a fifth reserve army, the weak 16th Army, as well. Timoshenko's orders were to defend the Western Dvina River-Dniepr River line. To this end the front deployed on its northern flank the 22nd Army under Lieutenant General Filipp Yershakov to defend the sector from Sebezh southward to the Western Dvina, and then south along that river from north of Polotsk to Beshenkovichi. South of the 22nd Army, the 20th Army, under Lieutenant General Pavel Kurochkin, was to defend the gap between the rivers from Beshenkovichi on the Western Dvina to Shklov on the Dnepr, supported by the 5th Mechanized Corps, under Major General Ilya Alekseyenko, and the 7th Mechanized Corps, under Major General Vasilii Ivanovich Vinogradov. The 19th Army, under Lieutenant General Ivan Konev, that time regrouping northward from the Kiev region, was to defend the Vitebsk region to the rear of 22nd and 20th Armies. The 19th Army included the 23rd Mechanized Corps under Major General Mikhail Akimovich Miasnikov. On the front's southern flank the 21st Army, under Lieutenant General Vasyl Herasymenko, including the 25th Mechanized Corps under Major General Semyon Krivoshein, was to defend the sector from Rogachev to Rechitsa. The remnants of the 4th and 13th Armies were to fall back and regroup at the Sozh River at the rear of the 21st Army. In early July Stalin relieved Korobkov, the commander of the 4th Army, and had him executed for treason. He was replaced by Colonel Leonid Sandalov Finally the 16th Army, under Lieutenant General Mikhail Fedorovich Lukin, was kept in reserve in the Smolensk region. German advance to the Dniepr 2–9 July The Western Front had been given a brief respite to erect new defences while the Germans reduced the pockets created during the Białystok-Minsk battles. With the Minsk pocket nearly disintegrated, the German Panzer Groups resumed their offensive against the Western Front on 2 July. On the Front's northern flank, the advance of Hoth's forces was hampered by poor weather. The LVII Motorised Corps made the best progress, but encountered heavy resistance from the Soviet 22nd Army's 62nd Rifle Corps on the approaches to Polotsk, which led the German corps commander, Adolf-Friedrich Kuntzen, to reroute his 19th Panzer Division northward to Disna on the southern bank of the Western Dvina. The XXXIX Motorised Corps, hindered by poor road conditions and resistance from the Soviet 20th Army and 5th and 7th Mechanized Corps, only advanced