Conquer Europe from the West

Chapter 85 A Miracle in One Month (Please give me a monthly ticket!)
It seemed that he realized that his actions had gone too far, so Ryan withdrew his hand from the other person's arm at almost electric speed.

But his movements were still a little slow.

"Captain..."

In the corner of the stairs, Brinkman, who had changed into a loose dress at the waiters' persuasion, looked at Ryan and Catherine, and subconsciously loosened her hand holding the decorative handbag.

"You actually..."

Ryan secretly thought he was going to die, and immediately said, "I said it's not what you think, do you believe it?"

"I don't believe it."

Catherine immediately rubbed her arm, which was pinched and hurt, and took over the conversation directly: "How was the party?"

Brinkman: "It's a lot easier than in the capital. I haven't seen any of those annoying guys lately."

When she said this, she turned her head to look at the stairwell behind her, and then looked at Ryan and Catherine calmly.

She could sense that the atmosphere between the two of them was clearly not one of romance, especially Catherine's alert expression.

"Then it seems like today is going to be pretty good." Catherine took a half step back, placed her hands on her stomach, glanced at Ryan first, then at Brinkman. "If the Captain wants to return to Stuttgart, just take him directly to the coachman who brought you here. The Commander and his men will probably have a lot to do tonight."

Before she could finish her words, the sounds of smashing things and swearing were heard again in the conference room behind her.

This made Ryan almost subconsciously feel fortunate that he left early, but when he saw Brinkman's calm expression, he belatedly realized that this kind of scene might have become a consensus within the army.

A sudden doubt arose in his mind - he didn't know how Brigadier General Bryan got those staff officers to shut up and stop.

But this is not the point.

Shaking his head, Ryan dismissed this insignificant thought and turned to look at Catherine. "Then we'll take our leave. If we start preparing now, we might still be able to make it in time for the next battle."

Catherine nodded immediately: "No problem, I will explain to the commander on behalf of the captain."

After she finished speaking, she turned and walked towards the conference room. As the heavy door was pushed open, the shouting and cursing almost disappeared immediately, and only the sound of two heavy objects falling to the ground could be heard.

Ryan tried his best not to imagine what that sound was, and said to Brinkman, "I can go back alone, and the lieutenant can just rest here for a while."

"Captain, you speak as if the social etiquette here is easy to handle."

Brinkman's face immediately became filled with frustration. To prevent herself from becoming even more discouraged, she turned the topic to military matters: "Are there any new missions?"

"Not really."

Ryan walked up to her familiarly, and imitating the big shots, he leaned his arm towards Brinkman and acted like a male companion.

Brinkman also took Ryan's arm with ease and walked with him to the banquet hall downstairs.

"General Draven of the General Staff will assign an additional battalion of elite troops later. They hope that I can form an elite infantry regiment."

Ryan avoided the topic of the airship and only talked about the unit: "The designation will continue to be the 502nd Battalion, but its direct command has not yet been determined."

"The General Staff?"

Brinkman also looked thoughtful. "If they're from the General Staff, then after the unit is assembled, it shouldn't be under the command of the headquarters anymore. Instead, it will be deployed to the battlefield as a tactical testing unit of the General Staff..."

"Is there such a way to play?"

Ryan always felt that he seemed to have heard of this operation somewhere, but he couldn't remember it for a moment.

"After all, the rank of captain isn't high enough. But if the commander and his men guarantee a promotion, then we can be sure that we'll be directly under the General Staff."

"They did guarantee the rank thing."

Ryan led Brinkman through the crowds and to a plate of iced fruit, where they ate a quick meal. "Ms. Catherine was just talking about this—the General Staff will promote me to major first, completing the troop reorganization as a staff officer, and then promote me to lieutenant colonel for my outstanding training results."

"Then there's no problem."

Brinkman stuffed several slices of watermelon into his mouth and said in a murmured voice, "The unit is definitely directly under the General Staff. From what you said, Captain, it seems that it is a completely independent unit and does not share supply resources with ordinary troops."

"That's a great gift."

Ryan was not clear about the nature of the troops directly under the General Staff, but Brinkmann's statement that supply resources were not shared caught his attention.

The fact that the troops' supply resources are not shared is actually something that is worth discussing.

For the military, although there is a roll-call rationing system for supplies, there are still situations where supplies are delayed or cannot arrive at the front lines due to various problems.

This is because the distribution routes they use are shared and the resources distributed are almost the same.

If you are lucky enough to meet a well-fed army, it will be fine. But if you are unlucky and your supplies are snatched away by a bunch of unreasonable idiots when you are most in need of supplies, you can imagine what will happen next.

During World War I and World War II, the armies of many countries resorted to extreme means due to the lack of supplies.

