Imperial Elite

Chapter 83 Heroes Who Saved the Nation

After seeing Edward off, Joe continued to prepare for street fighting, based on the experience he had learned in Paris.

Joe began stockpiling large quantities of artillery shells, preparing to unleash a barrage of shells on the Teutons once the Battle of Cologne began, providing overwhelming firepower to cover the assault troops.

At the same time, self-propelled artillery was assigned to the combat groups that broke into the city, allowing them to directly destroy the Teutonic fortifications with heavy artillery instead of fighting the Teutons inside the buildings.

Just as Joe was preparing for the attack on Cologne, Edward also met with the Teutonic commander inside the city.

This is an old general whose chest is covered with medals; he looks quite old.

In fact, this old general was not young at all. During the last minor clash with the Gauls, he was one of the officers who witnessed the emperor's coronation in the Hall of Mirrors.

That was the most glorious moment of his life, making him feel as if he were omnipotent.

After the new emperor ascended the throne, a minor friction occurred between him and the prime minister who had created all of that. As a veteran member of the military corps who had witnessed how the prime minister had created all of that, he did not hesitate to stand on the prime minister's side, hoping that His Majesty would seriously consider the future of the empire.

Then, like many others who supported the prime minister, he was labeled as a member of the prime minister's faction and kicked out of the empire's core.

When the war broke out, unlike the other ambitious new officers who wanted to achieve the overwhelming victory of forty years ago, the old general lamented that what his late prime minister had tried his best to avoid all his life had come to pass.

The emperor ultimately staked the wealth accumulated by generations of the empire on the gambling table. Although they had gambled in the same way back then, they had almost nothing then, but things were different now.

Although dissatisfied with the new emperor, the old general, being a veteran soldier, believed that since the war had begun, he should do everything in his power to win. So, he asked someone to express his desire to return to active duty to the emperor and the General Staff.

At first, the old general's request was rejected without hesitation.

With so many new recruits joining the army every year, there's no room for veteran generals.

However, as the war progressed, the old general soon received a new position.

However, upon receiving his new position, the old general realized that during his time away from the army, he could no longer understand how the war had become something he couldn't comprehend.

The cavalry were driven out of the battlefield, and the infantry huddled in the tunnels like rats. On this cruel battlefield, there was no longer any courage or honor to speak of; there were only two groups of pitiful people struggling to survive.

Damn it! How did the war turn out like this?!
Fortunately, the Teutonic army had introduced a staff system long ago. Generals who found themselves perhaps becoming somewhat ill-suited to modern warfare were urgently promoted to commander of the defense of Cologne after Joe broke through the Low Countries.

In addition to visiting front-line troops, having lunch with soldiers, and telling them about the heroic deeds of their predecessors to boost morale, he delegated almost all other deployment and fortification work to Erich, who had previously served as the chief of staff of the Paris campaign group and had experience in the siege of St. Petersburg.

It wasn't until Erich told him that a messenger from Joe had come from outside the city and wanted to see him.

The old general finally returned to the command post.

Upon returning to command post and seeing that the person who had come was only a sergeant, the old general couldn't help but complain, "What does Joe mean by this? Sending only a sergeant, is he insulting me?"

Before he could finish speaking, the sergeant replied, “Unfortunately, I am the only sergeant in the unit with the best Teutonic language skills, so I was sent as an envoy. The others have more important things to do, General. This is a letter from Joe to you.”

Edward took out the letter and handed it to the old general with both hands.

The old general took the letter, took out his monocle from his pocket and clipped it to his face, glanced at the letter and muttered "Bunitania..." before handing it to Erich, who was standing nearby.

Upon receiving the letter, Erich was also very curious about what Joe had written in it.

After all, Ehrlich's impression of Joe was that he was a straightforward and decisive person who would drive a tank in your face instead of writing you a letter.

After receiving the letter, Ehrlich glanced at it and his eyes widened. He had never expected Joe to make such a suggestion.

