Germany does not seek survival

The early bird migration movement was mainly participated by young people from middle-class and above backgrounds, and was not fully integrated with the general public, so its influence was limited. The target of the youth movement was not capitalist society, but only parents and schools.

But in 1904, landmark events occurred in both southern and northern Germany. In southern Germany, a young apprentice committed suicide by jumping from the roof of a factory because he could not bear the oppression of his boss. In northern Germany, a young worker killed the senior teacher who seduced his lover and then committed suicide.

Both incidents aroused widespread sympathy among young people across Germany at the time. The bird movement group, which was originally limited to the middle class, actively expressed its stance in these two social events, raised funds to help the families of the two young men, and defended their actions, thereby gaining a huge influence among the proletarian youth group.

Since then, various youth groups established in the wave of the Migrant Bird Movement have formed a powerful revolutionary reserve army. They are full of dissatisfaction with the society of the German Empire and have strong action power. They only need a match to burn down the old world.

But at this time, World War I broke out, and the young people actively responded to the war, venting their dissatisfaction with the old society in foreign wars. The revolutionary undercurrent in the German Second Empire thus came to an abrupt end.

But in this undercurrent, there was a man named Adolf Hitler who fully absorbed the nutrients of the Bird Migration Movement and, through the ideas and organizational methods of the Bird Migration Movement, created a monster that later generations called the "Nazi."

By the campfire under the cover of night, other officers and soldiers also debated with Faust. However, this kind of debate in the trenches and by the campfire was the most convenient channel to promote the spread of revolutionary ideas.

After some debate, some people accepted Faust's statement, and everyone began to feel that the reason why the war was not going well was because of the corruption of Berlin's military nobles and capitalist elites. Some people did not accept Faust's statement, believing that spreading such remarks during the war would only lead to the collapse of military morale.

However, because of Faust's prestige and contributions, and because of his kindness to every soldier in the Great German Camp, everyone respects Faust. Even if someone opposes Faust's words, they will not criticize or attack Faust as a person.

In this way, the bonfire speech becomes a theater of Faust's unilateral output.

After Faust finishes speaking, if he feels that the atmosphere of today's speech is not warm enough, Faust will pull out the mustache and let the mustache give another speech.

The ideas of the mustache are not exactly the same as Faust's, but he also agrees on one point, that is, the main reason for the disadvantage of the German front is not that the German soldiers did not fight hard, but because there was a problem in the rear.

The difference is that Faust believes that the blame lies with the Kaiser, the Junkers and the capitalists, while the mustache believes that the blame lies mainly with the capitalists, and the capitalists are mainly the Jews.

Faust had only one request for the mustache speech, which was to concentrate the firepower on the capitalists. There was no need to distinguish between German capitalists or Jewish capitalists among the capitalists for the time being, just curse them all together.

The man with a mustache also walked to the campfire. In order to prevent the ice and snow from freezing his beard, he had trimmed his classic Prussian William mustache into the familiar hygiene mustache.

"German soldiers, brothers of the Grossdeutschland Battalion!"

The man with the mustache clenched his fist and shook it excitedly: "Look at your cracked leather boots! Smell the moldy bread crumbs in the trenches! Touch the devalued marks in the pockets of your military uniforms! Those vampires in silk shirts in Berlin are watering their coffers with our blood! While we were fighting British and French machine guns with bayonets, Krupp's directors were counting marks and laughing in their spa villas! While we were gnawing on black bread mixed with sawdust, the grain merchants in Hamburg were selling entire shiploads of wheat to Danish speculators!"

"Some people ask: Why continue to fight? Because international plutocrats are strangling Germany's throat! London bankers are buying our mines with gold bars, the Paris Stock Exchange is manipulating our exchange rates, and the vultures of Wall Street are waiting to devour our corpses! These parasites recognize no motherland, only profit; they have no loyalty, only greed; they suck the marrow out of the workers and trample on the glory of the soldiers!"

"Remember the tragedy of the Marne! The sacrifices of Verdun! It was not the British and French bullets that defeated us, but the profiteers who hoarded goods in the rear, the corrupt officials in the munitions department, and the bureaucrats who signed death notices in their safe houses! They sent rotten potatoes to the front line, but ordered Paris perfume for their mistresses; they withheld soldiers' pensions, but transferred astronomical sums to Swiss banks!"

