Imperial Elite

Chapter 7 But, not today.
"We will all die."

As soon as Joe said this, the soldiers gathered in the trenches looked at him with a subtle change in their gaze.

"This is the general law of all living things. No one can live forever. Even the savior who has performed countless miracles will die. However, he is the savior, so he will be resurrected three days after his death. If you have not performed any miracles, I do not recommend that you try this."

Hearing what Joe said, the soldiers' eyes, which had just changed, gradually softened again, and even the corners of their mouths turned up slightly.

"But for us, those who can only die once in our lives, we must do something before that inevitable end comes."

At this point, Joe waved his right hand.

"So that when you are old, sitting in a rocking chair by the fireplace, holding your grandchildren, you can proudly tell them that when you were young, you fought on the front lines to kill Teutons for the war that would end all wars, instead of stammering and whispering that you were just peeling potatoes in the kitchen and feeding horses in the stable!"

"You can proudly tell your grandchildren that you did not retreat a single step in this war, that we killed every Teutonist we saw, held every trench, and that every step we took forward was toward Germania!"

"Today we are here to fight for the Empire, for the King, and even more so for ourselves, for our families, and for the coffee in the street cafes."

At this point, Joe had no idea what he was saying, so he quickly tried to smooth things over.

"We all know those Hans' coffee is awful! So to hell with them and their coffee! We'll hold this place today, just as we'll win tomorrow!"

Having finally come to terms with the situation, Joe lowered his right hand, which he had been waving vigorously, and looked at the soldiers in front of him.

Yes, we will all die, but not today!

As soon as Qiao finished speaking, the remaining brats immediately shouted, "Not today!"

As Qiao rejoiced that all those drinks he'd treated his friends to over the past year hadn't been for nothing, those brats shouted, "Not today!"

The other soldiers, led by them, also began shouting, "Not today!"

For a moment, the atmosphere inside the trenches resembled that of a fan bar after a football victory.

Looking at the soldiers who raised their guns and shouted "Not today!"

Joe secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

When Hans's coffee was mentioned, Joe thought he was going to mess everything up, but he managed to salvage the situation in the end. He was truly a master.

It's easy to say nice things, but what to do after saying them is a problem that gives Joe a bigger headache.

After all, as a corps engineer, Joe's past training was all about how to build bridges, pave roads, dig pits, and lay mines. He couldn't be said to be completely ignorant about trench warfare, but he was basically clueless.

Fortunately, Joe had an old friend who liked to brag about his experiences. Although there were some differences between them, Joe figured he could probably learn some tactical insights from him...

Damn brain, quickly think about what that old friend said before I woke up today.

Looking at the soldiers staring at him from the trenches, Joe waved his hand to quiet them down, and then spoke in a low voice.

"I have a plan."

Although it was called a plan, Joe only had one simple idea in his mind at that moment.

The first step of this plan is to find a way to recruit people.

After a full infantry company, plus the infantry who captured this trench, plus their own engineer squad, and several hundred men, only a handful remained after the Teutonic attack.

If they launch another attack, they're definitely doomed.

So after gaining temporary command, Joe immediately ordered the infantry to search for the messenger's body, hoping to find the signal gun and signal flare on him so that reinforcements could be sent from behind as soon as possible.

Of course, relying solely on signal flares wouldn't suffice. Joe ordered the fastest runner among the lads, and the fastest runner among the infantry, to set off every ten minutes to return to their starting positions and fetch reinforcements from above.

But relying solely on reinforcements is certainly not enough; who knows how long it will take for reinforcements to arrive? So until reinforcements arrive, Joe must strengthen defenses and find a way to survive the next Teutonic attack.

In the previous encounter with the Teutons, Joe discovered that the infantry of his 32nd Infantry Division, which was only formed after the war, were at a significant disadvantage in a direct confrontation with the Teutons.

There's nothing we can do; if we can't beat them, we can't beat them.