Noticing the surprised expression on Erich's face, the old general asked curiously, "Erich, what did he say?"

"He said he hoped we could work with him to open a demilitarized evacuation corridor from which civilians in the city could evacuate. He would not attack or shell the area, but he hoped we would also demilitarize that route."

Upon hearing Erich's words, the old general's face flushed slightly, and he glared at Edward, demanding an explanation.

What does he mean? Does he think I'm stupid?

Edward shook his head at the somewhat annoyed old general.

"No, he doesn't think you're a foolish general. In fact, I didn't think his proposal would work before I came either. I wasn't planning to come, but before I came he said, 'Because enough people have died, this way we can lose fewer people, and they can lose fewer people too.' So I came."

Looking at Edward before them, the old general and Erich were at a loss for words.

After a moment, the old general waved his hand and ordered his adjutant to bring him a map. He then spread the map on the table in front of him, took out a pencil, and drew a line on it.

“From here to here will be the evacuation route. If he agrees, then do as he says.”

Edward stared wide-eyed at the map the old general handed him, clearly wanting to say something, but remembering he was just a messenger, he remained silent, took the map, saluted the old general, and left.

Only after Edward left did Erich whisper a question to the old general.

"Do you believe his proposal?"

The old general snorted.

"Trust your enemy? Don't be foolish."

The old general turned and walked toward his command post, which he hadn't visited in a long time, saying as he went, "He wants to open up this route, he must be planning something. We must be extra vigilant there. But he's right about one thing, too many people have died..."

Joe quickly obtained the map that the old general had drawn with a line.

Looking at the map, the staff officers in the command post were all indignant, saying that the Teutons were really ungrateful and that this retreat route showed no sincerity whatsoever.

After all, Düsseldorf is not far north of Cologne, and the two cities are almost intertwined. To attack Cologne, one must find a way to cut off the passage between the two cities.

But now the old general is ordering the civilians of Cologne to retreat to Düsseldorf, instead of to the rear, far from the contact line. This is completely taking advantage of Joe's goodwill to build a defensive line for himself.

There's no need to reason with these kinds of people; just declare the evacuation route invalid and launch a full-scale attack.

However, Joe didn't think so.

It's hard to say whether a safer evacuation route closer to the front lines, away from enemy fire, is a good thing or a bad thing for the defending forces.

Just as Joe was waiting for the artillery shells and follow-up troops to arrive, he sent the retreat route map, handwritten by General Teutonic, to the rear so that they could print it into air and artillery leaflets.

Have the air force and artillery fire these leaflets into the city of Cologne.

The old general originally had no intention of announcing the matter, but as Joe began his propaganda offensive, throwing leaflets everywhere and sending Edward to Cologne again to observe the civilian evacuation, he found a new plan.

Before meeting the old general, Edward, who had arrived at the outer perimeter of the Teutonic positions, loudly proclaimed that Joe felt too many people had died and that civilians should not be implicated in the war. Therefore, he had negotiated with the old general to open a non-combat corridor for the evacuation of civilians. He was now there to check on the evacuation of civilians.

The old general had no choice but to accept this approach.

He could detain Edward and send military police to warn anyone who had been in contact with Edward to shut up.

However, the old general knew that the army was sometimes like a ladies' tea party, where news spread very quickly, and it was possible that this news had already been leaked.

If I were to order them to shut up at a time like this, it's hard to say whether they would actually do so.

The situation where the opposing commander wants to be human, while your own commander is very anthropomorphic, can severely impact troop morale. After all, in previous propaganda, the Bunitas and Gauls were portrayed as a bunch of scoundrels and villains who would steal everyone's bread and beer, and even lollipops from children, if they came to Teutonic.

The enemy is now preparing to allow civilians to evacuate, but we are not allowing it, which will seriously affect the morale of our soldiers.

So the old general could only send Edward to check out the safe passage while simultaneously announcing within the city that the passage did indeed exist and that civilians could evacuate from there.

