Chapter 541: Brother is no longer the brother he used to be
Chapter 541: Brother is no longer the brother he used to be
Brussels, German front headquarters.
A detailed map of Flanders hangs on the wall and a giant sand table is placed on the table.
The headquarters was filled with the sound of telegrams, and a large number of handsome German guys, wearing Iron Cross armbands on their arms, were analyzing the latest intelligence in their hands.
Professional staff officers constantly update the troop deployments of the warring parties on maps and sand tables.
Chief of the General Staff Schlieffen stared at the elite British and French troops gathered in Dunkirk and remained silent for a long time.
The latest intelligence has arrived, the enemy's sea transport forces have already set sail for Dunkirk, the German navy -
Lord Waldersee was a little hasty in launching the war, and the Poles were too vulnerable to attack. The original plan was that the battle on the Eastern Front would take half a year, so that by the time the battle on the Western Front began, the four new aircraft carrier formations would be deployed.
As a result, Poland was destroyed in a month, and the army on the Western Front was mobilized and ready to go. He planned to fight Britain and France for about half a year, defeat France, and then cross the sea to the West. By that time, all the aircraft carriers would be in service, but -
I never expected that my brother was no longer the same brother as before. The British big brother had become so weak and the French had no will to fight. The enemy line collapsed in 20 days.
The result of the army's rapid progress in France was that the navy could not keep up.
The northern offensive to capture Norway was not yet over, and the sole Zeppelin carrier group was now in Oslo.
The troops were rushing to encircle Dunkirk, but it might not be too late. The big fish that had been encircled with great difficulty was about to be unhooked because of the lack of sea control.
"Come here, send a telegram to Tirpitz. Tell him to do his best to destroy the enemy's transport ships' rescue of the besieged troops in Dunkirk, even if it means sacrificing a large number of submarines."
The submarine force would be discovered and killed by the enemy's destroyers, frigates and airship reconnaissance forces in the sky, and it is not suitable to attack such a large fleet. But there is no other way now - wait, I seem to have another card in my hand -
"Ring ring ring."
The red phone rang, and Schlieffen picked it up immediately, standing at attention in an instant, "Hey, Waldersee, what can I do for you, Excellency?"
Waldersee's elegant and calm voice came from the phone, "My Lord Chief of Staff, the army has already defeated the British and French coalition forces. Why don't they march south and occupy the fertile land in the south of France, but stay in Flanders instead?"
"Report to the Prime Minister, we have trapped 400,000 elite British and French troops here, and we need to eliminate them first."
"Their army of more than one million has already vanished into thin air. Should we not worry about the mere 400,000 remnants for now? Is it necessary for us to surround them with more than one million troops? Leaving 600,000 troops is enough to destroy them, right?"
"My opinion is that we should take advantage of the defeat on the French front, quickly capture Paris, and then move south to occupy the vast territory—"
Marshal Schlieffen stiffened his neck and said, "No, sir. You don't know how to fight. The 400,000 people trapped here are the last elite troops of Britain and France. Only by destroying their manpower can we successfully occupy the territory. We must not let the tiger go back to the mountain."
Waldersee was silent. Schlieffen was a pure soldier, and he succeeded as the Chief of the General Staff because of his ability in fighting, which was appreciated by Moltke. He did not know how to flatter.
Waldersee also came from a military background. Of course, he had never commanded in actual combat. He had always served as an aide-de-camp to His Majesty William I. Later, he was transferred to the General Staff. Now, he is a politician and no longer a soldier.
But Schlieffen directly said that the leader did not know how to fight a war, which made Waldersee very uncomfortable.
The clock on the wall was ticking. Waldersee, who was in the Berlin City Palace, fiddled with the globe on the table and was silent for a long time, hesitating whether to get angry.
Finally, reason triumphed over madness. Waldersee was born into a noble family, not a poor painter or a second-class soldier. The more noble one is, the less he cares about others looking down on him. On the contrary, people born into the lower classes are more likely to have a stress reaction when others look down on them.
This slight difference in the commander-in-chief determined the direction of the war.
Waldersee's voice became gentler. "What if I order you, Marshal, to attack southwards, occupy Paris first, and complete the political mission?"
Schlieffen on the other side was not polite at all. "Then please relieve me of my duties first. There is a saying in the East that a general is not subject to orders from the emperor when he is away from home. My judgment on the front line is in line with the battlefield situation. As a soldier, I must not act recklessly against the principles of the battlefield."
Meeting such an upright chief of staff, Waldersee sighed and said, "Then Marshal, do as you wish. I support you."
Schlieffen said, "I need your Excellency's authorization to use our V2 missile cluster to force the enemy in Dunkirk to surrender before the enemy transport fleet arrives."
Waldersee was furious. "Marshal, those are what we prepared for London! We can't use them carelessly!"
Schlieffen's even angrier voice came from the other side, "Sir, if we destroy the elite British troops here, London will fall without a fight. If we let the tiger go back to the mountains here, no matter how many missiles we have, it will be useless to hit London."
"We still have aircraft carrier groups and bomber groups to attack London, but the fighter planes here in Dunkirk are fleeting. Once we lose them, we will regret it."
