Starting with the smashing of Dunkirk

Chapter 63 Opening up the railway, a rapid advance, cutting off Dunkirk!
"You're amazing! You actually managed to destroy the enemy's heavy artillery on the back slope of Mount Kemer with just one move in an afternoon and a whole night!"

They even forced Haig to make a mistake in the chaos, to launch a counter-offensive against us! They were practically courting death! We originally thought that even if we severely damaged the enemy's artillery, it would take another two or three days to capture Hill 155, but we've taken it already!

A few hours later, when Duke Rupprecht stood on Hill 155 and looked at the huge flag planted on the main peak, a sense of pride welled up in his heart.

He couldn't help but utter a series of exclamations, and became even more convinced that the major beside him was truly a war god who constantly created miracles.

Major Lelouch is as if he were descended from the heavens by divine decree, always able to come up with brilliant ideas and perfect creativity, solving one difficult battle after another.

Lelouch, however, did not take credit. Instead, he humbly reminded him, "Your Highness, it would be better if we didn't stay on the summit for too long, since we are still within range of enemy artillery fire."

Our army has only captured the main peak of Hill 155. There are still many positions along the entire ridge, which will take at least a day to completely clear.

Moreover, we should be even more grateful to the soldiers who fought bravely on the front lines, especially Major Lundstätter's battalion.

They not only infiltrated and captured the first few tunnels at the beginning, but also gained forward observation points relatively close to the enemy's artillery positions.

Later, the artillery sound meter was tested precisely, and my new tactic was put into practice, achieving amazing results.

Finally, they withstood the enemy's counterattack, stormed the main peak, and planted their flag there.

Duke Rupprecht nodded repeatedly as he listened.

To be honest, Major Rundstedt's 2nd Assault Battalion, because of its weaker connections than Major von Bock's 1st Assault Battalion, had consistently performed worse in previous battles than the 1st Battalion.

After all, von Bock's uncle was the Chief of the General Staff, so the combat missions that were easiest to gain merit were given to him first. And with Lelouch, the deputy battalion commander at the time, working with von Bock, his battalion was even more likely to stand out.

From the very beginning of the attack on Bayole, Rundstedt's battalion was prioritized to be positioned on the north side of the railway, close to the high ground, and in a direction where it would be more vulnerable to enemy artillery suppression.

Bock's battalion was located south of the railway, on flatter terrain, far from enemy artillery, and the only problem of mud was solved after the ground froze in winter. Bock's breakthrough was much more successful than Rundstedt's.

Unexpectedly, after nearly a month of fighting, Lundstätter, who had endured so much hardship, was finally reaping the rewards.

As his assigned area was located to the north, he naturally became the main assault battalion on Mount Kemer. He completed his mission brilliantly, and based on his final ascent of the summit and planting the flag at Haig's headquarters, coupled with his previous hard work, he deserved a promotion.

As for Major Bock, who was ranked alongside him, he had already accumulated a lot of merits and battle experience, and was almost qualified to be promoted to lieutenant colonel.

After weighing his options, Duke Rupprecht issued two orders:
First, two engineering regiments were urgently transferred from the rear, given a maximum of 48 hours, and ordered to work day and night without sleep to repair the railway that had been bombed by the Bu army for several kilometers.

The road must be reopened within three days so that the army can transport all the military supplies that have been piling up in the rear to the front.

Then, the Duke signed two promotion orders on the spot and reported them to the General Staff for record, to promote Major von Bock and Major Lundstätter to lieutenant colonel.

The written filing process takes several days, but you can notify them by phone first and then submit the paper filing documents later.

The Duke called the General Staff that very day.
When the officer in charge heard that the person to be promoted was the Chief of the General Staff's nephew, he acted with great efficiency and finalized the decision that same day.

However, after their promotions, their positions remained unchanged for the time being; they were still battalion commanders of assault battalions.

……

The Duke arranged for the engineering corps to build the railway and promoted and awarded medals to a group of officers who had contributed to the capture of Hill 155.

The battle for positions on Mount Kemer is still raging.

Mount Kemer stretches along the southern edge of the Ypres Heights in an east-west direction, with the entire ridge extending for nearly 20 kilometers.

That morning, they only captured the main peak position. After that, the army would tear open a larger gap in the east and west directions and mop up the remaining enemy forces. It would take at least another day or two of fighting.

However, all of this was already "garbage time." After the main peak was captured, the enemy's artillery power was completely suppressed and could no longer threaten the railway below.

Once the heavy snow stopped and visibility improved, the German heavy artillery was able to directly suppress the Burgundian artillery from its elevated position.