Seeing that they could escape the battlefield, the citizens of Cologne immediately helped the elderly and children onto that road, and for a time there were even signs of a traffic jam.

Seeing the large number of citizens leaving via this road, Edward left with satisfaction.

Then Joe also received the news. While admiring that the enemy commander was indeed rational, Joe ordered the southern part of the Cologne campaign to begin, since a number of reinforcements had already arrived.

A battle group was dispatched to attack south of Cologne, in an attempt to sever the connection between Cologne and Bonn.

As Joe began his attack, the booming of cannons and explosions, along with the wounded soldiers being evacuated from the front lines for treatment, accelerated the escape of the citizens of Cologne.

Now everyone knows Joe is serious.

Just as Joe began launching the Battle of Cologne, the Teutonic Emperor's orders arrived at Kiel.

The Teutonic Emperor hoped that the navy could also make a contribution when the army and air force were already giving their all.

Although the Teutonic Emperor was unable to break the Bunitalian naval blockade due to the superior tonnage sank in the previous naval battle, he believed that his investment in the navy had been very effective.

Even though the navy's situation hasn't been particularly good in the last two years, it has still been able to force the Bunitanias to the negotiating table after inflicting heavy casualties on the Bunitania navy.

After all, whether the Teutons had a navy or not was not a big deal, but if the Buntanians lost their navy, what would they use to defend their vast colonies?
If they can inflict serious damage on the Bonitania navy, they will definitely come to the negotiating table.

The Teutonic Emperor felt that there was nothing wrong with his logic, after all, the navy had fought bravely at sea two years ago, and now they just needed to do it again.

However, the emperor's order encountered some unexpected problems. The naval commanders accepted the order and prepared to lead the fleet out of port, but the sailors refused to carry out this order, which they considered suicidal.

Two years later, the brutal impression of the naval battle two years ago has not been erased from the sailors' minds with the passage of time; on the contrary, it has become more and more horrifying under the strengthening of the memory filter.

Upon receiving orders to prepare for combat, the sailors immediately detained the officers and began attempting to seize the warships and armories, resulting in a firefight with the military police and other officers who arrived to suppress the riot.

In short, they preferred to die in the harbor rather than risk going out to sea again. While the sailors refused to fight, news of the Bunitalians invading the Teutonic homeland and attacking Cologne, as well as the Kiel riots, reignited the left wing, which had been dormant since the Battle of Paris in 1917.

The previous victories in the Battle of Paris and on the Eastern Front led to the suppression and marginalization of the left wing, which advocated for a ceasefire. They were almost considered spies sent by the Bunitania and Gauls to overthrow the empire.

However, as the war spread to the empire's homeland and the Second Battle of Paris reached a stalemate, more and more people began to sense an ominous atmosphere.

Especially as the Lucian left-wing government began its westward advance to reclaim lost territories while besieging Tallinn, goods from the east decreased again.

The Teutons' enthusiasm for the war waned again, especially among some who had fled Cologne, who said that the Bunitanias were not monsters and that they had even opened a path for them to evacuate before launching their attack on Cologne.

This has led more people to believe that a ceasefire might not be an unacceptable thing.

After all, the prerequisite for living is simply to live.

The Teutonic Emperor never expected that the navy, on which he had placed such high hopes, would betray him at this time. When he heard the news of the sailors' mutiny, the Teutonic Emperor stood up from his chair in surprise and had his attendants repeat it three times before the sailors launched their uprising and he realized that there was nothing wrong with his ears.

Then the Teutonic Emperor let out a roar like a wounded beast. In the middle of the roar, the Teutonic Emperor questioned his attendants: Had he not been good enough to the navy? Even though they had only fought twice in four years, they had received the most generous salaries in the empire and enjoyed treatment that frontline infantrymen could only dream of.

Was I not lenient enough with them? While the army was being wiped out in large numbers and the air force was fighting a bloody battle over Paris, the navy could simply sit in the harbor, enjoying the sea breeze and drinking coffee.

