Conquer Europe from the West

Chapter 116 Tannenberg Incident

Because of the experience at the 502nd Battalion camp (on the day the war started), when taking in all the prisoners from the Farlan Command, Brinkmann and the platoon leader did not dare to let Ryan get close to the generals of the Third Army.

They were afraid that Ryan would encounter an Old Kingdom nobleman again like last time who would turn those shiny things on his body into small grenades.

Then their predictions came true.

When the prisoners were being held in a section of train, a major from the Third Farland Army suddenly broke free from the control of the second row of soldiers and rushed madly towards Ryan, who was arranging the letter delivery for Brinkmann.

Then the guy was beaten into a pile of minced meat by MP14.

This scene made the other Farlan officers close their eyes.

Because they clearly found that the shield that could withstand several rifle bullets in the Old Kingdom era had not even been activated, and the person had already fallen to the ground.

"enough."

Ryan held Brinkman's shoulder, and then his hand in a black leather glove grabbed the hot barrel of the gun. He snatched the submachine gun from Brinkman, who had become nervous because of the last sneak attack, and handed it to the platoon leader next to him.

At the same time, he also looked at the generals and officers of Farlan.

He slowly said, "The Empire will not act like invaders. If you are willing to cooperate, you will continue to enjoy the treatment commensurate with your military rank and position in the days ahead."

"Therefore, I advise everyone here not to engage in meaningless resistance."

After saying that, Ryan looked at the platoon leader again.

As the only noble officer in the army, it was obviously irrational to ask Brinkman to be in charge of sending the letters.

He hesitated for a moment, then pulled off the Blue Star Medal on his collar and handed it to the platoon leader. "You should go send a message to the other troops. If you have an honor communicator, just send a message directly. If not, a radio will do."

"The content is the same as before. Attack on all fronts, target Verdun. No one who resists will be left alive. In the first areas attacked, no one will be left alive. In addition, the troops are required to treat all surrendered soldiers well and sign my name."

"Isn't that too much?" The platoon leader knew what Ryan meant, but he couldn't get over it psychologically.

Then Ryan dispelled his hesitation with just one sentence: "Then the next time the one in your sister's bed will not be your brother-in-law, but a Farlane guy you have never met."

Before he could finish his words, the platoon leader disappeared.

"Damn, idiot."

Ryan shook his head and cursed, then looked at the second platoon leader: "Two men, take the lieutenant to the station to rest."

But no one dared to come up.

There was no other way, so Ryan could only grab Brinkmann himself and lock his furious adjutant in the lobby of the train station, and then return to the Farlan Third Headquarters where power had been restored.

The platoon leader could barely be considered Second Lieutenant Kayneth's adjutant, so he could do almost everything Kayneth could do, including sending letters.

And radio actually has its own particularities.

Specifically, the encryption level of intelligence is often related to the length of time the intelligence needs to be kept confidential.

There is a world of difference in the degree of encryption between intelligence that needs to be kept secret for one hour and intelligence that needs to be kept secret for a month.

Therefore, it stands to reason that information about enemy forces in a specific area taking no prisoners would often be encrypted at a higher level of confidentiality.

But Ryan did not let the platoon leader do so.

The reason was that he wanted to use this open-channel radio communication to significantly increase the psychological pressure on the Farlan soldiers on the front line.

They will first know that their army headquarters has been occupied by the Imperial Army and all members of the army headquarters have become prisoners of the Empire.

Then, they will also know which areas the Empire will choose to implement a mopping-up strategy, and which areas can survive as long as they do not resist.

For those troops who have not lost their fighting confidence and morale, this is obviously just a notice that can stimulate them and make them decide to fight to the death.

However, for those who don’t want to die yet, it’s another matter.

Most of the soldiers of the Farlan Third Army were basically pushed back to Farlan by the Empire from the Kingdom of Perige.

When they were on the front lines, they had already experienced what a fucking modern battlefield and modern warfare were.

Individual resistance is useless. The beast called the army can easily destroy all powerful individuals as long as it goes to the battlefield.

In the end, those who can survive are either the troops backed by powerful artillery or the troops with even stronger logistical capabilities.

more importantly.

It seems that the supplies of these Farlan people are not enough.

After breaking through the Third Army Headquarters, Ryan and his soldiers immediately discovered that the Farlans' supply efficiency and material supply speed were actually not high.

Many troops could only receive three days' worth of supplies once every five days, instead of the standard of receiving three days' worth every two days during wartime as stipulated during the Kingdom period.

You know, it's summer.

In the absence of excellent anti-corrosion measures, requiring a troop to receive supplies every five days can be said to be an extreme test of the troop commander's ability to distribute supplies and to manage their storage.

Considering that the Farlans had been retreating almost all this time, they obviously did not have enough time and energy to manage those supplies. In order to catch up with them, the soldiers of the Imperial 1st and 2nd Armies ran like zombies and even fell asleep while standing.