But if the supply resources are not shared, it will become a different situation.

First of all, the transportation and supply of materials for the troops will be assigned to a specific transport unit, and all materials will be distributed in a targeted manner - list what the troops need, and the rear will naturally deliver it.

The supplies here include standard military equipment and supplies, as well as some special supplies.

If I have to say, it is more similar to the situation of the German-equipped and American-equipped divisions in the past.

Of course, because of the existence of the airship fleet, Ryan's troops are closer to the air force configuration than ordinary infantry troops.

Ryan, realizing this, immediately put on a brilliant expression, causing Brinkman to look at him a few more times. "It seems the General Staff has given quite a bit of benefits."

"Ah."

Ryan nodded: "It's even good enough to make that bastard Ludendorff so angry that he'd stare blankly when he found out!"

Now it was Brinkman's turn to be shocked. She immediately put down her plate and followed Ryan out of the banquet hall, standing in the corner of the fountain courtyard. "Better equipment than Big Bertha?"

Ryan thought for a moment, and after confirming that there were no outsiders, he whispered in her ear, "An air force squadron."

The young girl's eyes widened immediately.

As an army member, she never thought that one day she would be able to participate in battle on an airship!
You know, even if they are from the Central General Forces, as long as they don’t have the Air Force’s approval, they can only apply to the Imperial Capital Command for the assistance of the Air Force’s airship force, rather than having their own airship force!

But now, Ryan used means unknown to himself and forced a squadron out of the mouth of the General Staff!
If anyone else had said this, Brinkman would not have believed it.

But it was Ryan who said this.

"That's really..."

She tried to think of a word that would fit the situation, but couldn't find one.

Ryan immediately put some force on his arm: "Be careful, someone is watching us."

"I'm sorry, Captain."

Brinkman immediately and wisely shut up and stopped talking about what happened in the army.

At the same time, the driver who had been waiting outside the courtyard also saw them. The man, who was only in his early thirties, appeared in front of the two of them at a trot, holding his flat-top black hat.

"Master, Miss."

"You're just in time," Ryan took a last look in the direction of the conference room on the third floor, and saw Catherine standing on a small open-air balcony at the edge looking at the courtyard, while on the larger terrace next door was Commander Hellingen who was wrestling with Lieutenant General Draven.

Ryan immediately covered the little girl's eyes: "Don't look at it, little kid, or you'll get corns."

"what?"

Brinkman immediately tried to pull Ryan's hand away, but he was no match for Ryan's strength.

Ryan was so happy that she couldn't pull her hand away, so she used her free hand to salute Catherine as a final goodbye.

Then he secretly decided that in the future he would hold meetings in a conference room where the two sides could not come together.

These old men are always violent and unreasonable.

With a little effort, Ryan held Brinkmann's head and stuffed her into the back seat of the car, and told the driver to drive to Stuttgart.

But what he never expected was that Hellingen and Draven were still pretending.

"Gone?" When the taillights of the car disappeared over the horizon, Hellingen immediately raised his head alertly, put one hand on Draven's mouth, looked at the road leading to Stuttgart several times, and then looked at his daughter.

"gone."

Catherine walked over to Hellingen and Draven, and with a forceful hand, she lifted Draven up from the ground and helped him to the sofa nearby. "I've already told Captain Flig that the General Staff will promote him to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in two installments, to meet the basic requirements for commanding an infantry regiment."

Draven took the handkerchief Catherine offered him, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and asked, "What did he not say? Like his thoughts on the troops, or about promotions?"

"nothing."

Catherine's words struck Draven in the heart. "He's the most composed soldier I've ever met. An ordinary lieutenant would be speechless with excitement upon learning he's about to be promoted to lieutenant colonel, but not this young man."

"How to say?"

Hellingen knew what kind of person Ryan was, but Catherine's comments still aroused his curiosity.

Even he himself was excited for several days when he knew that he was about to be promoted from captain to major. During that period, he was extremely excited even when executing combat orders.

"The captain didn't even ask about rank."

Catherine shook her head, poured tea and coffee for the generals, and sent the officers away. She said, "He and I analyzed the war situation for the next two months and gave us an approximate training time for the troops."

"War situation? Time for troop training?"

Now it was Draven's turn to be confused.

He said, "Didn't you tell him the expected time of the General Staff?"

In his conversation with Hellingen, Draven temporarily set the troop training time at a maximum of two years and a minimum of six months.

According to their assumption, it would inevitably waste a lot of time for Ryan to form and train troops, so they did not expect Ryan to quickly put the 502nd Airborne Infantry Regiment into combat.

Furthermore, even though they had seen from Ryan's paper that this war would evolve from the few months everyone had imagined into a war lasting several years and would not end until one side completely collapsed, they had not really considered it that way.

