had arisen at the front during the last days of July, this was not an especially precise and/or logical order. Rokossovskij wanted to annihilate the 2nd Army sooner, namely, east of the Wisła’s central area, and the order to attack Warsaw with the right flank (the 28th Army) and, at the same time, seize the bridge emplacements along the Narew (the 48th and 65th Armies) sapped his enthusiasm. But as though this were not enough, in a couple of additional coded telegrams from Headquarters, he was ordered to withdraw from the front, and to send the 61st and 62nd Armies north. The headquarter staff of the 1st Belorussian Front sharply objected, not only to the suggested direction the attack would be launched in, but also from the perspective of having just these two particular Armies designated to carry out this order. Marshal Rokossovskij’s reasoning held that if two entire infantry armies were taken from him, his front would be dangerously weakened. In addition, the 2nd Tank Army’s left flank could not cross over the Wicca south of Warsaw as there was a shortage of transport possibilities for the tanks.
In this situation, Marshal Zjukov, who was responsible for co-ordinating operations between the 1st Belorussian Front and the 1st Ukrainian Front, carried out a number of medium-scale changes in the original order while still retaining its main intent. Firstly, the 70th Army would remain under the existing command structure. To the north, with respect to the planned new offensive against Latvia, only the 61st Army was sent. Secondly, the 2nd Tank Army was to continue on towards Warsaw, particularly looking to send its armoured corps against the rearguard of the German 2nd Army. On having reached the join of the Bug and Narew rivers, they would then operate as the western jaw of a pincer movement. Praga would be stormed, providing it was clear that the enemy’s defences were sufficiently weak. If the Germans managed to reinforce that part of the capital city with a larger numbers of troops, Radzjijevskij should await infantry reinforcements from the 47th Army. The most vital import of the directive from July 28 thus remained unchanged. The primary mission of the 1st Belorussian Front was to seize the two operational bridges north and south of Poland’s capital. It was exactly from this location that the coming offensives should be launched; offensives that would ultimately destroy the German defence along the Wisła and Narew rivers.
Zjukov knew that the Soviet summer offensive along the central sector of the eastern front would soon have to be slowed down. This was quite simply a requirement for implementing the masterly plan to launch the assault on not one, but rather several fronts, along with the incredible losses sustained in the fighting thus far. By the end of July, the Germans had already strengthened their positions in western Lithuania and across the Podlaski lowlands, and no reinforcements had subsequently arrived in the Baltic republics. Stalin demanded results on the front’s flanks — but, for the moment, was primarily concerned with the situation to the south, where the large-scale offensive against Rumania was to begin in about three weeks time. Not even the powerful Soviet Army could handle two such broadly pursued and geographically divided strategic offensives simultaneously (the problem was not rooted in the number of soldiers available but in the system which controlled how the soldiers were deployed and how provisions and equipment were distributed.) It was with these circumstances in mind that Zjukov ordered Rokossovskij to first seize the well-defended bridge emplacements on the banks of the Wisła and Narew Rivers. Konev also received a similar order. If the defenders resistance proved to be weak, both Marshals could press the attack further towards the Kraków — Łódź — Toruń line. But STAVKA, in fact, didn’t really expect all that much. It was typical of headquarters to issue orders that were somewhat overstated. In February 1943 for example, an order was issued to the effect that the enemy was to be driven across the Dnieper (in reality, the Germans crossed the river for the first time in October), and in the Autumn of 1943, headquarters ordered that Riga should be occupied before the end of the year (Latvia’s capital city was, in fact, taken in October… 1944).