In the following days, from the 18th to the 20th, the German army indeed followed the plan, capturing the remaining strategic points of Kemmer Hill while working day and night to repair the railway.

The heavy snow stopped completely on the 19th.

On the afternoon of the 20th, the first supply train, fully loaded with ammunition, military rations, gauze, medicine and other items, finally departed from Armandière station. After a three-hour journey, it successfully delivered the supplies to the positions of the 2nd and 3rd Baria Divisions, which were close to the Dunkirk front.

The railway has just been repaired, and with snow still accumulating, trains can only travel at speeds slightly below 30 kilometers per hour, but none of that matters anymore.

A dozen or so train cars carrying thousands of tons of supplies were transported to the front lines, causing the German troops there to suffer a major blow that very day.

Originally, the French army in the west had attempted to launch a counterattack to cut off the German army's deep pincer movement. However, after the German army had a sufficient supply of machine gun bullets and artillery shells, the French army's counterattack attempts all became a joke.

Countless heavy machine guns fired relentlessly, bullets flying like they were free. 105mm and 150mm artillery also began to rain down bullets indiscriminately, blasting groups of counterattacking French troops to their deaths in their advance.

At this point, the wisest choice for the French army would be to immediately switch from offense to defense and avoid making any more unnecessary sacrifices.

Unfortunately, due to the French army's outdated communication capabilities and rigid command structure of that era,

After frontline troops suffer casualties and losses and realize the situation is hopeless, it can take at least two or three days for the issue to be reported up the chain of command and ultimately confirmed by high-ranking officers, leading to a change in decision-making.

During wartime, all sorts of messages fly around. How could those high-ranking generals who don't treat soldiers like human beings possibly determine in a timely manner whether the news coming back from the front lines that "it's not that our army isn't fighting hard, but that the enemy has become stronger" is true? What if the soldiers are just trying to shirk their duties and be lazy?
Without at least ten thousand or eight thousand casualties, such news is destined to remain unconfirmed. And no one can bear the responsibility for squandering a crucial opportunity by ordering a halt to the attack when it was clearly still possible.

Ultimately, on the western front, from Caselle to Arnec and Volmous, the French offensive did not completely cease until January 23, resulting in the loss of tens of thousands more.

Meanwhile, the German frontline troops in this area, namely the 2nd and 3rd Divisions under the 1st Army of Baria, after realizing that the French army was running out of steam, also decisively requested reinforcements from the rear.
It is hoped that the army group commander, Duke Rupprecht, will approve further reinforcement of the "Western Pincers" and to drill towards the coastline!
The Duke also decisively approved the frontline general's independent judgment remotely, and transferred all the reserve troops that could be drawn from the rear to reinforce the defensive zone vacated after the 2nd and 3rd Divisions of Baria moved into the offensive.

而巴里亚第2、3师也立刻抓住时机，绕过敦刻尔克城，沿着敦刻尔克更西边的方向穿插、最终在1月26日进攻到了敦刻尔克城西约20公里、北海海边的小镇格拉沃利纳。

In this way, although they have not yet captured a fortified city and port like Dunkirk, they have at least established a foothold in a coastal town further west of Dunkirk!

This completely cut off the possibility of the Burgh troops, Canadian troops, ANZAC troops, and Indian colonial troops in the entire encirclement from Ypres to Dunkirk withdrawing to the Frankish rear by land!
In just three days, they completed the transition from offense to defense, and then, finding a weak point, launched a counter-offensive, advancing 20 kilometers to capture another small town. Such a speed of attack was considered extremely rapid in 1915.

The French and Burgundian armies were caught off guard, but that's understandable; after all, each era has its own rhythm of war command.

To be honest, Lelouch didn't have a chance to get involved in the series of operations that led to the "Western Pincers" extending further west from Dunkirk and all the way to the sea—because he was preoccupied with the war on the Ypres Heights and simply couldn't spare the time.

The battle from Mount Kemer to Ypres, and the defensive counter-offensive from the west to the coastal town of Gravorina, were carried out by two separate operations carried out simultaneously by two different forces.

The assault battalion that Lelouch left behind in "West Pincers" did participate in the battle under the leadership of the remaining officers and made some contributions. Even Rommel, the deputy battalion commander, rushed back to the front line to take command.

However, Lelouch himself simply couldn't get there in time; both sides needed him. (The latest battlefield map as of January 26, 1915, is attached below, updating the controlled areas of both sides.)

……

Regardless of the latest developments on the western front, let's turn our attention back to the main battlefield at Ypres Heights.

