was successful and Rokossovsky's reputation was assured. After crushing German Army Group Centre in Belarus, Rokossovsky's armies reached the east bank of the Vistula opposite Warsaw by mid-1944. For these victories he was advanced to the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union. Stalin once said: "I have no Suvorov, but Rokossovsky is my Bagration". As Rokossovsky's approached the Vistula, the Warsaw Uprising (August–October 1944) broke out in the city, led by the Polish Home Army (AK) on the orders of the Polish government in exile in London. Rokossovsky did not order reinforcement to the insurgents. There has been much speculation about Rokossovsky's personal views on this decision. He would always maintain that, with his communications badly stretched and enemy pressure against his northern flank mounting, committing forces to Warsaw would have been disastrous. In November 1944, Rokossovsky was transferred to the 2nd Belorussian Front, which advanced into East Prussia and then across northern Poland to the mouth of the Oder at Stettin (now Szczecin). On 3 May 1945 he linked up with British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery's 2nd Army in Wismar, Germany while the forces of Zhukov and Ivan Konev captured Berlin, ending the war. In July 1945, he, Zhukov and several other Soviet officers were awarded the Order of the Bath in a ceremony at the Brandenburg Gate, in Berlin. Post-war life As one of the most prominent Soviet military commanders of the Second World War, Rokossovsky was present at the Victory Parade in Red Square in Moscow in 1945 as a Commanding Officer of the Parade, riding a seal brown stallion named Pole next to Marshal Georgy Zhukov, Inspector of the Parade, on his famous Idol. After the end of the war Rokossovsky remained in command of Soviet forces in Poland (Northern Group of Forces). Fully four years later, in October 1949 with the establishment of the government under Bolesław Bierut in Poland, Rokossovsky, on Stalin's orders, became the Polish Minister of National Defense, with the additional title of Marshal of Poland. Rokossovsky is one of two foreign Marshals to receive the rank of Marshal of Poland, with other being Marshal of France Ferdinand Foch. Together with Rokossovsky, several thousand Soviet officers were placed in charge of almost all Polish military units, either as commanding officers or as advisors. In 1952 he became deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers of the People's Republic of Poland. Although