It's easy to imagine what will happen to the Farlans who lack timely and sufficient supplies.

Of course, Ryan's decision was actually related to the war that the imperial government and army fought with the Farlans decades ago.

In the war at that time, although both sides were almost at the point of beating each other's brains out, they had not yet gone to the extent of capturing all the troops and leaving no prisoners.

It is unimaginable that at the beginning of the war, all the surrendered soldiers in the 502nd Battalion camp were captured by the Farlans and shot in rows.

Most of these Farlan soldiers knew about this, so Ryan told the platoon leader to treat the prisoners well and told everyone that it was his order.

At this point, the telegram has been sent.

"Any reply?"

Ryan leaned against a wardrobe and looked at the platoon leader and two signalmen who were listening to the sounds through their headphones.

The two signalmen were busy digging out the Farlans' honorary communication equipment from a group of devices, but Ryan had given up the idea of ​​using honorary communication to contact the rear and looked directly at the platoon leader.

"not yet."

The platoon leader was holding a pencil with only the end left, tapping the table with his middle finger, not daring to pay attention at all.

Suddenly, Ryan heard a rapid electric sound, and then a long row of pencils fell on the paper.

"Flo...Lensa, the order has been confirmed... The general offensive has been launched and has now passed Fort Douaumont. For the glory of the Empire, this is over!"

The platoon leader put down his pen, took a long breath, and looked back at Ryan.

"Lieutenant Colonel, we won."

--------------

Later.

The radio waves sent from Lerouville were like a bomb, completely detonating the army headquarters, which had not seen any hope of victory in the long offensive.

The young officers excitedly reported the news of the great victory at the front back to the country by phone, and the signalmen in charge of communications were about to burn their transmitters just to ensure that all troops could immediately get the specific attack plan.

But the most excited person was obviously General Constantine, commander of the Fifth Army.

In fact, before this battle, he had never thought that Ryan's troops could paralyze the Farlan defense so quickly.

Putting aside the Farlane lines, the forts, with their artillery removed and only a few 120mm guns remaining, were enough to halt the Empire's advance. When Constantine realized his troops' artillery was completely ineffective against those forts, he even immediately proposed to his allies a hundred kilometers to the west to borrow two Big Berthas as offensive weapons.

If everything goes according to plan, Big Bertha will arrive at the scene tomorrow at noon and launch the first round of shelling tomorrow evening.

But now...

Location of Fort Douaumont.

Countless Imperial Army soldiers have completely captured the fortress held by the Farlans. Following the request of the 502nd Regiment soldiers, they used machine guns to block all entrances and exits of the fortress, and began to pour large amounts of flammable materials and gasoline into every visible hole.

General Constantine, commander of the Fifth Army, stood not far away and looked at the pentagonal reinforced concrete fortress with an unhappy expression.

What gave him this expression was not the soldiers who were currently carrying out the operation to annihilate the enemy, but Fort Douaumont.

Constantine was unable to lead his troops into battle when the Empire attacked the Sun Fortress in Perige, but he still went to the front line and carefully observed all the fortress groups around the Sun.

The fortresses did hold off the Imperial forces for a long time, but they were overwhelmed by Big Bertha's bombardment and were eventually breached.

Constantine initially thought that it was the excellent performance of Big Bertha, but when he saw the Douaumont Castle, he realized that he was overthinking it.

That's simply the Perijie people being sneaky!

Fort Douaumont, also a fortress built entirely of reinforced concrete, only had a few parts showing slight cracks after enduring a day and night of bombardment by the Imperial forces.

Most reinforced concrete structures would not suffer serious damage even if directly hit by a 150mm gun.

It's nothing more than a small hole being made.

Such a high fortress, which was protected by a twelve-meter-thick reinforced concrete structure, now had only a lot of shallow pits on the surface caused by artillery shells.

The crucial Iron Dome and artillery suffered almost no damage.

Judging from the current situation, if the Empire wants to break through Fort Douaumont, without Ryan's troops, it can only rely on long-range artillery to directly cut off the supply route between Fort Douaumont and Verdun, forcing the Farlanes in the fort to abandon the fortress themselves.

He couldn't imagine how many days it would take for his troops to achieve victory if they launched an artillery attack on Fort Douaumont according to the original plan.

He even doubted whether his shells could last until that day.

The same scene was also played out in Saint-Mihiel and Lerouville.

It took the Sixth Army's right wing three hours to successfully break through the entire front from the east and west sides with the 502rd Battalion of the nd Regiment that fell in Saint-Mihiel. After successfully destroying the last wave of Farlan troops, they arrived at the central area of ​​Saint-Mihiel.

The only difference is.

The Farlanes in Saint-Mihiel possessed a large number of artillery pieces, and those artillery pieces were obviously the main reason for the deaths of these Farlanes.