Was I not merciful enough to them? I withdrew to port after only one encounter with the Bonitania navy, and did not fight again, nor did I deal with any of them.

I've treated them like this, why do they still betray me?!

Amidst the Teutonic Emperor's roar, the last Germanic guard was mobilized to prepare to go to Kiel to suppress the naval mutiny.

However, just as the Guards were being mobilized, some officers in the Teutonic General Staff also gathered together and began to discuss some taboo topics.

For example, whether this war can continue at all.

Although they still have a considerable number of troops on the western front, and even from the perspective of the battle lines, they are still in a superior position.

The Bunitania armored force made very slow progress in Cologne, taking a week to sever the railway link between Cologne and Bonn.

It will take the Bunitas quite some time before they can do anything there.

But now Paris is definitely out of the question. After a long battle, even though the ground buildings of Les Invalides have been reduced to ruins, the garrison is still holding out in those ruins.

Meanwhile, the increasing number of French tanks and armored units also caused heavy losses to the Paris battle group.

As for the eastern front... apart from Tallinn, which is still holding out, due to a lack of sufficient troops, the last mobile forces have also retreated to the line between Kiev and Minsk to defend these two large cities.

Unlike in 1917 when victory seemed within reach, any rational person could see that they were unlikely to win the war this time.

So they had to do something before everything was beyond repair.

Perhaps having His Majesty abdicate and ending the war like the Sultanate would be a good option.

However, despite this thought, the glorious officer corps could not bear the infamy of forcing His Majesty to abdicate. In other words, besides those of them who were prepared to save the country before everything became irreversible, there were many officers in the officer corps who were prepared to stay with His Majesty until the very end. Therefore, they had to be careful not to let these people discover what they were planning to do.

Perhaps those leftists who are trying to incite a ceasefire are a good choice; let these fools lead the way and attract hatred.

While some officers within the officer corps harbored ulterior motives, the Gauls and Americans prepared for a counterattack.

Since the Teutonic offensive in Paris has reached its limit, and the defenders in Paris are now even able to launch counterattacks in some areas to reclaim some lost territory, the Gauls and Caucasians are not prepared to launch a direct counterattack from Paris.

After all, they had already experienced firsthand the consequences of two heavily armed groups clashing head-on at Verdun.

Therefore, this time they planned to launch an attack from Verdun, attacking the Teutons from their flank.

In response, the Gauls prepared their final mobile forces, and the newly arrived troops of the American Expeditionary Force also joined the counterattack.

This was also the location from which the Gauls were able to quickly spread the flames of war to the Teutonic homeland. After the two battles of Paris, many Gauls had a score to settle with the Teutons.

Because both the Gauls and the Americans maintained strict radio silence, and because most of the Teutonic air force was drawn to Paris and Cologne, the Teutons did not discover this massive troop buildup by the Gauls and Americans.

So just as Joe cut off the railway connection between Cologne and Bonn and officially began the meat grinder inside Cologne, the Gauls and Caucasians launched a massive counterattack at Verdun.

Caught off guard, the Teutonic defenses were breached on the very first day.

Although the Teutons tried their best to plug the gap, all their efforts to seal the breach in the defensive line failed under the onslaught of the Gauls and Caucasians.

The Teutonic troops at Verdun were forced to begin a retreat in an attempt to reorganize their defenses.

At this point, even if the Teutonic General Staff was unwilling, they had no choice but to end the Paris campaign, begin to abandon the huge salient of Paris, and withdraw their troops to level the battle lines and free up more forces.

However, the Gauls in Paris, who were somewhat religiously fanatical, were not going to let them go so easily. Especially Georges, who had been fighting a very frustrating defensive war since entering the battlefield, was now chasing after them like a mad dog with his severely understaffed armored brigade.

With a speed of twenty kilometers per hour, George could easily catch up with any Teutonic troops attempting to escape on foot or by wagon.