When Joe was inspecting the trenches, he discovered that there were far fewer Teutonic corpses than Bunitania corpses, even including the wounded soldiers abandoned after the Teutonics withdrew.

If infantry can't win a head-on battle, there's simply nothing that can be done.

Although theoretically, the defending side in trench warfare can gain a significant advantage by relying on trenches, the existence of trenches allows the defending soldiers to be easily eliminated by the attacking side as they charge.

But that's not actually the case.

Although Joe had previously led his engineers to destroy the communication trenches leading to the rear positions with explosives, the latter half of the trenches still remained. Many Teutons used these trenches to scale the trenches and launch attacks, significantly shortening the distance for their assaults.

Then there were the air-cooled machine guns that the infantry companies of the Bunitania were equipped with, which were indeed no match for those Teutonic water-cooled machine guns.

Although this thing has the advantage of being lightweight, unlike those water-cooled machine guns that require a group of people to handle, it only requires one machine gunner to carry it around.

However, this air-cooled machine gun is inferior to the Teutonic water-cooled machine guns known as "black pigs" in terms of sustained firepower. As long as liquid is poured into the machine gun barrel and the ammunition belt is kept running, they can keep firing until the end of the world.

After continuous firing, these air-cooled machine guns require barrel replacement to prevent barrel explosion if the barrel overheats.

Not only were the barrels replaced, but these air-cooled machine guns also used drum magazines, and to adapt to offensive operations, they were equipped with 46-round small drum magazines instead of the 98-round large drum magazines.

This makes both sustained firepower and suppression capabilities problematic.

Moreover, not only is its firepower unsustainable, but there are only four of these machines currently on the front lines.

In reality, according to standard organization, an infantry company only has two of these crappy machines. If the infantry company that previously occupied this trench hadn't remained here, then theoretically, Joe would only have two machine guns to defend this section of the trench.

In the previous attack, the Teutonic machine guns were able to easily suppress the defenders in the trenches, while the defenders' machine guns, due to the problem of sustained firepower, had difficulty suppressing the Teutonic offensive.

Faced with inferior firepower, weaker individual combat capabilities, and a likely numerical disadvantage in the upcoming defensive operations, Joe felt it was time to employ the tactics his old friend had boasted about. Hopefully, this guy wasn't just bragging; otherwise, if Joe were ever conscripted by the yellow-skinned bastards, he'd definitely give him a good beating. Just as Joe began directing his troops to rebuild the trench defenses, the whistling of artillery shells echoed through the sky once more.

"Bombardment! Take cover!" Just as Joe crouched down, covered his ears, and opened his mouth, the explosion rang out in the distance, but the expected shockwave and debris did not fall like raindrops as before.

Realizing that the situation might have changed, Joe stood up from the trench and looked in the direction from which the explosion had occurred.

That was the rear of this trench, the position that belonged to the Bunitania when they set out.

"Damn it... Teutonics!"

Seeing the fireballs rising from the direction of the starting position, Joe realized that he would not receive any reinforcements until the Teutonic bombardment ended.

If nothing unexpected happens, the Teutons will launch their attack when this round of bombardment ends.

Meanwhile, not far from this trench, in the Teutonic second line of defense, Corporal Holtz was angrily organizing his equipment.

Holz, a Teuton born into a working-class family, did not have a good life from childhood.

Even if capitalists are completely despicable, being born into a working-class family usually means that at least having enough to eat is not a problem.

Furthermore, Holz's parents were very loving and didn't lead a life of going hungry for three days and having to eat a small steel rod occasionally. The problem was that Holz's parents were too loving.

Including Holz, their family had a total of eight children, all of whom were boys.

If this were in the countryside, eight boys would be enough to establish the Holz family's status in the village, but since they lived in the city, the situation was different.

From the time Holtz could remember, he had never even worn a pair of socks. Every meal was like a battle. Because his family couldn't afford a big house, everyone had to eat at one table. As a result, if Holtz ate too slowly, his brother's spoon would accidentally reach into his bowl.