"I insist on my request. Otherwise, you can let someone else take command. I am willing to go to Baoding to accompany Marshal Moltke."
Waldersee was silent for a long time, then he sighed, "Marshal, you have my authorization."
After hanging up the phone, Waldersee slumped on the sofa, then suddenly stood up and overturned the table, causing the phone, globe and ink bottle on the table to fall to the ground.
Today the waiters at the City Palace trembled as they heard Waldersee's loud roars and curses in the office, and none of Schlieffen's ancestors since he came out of the forest were spared.
…………
Dunkirk, a town of 10,000 people, was now crowded with 400,000 British and French troops. The defeated soldiers had lost all their heavy equipment and were holding their guns with blank expressions.
The German bombers came for another routine bombing. The sluggish soldiers reacted quickly and hid in the trenches. Waves of bombers dropped TNT bombs and incendiary bombs horizontally, and the Stukas whistled sharply, and body parts continued to appear outside the trenches.
After the German planes had finished their attack and flew away, the soldiers emerged from the trenches covered in dust and dirt. Their faces were blackened by the flames and explosives, and they shook off the dirt on their bodies.
The veterans were not afraid of these air raids. Hundreds of people could be killed in one raid. It just depended on who was unlucky.
The British Empire is the hegemon of the sea, and countless transport ships will come to Dunkirk to take us home. We are tired of filling trenches in France and eating terrible British military rations.
The British soldiers smashed the hard compressed biscuits with the butts of their guns and even hummed songs from their homeland.
"Are you going to Scarborough fair, Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme..."
"No, what is that?"
The curious British and French soldiers followed the fingers of their sharp-eyed comrades and saw a large number of cigar-shaped UFOs flying in the northeastern sky.
"Enemy attack!"
Although they didn't know what it was, it was definitely not a friendly thing. Without any orders from their superiors, the soldiers immediately went back into the trenches.
However, the trenches that were effective against 200 kg aerial bombs would be completely ineffective against one ton of TNT explosives.
After the earth-shaking sound of five hundred V2 rockets exploding, thousands of soldiers did not crawl out of the trenches.
"Report to His Excellency the Admiral, Schlieffen called and urged us to surrender immediately."
"Calling the Germans back, impossible."
Five minutes later, another five hundred V2 missiles fell on the densely packed army.
Twenty-five minutes later, three thousand V2 missiles exploded in the small city of Dunkirk, where four hundred thousand soldiers gathered. Three thousand tons of TNT caused the loss of more than forty thousand soldiers.
"Report to the Admiral, another batch of terrifying giant bombs are coming."
Sir George Stuart White, the commander-in-chief of the British army, slumped in the underground fortifications, his face ashen, "Call Schlieffen, we demand decent treatment for prisoners of war."
Sir White's decision was correct. Germany had produced 2 V missiles and had just used a little over half of them. His surrender order saved at least young lives.
On February 1889, 2, the first British transport fleet, escorted by the "Brave" aircraft carrier group and the "Hood" and "Royal Oak" battleships, arrived in Dunkirk after driving away the German submarine attack at the cost of one-fifth of the loss.
They saw Iron Cross flags flying everywhere on the shore, and the last 400,000 elite British and French troops were completely wiped out.
Schlieffen had left Brussels and led a million-strong army straight to Paris.
…………
February 2, Hailing, Qiao Garden.
"The French army evacuated Paris without a fight and retreated from Epinal, Metz and Verdun. Under the fierce attack of the German army, the French army was defeated step by step, the command was broken, and there was no time to fortify any area."
"Alfonso I fled to London and ordered Spain to send troops to France to resist the German invasion."
"Zhang Zihuai has just recruited 200,000 Spanish troops. Marshal McMahon, who was left behind in France, has surrendered. McMahon was appointed by Waldersee as the head of the puppet government."
"As Italy saw the German army's successive victories, it immediately defected, declared an alliance with the German army, and sent troops to occupy southern France."
"The local government in southern France, which was ready to surrender to Germany, refused to accept the Italian occupation. The Italian army was defeated by the French militia and fled back to their homeland in a hurry."
Uh, after listening to Yali read to this, Shao Quanzhong couldn't help laughing. Italy has joined the German camp. It seems that Germany is going to be mysterious.
"Zhang Zihuai called to ask if we should obey Alfonso I's orders and invade France to fight the Germans."
Shao Quanzhong waved his hand and said, "Why fight? Can Spain beat Germany? Are you trying to drag me down? We can gain more by standing and watching the fun than by fighting. Why fight a war that will kill people?"
"Tell Zhang Zihuai to delay Alfonso I for a few days and call Isabel to me."
…………
On March 3, Queen Isabella of Spain boarded Shao Quanzhong's special train, the "Count Zeppelin" gasoline propeller train, and safely passed through the German war zone in France and arrived in Madrid.
Isabel announced that she would pass the throne to her son Shao Jishuan.
The eighteen-year-old Shao Jishuan succeeded to the throne of Spain and was called Alfonso XIII.
The first decree was that, in view of the demise of France, Spain would withdraw from the Franco-Spanish Alliance and remain neutral.
At the same time, join the Daxia economic integration camp.
(End of this chapter)