"I've seen female munitions workers in Munich working 16 hours a day, coughing up blood and dying beside a machine tool! I've seen dock workers in Danzig fighting over a piece of moldy cheese, their heads bloodied! And the culprits of all this—the demons who control international capital—are sitting in the opera box in Vienna, toasting champagne to celebrate our suffering!"

"Germany's revival lies not in parliament halls, but on bayonets! Not in the contracts of capitalists, but in the will of soldiers! We must use machine guns to sweep away those parasites who betray the nation, and use flamethrowers to cleanse the corrupt financial system! When we cross the front, we must not only take back the land from the Allies, but also take back the national dignity stolen by the bankers!"

"Soldiers! Either let Germany be reborn in the flames, or let the international plutocrats turn us into eternal slaves! Choose - to be the capitalists' beasts, or to be the forgers of the steel storm!"

……

The mustache's speech is more powerful and infectious than Faust's. His oratory skills have not yet developed to perfection, but they already have a terrible inciting energy.

Even the more ordinary words, spoken through the mouth of a mustache, with his gestures, his voice and intonation, are more touching than those spoken from the mouth of Faust.

Chapter 36: To Romania

Faust's speech is mainly about reason, and the little mustache's speech can also be reasonable, but even if it is not reasonable, the little mustache can convince many soldiers just from the voice and performance.

Every time after Faust's bonfire speech, there would always be people who wanted to argue with Faust, but every time after the little mustache's speech, even if someone disagreed with what the little mustache said from the bottom of their heart, they would be shocked by his oratory and would not be able to organize the words to refute in a short time.

Faust could only sigh, maybe this is talent!

Even an Aryan superman cannot match one percent of Moustache's talent in oratory.

In the past few weeks, Faust himself failed to recruit many people to join the National Socialist Party, but thanks to the speeches of the little mustache, not only hundreds of soldiers were willing to join the National Socialist Party, but even allies such as Scherner, Kesselring, and von Thoma became more and more interested in the National Socialist Party.

At this rate, Faust estimated that by the time the Greater German Battalion went to Romania to participate in the war, the National Socialist Party would truly become the "ruling party" of the Greater German Battalion.

After the campfire talk, all the training courses in the mountains were completed, and the soldiers went down the mountain singing. Everyone knew that they would go to the Romanian battlefield next. But after several weeks of training in the Alps, everyone in the Great German Battalion, except for the battalion commander Colonel Epp, who was sidelined by Faust and knew nothing about it, had a new outlook on the upcoming war.

This was not a war, but a ladder to change the whole of Germany, starting with the National Socialist Party and the Greater German Battalion.

When we went down the mountain, there were actually very few military songs. Most of the songs were folk songs from the Tyrolean mountains near the German-Austrian border.

After going down the mountain, the soldiers of the Great German Battalion lined up in a column, took off their hats, rolled up their uniform sleeves, and hummed folk songs.

Faust had memorized many tunes of Tyrolean mountain songs. He walked at the front of the group, leading the others in singing along the winding mountain road, using the tunes of Austrian mountain songs:

"Who built Thebes with its seven gates?

The names of kings are written in the book.

Did the kings bring those rocks here?"

And Babylon, which was destroyed many times,

Who rebuilt it so many times? ”

"In the magnificent Lima,

What kind of houses do construction workers live in?

The night when the masons completed the Great Wall,

Where are they all going?

Great Rome is dotted with triumphal arches.

Who built them?

Who did those emperors defeat?

"? The famous Byzantine

Do all its inhabitants live in palaces?

The legendary Atlantis,

The sea first drowned the slaves, then

Those masters are floating and wailing in the vast ocean of night. "

“?Young Alexander conquered India.

Just him?

Caesar defeated the Gauls,

Didn't he even bring a cook? "

"When the Invincible Armada sank,

Philip of Spain wept.

Is there no one else crying?

Frederick the Great won the Seven Years' War.

Who else wins besides him? ”

“?Every page is a victory.

Who prepares the victory feast?

Every decade a great man

Who pays those costs?

So many records, so many questions. ”

……

Soldiers of the Grossdeutschland Battalion walked and sang, and many faces appeared behind the green shutters on both sides of the streets in the village at the foot of the mountain. Some of the German and Austrian mountain people who woke up in the early morning looked at the passing army in confusion, while others sang along to the rhythm of Faust.