On January 20, after the German army completely captured the entire ridge along the Kemmer Hill, the next day they pulled their own heavy artillery regiment up from the foot of the mountain and deployed it to the reverse slope on the south side of the ridge to begin constructing forward heavy artillery positions.

The whole process was very difficult. Although the heavy snow had stopped, the snow on the ground had not melted.

Pulling a 10-ton 150mm cannon up a hillside on thick snow, without any decent roads, was extremely difficult. At that time, countries like Germany and Austria-Hungary also lacked tractor trucks, as they were oil-poor nations. Historically, in 1915 on the Eastern Front in the Carpathian Mountains of the Balkans, Austria-Hungary's army had an exaggerated record of "a thousand soldiers pulling a single heavy cannon up a mountain."

Today, although the terrain in the Kemer Mountains is not as extreme as that of the southern mountainous area on the eastern front, there is still snow on the ground.

In the end, it took the combined efforts of 350 German soldiers to pull the K16 150mm cannon to the top of the hill. Such a situation is unimaginable in later generations.

It took a day or two to drag the cannon up the mountain, and another day to build the artillery position.

The heavy artillery regiment's new position was a full 9 kilometers further north than before the battle, and the altitude of the deployment point was also more than 100 meters higher, making the artillery observation post's field of vision clearer and wider.

On January 23, German 150mm cannons finally bombarded the eastern outskirts of Ypres from the top of Kemmer Hill, and blocked the railway town of Poppelinge between Stenford and Ypres.

Although the Burgh army had long since run out of railways, when Stenford was captured, the Burgh army only had that last small section of the railway left.

The locations bombarded by German heavy artillery were all more than 15 kilometers away. However, the elevation of the German artillery positions was several tens of meters higher than that of Ypres, and this difference in elevation slightly increased the actual maximum firing range.

When the first batch of German 150mm shells landed on the eastern outskirts of Ypres, the entire Burgundian army finally panicked.

……

On the night of January 23, the lights at the headquarters of the Burkina Faso Expeditionary Force in Ipur remained on all night.

However, the lights here are usually electric, but they have been temporarily replaced with gas lamps.

Because the power lines leading to Ypres were destroyed by German 150mm heavy artillery fire, at least dozens of power poles along the way were blown down and could not be repaired.

The entire city of Ypres was plunged into a blackout, and even Commander-in-Chief Marshal John French had to rely on portable gas lamps with gas canisters for lighting.

Everyone's faces were ashen; some issues could no longer be avoided.

"Does everyone think the Empire should continue to hold onto Ypres Heights? Should it consider gradually retreating northwards, eventually withdrawing to Dunkirk?"

Commander-in-Chief Marshal French knew that there were some things he had to say first, otherwise his subordinates wouldn't dare to bring them up.

Leaving Ypres was essentially tantamount to a total retreat. The Empire's expedition would end in a humiliating and complete failure.

Of all those involved, Lieutenant General Douglas Haig, the most "unyielding" and the most eager to regain face and dignity, was the first to voice his opposition:

"We've only lost Mount Kemer and the ridgeline along the southern high ground. But we still have so many towns inside the salient in our hands. Are we just going to give up and stop fighting for them?"
This was not a simple retreat—the Empire had sent troops here from the very beginning of the war, operating around Ypres for four whole months, with convoys constantly transporting military supplies to Dunkirk and then transferring them by rail to this location.

Currently, warehouses in various towns around Ypres still hold at least 150 million rounds of various types of artillery shells! Enough military rations to feed an army of 20 for two years! And so many bullets, fuel, clothing, tents, tires, tobacco, coffee... The total stockpile of all supplies is at least in the millions of tons.

If we retreat quickly, should we burn or blow up all these supplies, or what should we do with them? Shouldn't we resist step by step and try to fire our ammunition at the enemy's head?

Even if we start shelling now, unleashing it continuously for 24 hours straight, regardless of whether the gun barrels are damaged, firing even if we can't find the target! If our army can muster this kind of spirit, we can absolutely hold out until the end of the freezing season, when the weather warms up and the environment becomes muddy!

Lieutenant General Haig's words ultimately resonated with many people.

The country was too confident beforehand, and in order to defend this salient, it stockpiled too many things here.

This isn't their fault, because historically they were able to hold this place for four years without wavering. Without so many supplies, how could they have held out so resolutely?

It took four months to bring in so much stuff, and the transportation capacity is definitely not enough to move it all back in a few days.

150 million artillery shells, hundreds of millions of bullets, plus a proportional amount of military supplies! If all of these are lost, it will be a very serious blow to the overall national strength of Burkina Faso.

Everyone's career will come to a complete end here.