This lifestyle continued until Holtz, like every Teutonic man, joined the reserves and began his military service.

Although the Teutonic conscripts' food and living conditions were not very good due to the adoption of a conscription system in order to control costs.

But in the army, for the first time, I had my own bed and a meal without worrying that my comrades might accidentally put a spoon into my bowl.

Holtz believed that being a soldier was a man's romance! A true man should live like this!

With this realization, Holtz quickly became a contract soldier thanks to his outstanding performance, and was then promoted to corporal and placed in the Guards. His future looked very promising.

As the war broke out, Holtz and his friends, who were also eager to make a name for themselves, agreed that once the war was over, they would go to a beer hall in Germania for a good drink.

If nothing unexpected had happened, Holtz, as one of the first troops to enter the Netherlands, should have been promoted and given a raise, just like his colleagues, after beating up the weak Lowlanders. He should have been accumulating a lot of medals.

However, just as the troops entered the Netherlands, Holtz contracted malaria, somehow after eating something.

According to regulations, Holtz, who was practically spitting out his intestines at this point, was naturally not allowed to kick the lowlanders' butts, so he was sent back to the rear.

After lying in the hospital for a long time, Holtz was finally able to return to the front lines. By then, any of his friends who were still alive either had medals on their chests or were close to becoming officers.

This disparity made Holz feel that what they could do, Holz could do too, and he was ready to fight for the Emperor's honor.

Holtz, who had only been at the front lines for three days, was sent back to the rear to recuperate due to acute appendicitis.

Normally, a minor illness like acute appendicitis would allow one to return to work after a few days of bed rest.

However, it is unknown what the doctor who operated on Holz used, but Holz developed a serious infection after the appendectomy.

The field hospital certainly couldn't treat this situation, so the patient had to be transferred back to the ward.

This infection nearly cost Holz his life, and by the time he was finally able to leave the hospital, it was already 1916.

As a non-commissioned officer who had received rigorous training before the war, Holtz had been unable to hold back for two years since the war broke out, having never even seen the enemy fire a gun, let alone fired one.

Look at my old friends, any one of them who is still alive is now at least a sergeant, with so many medals on their chests that they could stop bullets. And look at myself, I've spent the last two years lying in the hospital.

If things continue like this, by the time the war ends, I won't even have the face to go to the beer hall and have a drink with my old friends.

No, I have to do something this time!
With this in mind, after rejoining the team, Holtz always wanted to go to Verdun, where the fierce battle was raging, to teach those Gauls who only knew how to deceive women a lesson.

However, because Holtz had been in the hospital for too long, his original unit suspected that he was feigning illness to avoid combat, so Holtz was reassigned to a reserve infantry division and sent to inspect the trenches on the Somme.

This instantly dampened Holtz's fighting spirit, which had been high. Just when the Bunitania launched their attack, his unit was relegated to the reserves.

Finally, they were able to join the counterattack and retake the trenches that had been occupied by the Bunitans.

As soon as Holtz led his men into the trench, the company commander blew his whistle and ordered a retreat.

Holtz got nothing again, he was running the whole time.

If it weren't for the Teutonic Army's rule that subordinates are not allowed to talk back to their superiors, Holtz would have wanted to ask that kid with "Feng" in his name why they retreated from a battle they had just been able to win.

However, after returning to the trenches, the company commander explained to them that the order was to weaken the attacking Bunitania, then attack their reinforcements and try to wear them down here.

Once we've worn down these Bunitania people enough, we can launch a counterattack.

The Buntanians in that trench are suffering heavy casualties, so they will definitely call for reinforcements. As long as reinforcements arrive, the artillery will give them a surprise.

As for the remaining Buntanians... we'll deal with them all during the next attack.

The company commander's words made a lot of sense. After Holtz returned to his squad and relayed the message from above, he began to angrily organize his equipment.

I must do something in the next attack!
Holtz thought to himself as he tucked the third grenade into his belt.

(End of this chapter)