The bombing from the Zeppelin and the air liaison boats almost took out the ammunition depot in Saint-Mihiel in one wave. Although it did not cause a secondary explosion, the explosion still ignited the buildings and wooden boxes around the ammunition depot.

The burning ammunition depot was even more terrifying than the Honor Communications on the horizon.

So when these soldiers finally put out the fire in the ammunition depot at the risk of their lives, they found themselves surrounded by soldiers from the 502nd Regiment.

A large number of soldiers were almost immediately wiped out by the firepower of the 502nd Regiment, and the remaining troops tried to resist the Imperial attack with the few remaining bunkers and small-caliber artillery.

Then they were blown into the sky by the Z331 that arrived in time.

At this point, all major battle lines except Fort Worth have been successfully broken through by the Empire.

A total of 300,000 troops rushed towards the Verdun Heights along the three passages on the east side of Verdun and launched the final attack on the city of Verdun.

But these things have nothing to do with the 502nd Airborne Infantry Regiment.

Ryan's troops did not have enough supplies. Just capturing two fortresses, a headquarters, and a transportation center had consumed two-thirds of their ammunition.

Forced action will only result in further casualties in the three infantry battalions that have already accumulated a certain amount of combat experience.

This is exactly what Ryan least wants to see.

Therefore, when the Fifth and Sixth Armies began to attack the city of Verdun, he had already ordered all troops to withdraw from the battlefield and prepare to return to the imperial capital.

But the whole process may take two or three days.

After all, the Zeppelin class, which served as the main transport force, had left the front line at twelve o'clock on the night of the battle and returned to the Air Force's North Sea Fleet Headquarters under the cover of darkness.

Even if the remaining soldiers wanted to go back, they had to first follow the last batch of army troops to Verdun, and then use Verdun's railway system to reach the Kingdom of Periguet, and finally take the airship back to the imperial capital.

This is troublesome, but it is something that must be done for the current 502nd Regiment.

But Ryan himself returned to the imperial capital at noon the next day.

The two airships Z331 and Z332 respectively transported Ryan and some officers of the army back to the imperial capital, while the remaining two took three days to transport the captured senior officers of Farlan to the imperial capital.

By the time it was all over, it was already September 17th.

During this time, the Farlans readjusted their battle strategy.

Although Ryan did not understand what was in Joffre's mind, according to the news from the front, Joffre did not intend to launch a large-scale counterattack in Verdun, even though the Farnburgs had the terrain advantage of launching an attack from the south, which the fortress could not cope with.

This information was very similar to the knowledge Ryan had about World War I, which made him feel relieved.

The First, Second, Third, and Fourth Armies also retreated northward according to the previous plan, and successfully passed through a small gap left by the Fifth Army in Verdun, forcing the Farlanders to pursue them.

It can be said that the objectives of the entire operation were successfully completed.

The only problem is...

There has been no movement on the Eastern Front.

September 18th, morning, Imperial General Staff.

Brinkman was given a week's leave because of the mental problems exposed in the last battle, so he did not appear in the imperial capital today, but went to his own manor in the northern coastal area of ​​the empire to recuperate.

As a replacement, Lieutenant Perris has now taken over the adjutant's job, but she is still not used to this kind of work.

Ryan also knew this, so he let her rest at the reception desk on the first floor of the General Staff Headquarters and went to the conference room on the underground first floor.

In fact, he should have come to the General Staff Headquarters for a meeting happily today, but the morning newspaper made him very angry.

The reason was that news reached the imperial capital that Tsarist Russia was currently conducting pre-war negotiations with the United Kingdom.

This directly disrupted Ryan's plans for the Battle of Tannenberg and the subsequent march to the sea, and gave the Farlanders, who had just lost Verdun, a chance to spend the winter in peace.

He took a deep breath and handed his ID to the guard for inspection.

"Lieutenant Colonel Ryan Fleagle has arrived!"

The voice of the military police rang out from underground, and the door on the side was immediately pushed open.

But Ryan obviously did not enter the conference room in the same friendly manner as before. He strode in directly and looked directly at Ludendorff in front of the two army commanders and Tirpitz: "Why hasn't the Eastern Front officially launched an offensive yet?"

Constantine, who was closest to the gate, stood up almost immediately and stopped Ryan: "Lieutenant Colonel Flig, we can explain this matter."

But Ryan did not give Constantine the face he deserved: "Ludendorff, I told you before that the attack must be launched on the 12th at the latest, but why haven't you launched the attack yet?"

Ludendorff said nothing. He had his back to Ryan, the officer's shoulder plates on his shoulders gleaming, but Ryan just wanted to pull the plate off and throw it into the trash can.

He roared, "The Empire is negotiating with the United Kingdom. Everyone knows that the United Kingdom's fleet will be back home by the middle of next month. Do you think we have that much time?"

(End of this chapter)