While Australasia was abuzz with reports of the opening of the Sydney Metro Circular Line, on the Eastern European battlefield thousands of miles away, the fighting had reached its most critical juncture.
The two undisputed protagonists were naturally Army Group Center, which had already drawn near Moscow, and the Russian Reserve Army Group, which was responsible for defending it.
Around Moscow, the armies on both sides fought with such earth-shaking ferocity that on some battlefields where the firepower was especially concentrated, the smoke from gunpowder explosions nearly engulfed the entire battlefield, leaving visibility at no more than a few dozen meters.
How brutal was the war between the two sides? At present, at least thirty thousand soldiers were dying every day on the battlefields around Moscow, nearly twenty thousand of them from the Russian Army.
Yet it was precisely these Russian recruits, who had received little training, who stubbornly withstood the assault of the powerful Army Group Center and swore to defend Moscow to the death.
Tens of thousands of Russian soldiers shouted, "Urra!" and charged fearlessly toward the German Army ahead.
Even when all they had in their hands were shovels, nothing could stop their courage as they surged forward.
When had the Germans ever seen such a scene of people who did not fear death? Although the German Army possessed formidable combat strength, many among its ranks were not absolutely loyal to the country.
More importantly, the German Army was not completely united at this point. The German Prime Minister had considerable disagreements with the surviving Junker nobility, which indirectly led to conflicts between the German Government and the Staff Department.
When the so-called Operation Barbarossa had been drawn up earlier—the plan to invade Russia along three fronts—several generals in the German Staff Department had already clashed sharply