Upon hearing this, Marshal French quietly glanced around and noticed that there was still a glimmer of hope and ambition in the eyes of Haig and the others.

Yes, those relatively young lieutenant generals and major generals are actually more eager to advance than he, a marshal.

The marshal has retreated; it's just a matter of retirement. No one will hold him accountable; everyone will leave him with some dignity.

But what about those below them? They might never have had the chance to be promoted to marshal in their entire lives, but the great war gave them the opportunity to make a name for themselves, and they didn't want to lose it.

"However, the enemy's encirclement is tightening. Even if we want to fight and retreat, we cannot ignore the possibility that some unforeseen circumstances could cause the situation to deteriorate rapidly..." Marshal French finally voiced his concerns.

If we can ensure that we are not completely surrounded, fighting and retreating is not unacceptable.

Faced with the marshal's concern, most people were at a loss and remained silent for a long time without anyone coming up with a solution.

Finally, after an unknown amount of time, Lieutenant General Archibald, Chief of Staff of the Expeditionary Force, broke the silence and suggested in a carefully chosen tone:

"Your Excellency Commander-in-Chief, I believe the current situation is indeed quite critical, but it is far from being completely surrounded by the enemy."

We don't know how far the enemy's "western pincer" has progressed, but Dunkirk is an extremely fortified port, heavily guarded by numerous fortified batteries and artillery, and can be reinforced by sea at any time. The enemy definitely cannot take it!
Even if we were to lose Dunkirk, we still have De Pane and Neoport. These coastal towns may not have deep-water ports like Dunkirk, but they can still accommodate shallow-water vessels.

The Imperial Navy is invincible. With them as our backing, even if our land retreat encounters some minor setbacks, our sea retreat will be absolutely guaranteed to be unobstructed! Therefore, we can hold out for a while longer and wait for a turning point!

In contrast, the most important thing now is for Your Excellency to petition the Prime Minister for better sea-land coordination, so that the Navy can send more coastal artillery fleets to support us, and in case of any unforeseen circumstances, to dispatch a large number of transport ships to help the army evacuate.

Chief of Staff Archibald's words ultimately played a decisive role.

Marshal French, who had been dejected, finally regained his confidence.

It was early 1915, and there was no air raid. The side with absolute naval supremacy could ensure the absolute safety of their coastal retreat route.

Given this, how can we give up so easily?
The only thing to do now is for the army to stop sending more troops into any potential encirclement. The navy, on the other hand, should increase its reinforcements and do everything in its power to support the army.

“You’re absolutely right, I’ll contact London right away.” Marshal French finally made up his mind.

Because the entire city was without power, high-powered long-range radios that required mains power could not transmit. The command had no choice but to temporarily modify a bunch of lead-acid battery packs originally intended for low-power radios, connecting them in series and parallel to make the voltage and current compatible with the high-power radios.

French then explained the situation to the rear and expressed his determination to hold out, but requested that the Navy send reinforcements.

His request first passed through Lord Kitchener, the Secretary of State for War, then to the Prime Minister, and finally to Lord Secretary of the Navy Walton.

Walton took this very seriously and convened a naval meeting that same day, making three deployments:
First, deploy the main force of the Straits Fleet, ensuring those pre-dreadnoughts are ready to support the coast from Dunkirk to Neoport. Then, launch long-range artillery suppression attacks on enemy land forces approaching the coast!
If the enemy dares to approach within 15 kilometers of the coastline, bombard them with massive cannons of battleship main gun caliber!

Secondly, all the Royal Navy's shallow-draft heavy gunboats were to be sent directly to Dunkirk to provide immediate support to the battlefield.

Finally, have Betty's high-speed battlecruiser fleet maintain the highest level of alert patrols along the entire coastline from Bilikin to northern France. We must not allow a repeat of the chaos that occurred last time when we were rescuing the Bilikin army, allowing enemy high-speed warships to sneak over and attack the landing site!
Minister Walton was also concerned that the matter was of great importance and that David Beatty's battlecruiser fleet alone would not be enough. So he ordered Admiral Jellicoe, Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Fleet, to transfer as many of the high-speed battleships as possible.

For a time, the North Sea between Dunkirk and Dover, as well as both sides of the Boulevard Strait, were filled with the sight of massive ships weighing tens of thousands of tons.

With this backing, the Ministers of the Army and Navy of the Republic of Burkina Faso unanimously believed that even if the Empire could not defeat the enemy, it could at least remain invincible!
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PS: It's already 10,000 words. I haven't finished writing the third update of 5,000 words yet. It should be finished around 3 pm. I can't guarantee it will be more than that.

(End of this chapter)