Then they took a big bite out of those Teutonic troops.

At this point, George finally understood the correct way to use these hound tanks and why they were called hounds.

Then George discovered a problem he had never noticed before in the battle: these big guys really consumed a lot of fuel.

The fuel tank, which had just been filled up, would soon be completely burned out. And because George was always busy leading his troops on raids, he often led them to wander aimlessly in the wilderness.

This made it difficult for his support vehicles to deliver supplies to him in a timely manner. Even if they knew where George was, the off-road capabilities of ordinary trucks made it difficult to catch up with George, who was running around everywhere.

Faced with this awkward situation, George couldn't help but think of the eight-wheeled and six-wheeled off-road vehicles that Joe had worked so hard to sell. This made George sigh that Joe was truly a master of his craft, having foreseen everything.

Meanwhile, George, who felt he had calculated everything, was leading his troops in a difficult advance through the city of Cologne.

When Joe first saw the Teutonic super-heavy tank on the battlefield, he thought the Teutons who built it had gone mad.

Although this thing has two cannons and thick armor, it's still a bit too big.

Its lack of flexibility makes it an easy target in urban warfare.

Although the Hound tanks couldn't handle this behemoth, its slow speed and massive size made it easy for Joe's officers to determine its direction of travel.

And these guys who were previously blown to bits by the Teutons with roadside bombs in Paris have now completed their transformation from bad to perverted.

A single roadside bomb can accomplish the entire operation, from severing the tracks to eliminating the accompanying infantry.

Since it was the first time these bad guys had seen such a huge creature in person, they felt they had to capture one of these things and study it carefully.

After all, although they took this thing out with a roadside bomb, they had actually been completely dominated by it during their previous encounters.

As the earliest adopters of tanks, their method of acquiring such a tank was quite simple.

Molotov cocktails might burn the car, so we can just borrow a chemical shell from the artillery.

Under the attack of poison gas, the crew quickly abandoned the vehicle and fled, only to be captured on the spot by the well-prepared infantry.

Then they captured a Teutonic super-heavy tank, cleared the surrounding area, and showed Old Joe the big guy they had caught.

Upon hearing that his men had captured such a large creature, Joe was naturally very interested.

So they rushed to the scene to watch.

Upon seeing their appearance, Joe thought these Teutons were indeed very creative, with a very distinctive aesthetic sense, which even made him want to thoroughly investigate the Teutons to see if their designers had any influence over them.

But once inside the tank, Joe's initial excitement turned into utter contempt.

As a professional officer who had participated in tank design, Joe only glanced at it a few times before he determined that the vehicle's hull was definitely an enlarged copy of the Royal Fist tank design, and even the engine position was exactly the same.

Well, it can't be said to be exactly the same; at least to power this behemoth, the Teutons crammed in two engines.

Then they modified the exhaust system to prevent the vehicle's interior from becoming a gas chamber.

However, the Teutonic improvements basically stopped there. Even Turret Joe thought that this thing was just a damn replica of the Hound tank's turret, with two cannons crammed in.

It's no exaggeration to say that this is a Frankenstein's monster, a design that tries to cross a river by touching the surface of a Britannian tank.

After watching it, Joe just wanted to ask the tank's designer for some compensation for emotional distress.

Although Joe felt that the design of this thing was not innovative at all, and that its tall body was a waste of a lot of tonnage.

However, this super-heavy tank still caused Joe a lot of trouble.

The thick armor meant that the Hound tank could only effectively penetrate the tank by attacking its rear at close range, so Joe experienced for the first time what it felt like for his troops to be chased.

Fortunately, Joe deployed self-propelled artillery in the urban warfare, so these Teutonic super-heavy tanks didn't dare to be too arrogant.

Apart from the super-heavy tanks, the Teutonic forces were inferior to Joe's in both quality and quantity. So, although their advance was not fast, Joe steadily compressed the Teutonic control area within Cologne.

(End of this chapter)