The situation on the battlefield cannot be judged by one person, and this is even more true for battles between countries.

This led to most of the staff officers of the General Staff, led by Draven, believing that the motorized and mechanized troops mentioned by Ryan would not have obvious theoretical combat efficiency until ten years later - this was actually a correct judgment.

But how could Catherine have the chance to say all these things?
Even if she wanted to say it, she had to be careful not to let Ryan find out that most of the things he saw in this manor were fake.

Therefore, she said regretfully: "No."

"According to the captain, he predicted that our Imperial Army would encounter fierce resistance from the Farlans after entering Farlan territory and beginning the Schlieffen Operation. He mentioned the incident at the Maine River before."

"But he also said that because the Empire had violated the rules and attacked the Kingdom of Perije, the United Kingdom would send troops to support the Farlans. Although he learned about the United Kingdom's deployment through his acquaintances in the Central Headquarters, according to him, the United Kingdom will send even more troops to Farlan and Perije in the future."

"What's the problem?"

Draven was the first to learn of the capture of Sun Fortress. He was well aware of the Perijie Kingdom's strength: "Even if we withdraw our troops to destroy the United Kingdom's reinforcements..."

[They can also rely on the Kingdom of Perijie's well-developed railway network to send troops back to the front lines. ]

Delevingne was about to say this, but was interrupted by Catherine.

"Not reinforcements from the United Kingdom."

Catherine said coldly.

"They are troops from the Russian Empire."

"The Captain believes that the Russian Empire will launch an offensive in advance at all costs in order to establish the fact that the Empire must fight on two fronts."

As soon as the words fell, the scene became just like when Catherine faced Ryan before, terrifyingly cold and eerily quiet.

Draven and Hellingen were more like little kids who had been pointed out their mistakes by the teacher. They just sat there, maintaining the posture they had held until the last second, motionless, even their breathing stopped.

Walbeck felt his eyelids twitching so violently that he couldn't speak clearly. "So, what else did he say?"

Catherine looked at Walbeck. "The Captain seems to want to wait until the United Kingdom officially deploys its support before taking action."

"But it won't be too late, will it? He won't make it in time."

Hellingen knew very well that the action his daughter was referring to was Ryan's troops.

"That's the point of the conversation I had with him just now."

Catherine had a blank expression on her face, and the only thing in her mind was the conversation between her and Ryan.

"Captain Flig stated that if we want to train the troops to be fully combat-ready."

"If all staff have practical experience, this time can be shortened to three months at the shortest."

"Three months?"

Draven's exclamation almost echoed throughout the manor: "Does he know what he's talking about?"

But Catherine didn't stop.

"Not only that."

"Anything else?" Walbeck's heart tightened.

"If it's a young officer who has completed basic training but hasn't been fully formed yet."

"What time is it?" Draven felt his heart pounding.

"One month."

"Impossible! Absolutely impossible!"

Draven almost immediately denied Catherine's statement: "It takes two years to train a standing army into elite troops. How could he complete the entire training in just one month?"

"Even veterans can't complete all the training in just three months. This is the experience we've accumulated over hundreds of years!"

But Draven was the only one in the entire conference room who had such an idea.

Whether it was Hellingen, Schubert, or the youngest Walbeck, they all made the same judgment at that moment - this is feasible
There was nothing wrong with Ryan's speech.

They are generals who have always been active on the front lines, and their perspective on things is naturally different from that of Draven, who came from the General Staff.

The unanimous silence of the three immediately aroused Draven's dissatisfaction, but no matter how he questioned, Hellingen and others ignored him.

"Did he state any conditions?"

This is what Schubert asked.

"As before, all officers have received advanced knowledge education and possess strong obedience."

"Can you do it?" Schubert looked at Walbeck, who in turn looked at Hellingen.

After a while, Walbeck spoke up: "We can send Belgreen's new officer candidates this year..."

"No..." Although Helingen denied it, his tone was far less resolute than before.

Schubert bit his cigar. "But they must guarantee absolute obedience. So drawing them from the Central Army is impossible. But if we send this year's reserve officers there now, what will the front-line troops think?"

Catherine knew she couldn't join in the conversation, but she spoke up anyway: "They certainly don't want a bunch of rookie officer cadets as reserve personnel for the command level."

Walbeck rubbed his hands and tapped the floor with his right heel, making a tap-tat-tat sound.

Draven, who realized that he could no longer join the conversation, felt the same as him, but more importantly, he discovered something.

Even though Ryan himself is not here, he is still the core of the topic.

His speech still dominates everyone's thoughts.

Age has become a shackle that restricts Draven's thinking.

This made him suddenly understand one thing.

【It will not be the elderly who create the new era.】

(End of this chapter)