Rommel, riding on horseback, saluted politely, responding to the respect and greetings coming from behind the shutters.

It was not until the entire army arrived at the small town at the foot of the mountain that Faust met an adjutant sent by Colonel Epp, who had been waiting in the town for a long time.

The adjutant brought an order from the General Staff. He handed Faust a document and said, "Second Lieutenant Faust, your training report has been commended by the General Staff. Because of your outstanding achievements in designing the training course for the Mountain Chasseurs, your superiors have decided to promote you from second lieutenant to first lieutenant."

When the officers and soldiers of the Great German Camp heard the good news, they all laughed and shouted, and everyone came forward to congratulate Faust on his promotion.

Faust then asked his adjutant, "Sir, is there anything else? The training is over, what about our mission?"

The adjutant replied, "Yes, Lieutenant Faust, the latest order is that the Grossdeutschland Battalion packs its bags and leaves for Salzburg to board the military train at six o'clock tomorrow morning. Our destination is Romania."

As expected, the first battle of the Grossdeutschland Battalion after its formation was to go to the Romanian battlefield to participate in the war, because the German-Austrian coalition forces had defeated the Romanian army that invaded the Transylvania Basin. The next step was to counterattack Romania and even capture the Romanian capital Bucharest, which required crossing the vast Carpathian Mountains.

The core of Romania's territory is the Wallachia Plain, which is the best agricultural land in the Balkan Peninsula and has a very rich grain production. Occupying this area can supplement the already impoverished Germany with a vital amount of grain.

Due to time constraints, the Grossdeutschland Battalion did not hold a complete inauguration ceremony.

According to German military practice, a brief review should be conducted on the day of the army's formation. The soldiers will form a hollow square, and the German flag and other military symbols will be placed on one side of the square as a swearing-in point.

The soldiers will wear uniforms, and the military flag corps and military band will participate in the review. Unlike the British and American armies, the German army does not have officers holding the flag and sergeants guarding the flag. Instead, the sergeants hold the flag and the officers guard the flag. This can reflect that the foundation of the German army lies in the soldiers.

When the commander arrives, the honor guard will look at the officer, blow the bugle and salute with their rifles. The commander will then review the uniformed troops. The soldiers will stand at attention straight and motionless, only their heads and eyes will follow the commander. According to German military drill manual, the head and eyes should move three steps with the commander before returning to the position of looking straight ahead.

After the review, the commander will give a brief speech, and then a group of new recruits will step out of the line as a representative of all the new recruits, walk to the oath point, and place their left hand on the battle flag. At this time, the officers will draw their swords, and all officers and soldiers participating in the ceremony will stand at attention and raise their right hands, and everyone will recite the oath that all members of the German army must recite.

Given the situation today, Colonel Epp is still in Munich, so it is definitely impossible to hold such a grand military commissioning ceremony. Everything has to be kept simple. Originally, since Colonel Epp is not here, the ceremony should have been presided over by Rommel, the commander of the first company, but Rommel has other officers, and everyone unanimously agreed to let Faust preside over the military commissioning ceremony.

In this way, Faust temporarily reviewed the formation of the Grossdeutschland Battalion. All ceremonies were simplified, leaving only the final oath stage. The original oath should have been "I solemnly swear in the name of God that I will unconditionally obey the Supreme Commander of the German Armed Forces, His Majesty Wilhelm II, Emperor of the German Empire, and I will always be ready to give my life for this oath." However, Faust took the opportunity of simplifying the ceremony to change this oath.

This long oath was changed by Faust into a very short sentence.

"Serve the German people!"

After the inauguration ceremony and oath review, the four companies of the Grossdeutschland Battalion, with more than a thousand men, marched on foot to Salzburg on the German-Austrian border, where everyone boarded the train.

The train moved slowly at first, and then its speed increased. The faint light of dawn passed through the small holes in the body of the train and cast into the carriage where Faust was. The light was extremely weak, and the soldiers lay casually on the floor of the carriage, with straw under their blankets, and fell into a deep sleep.

When everyone woke up again, the train had passed through the beautiful Vienna, the capital of Hungary, Budapest, and arrived at the desolate Hungarian-Romanian border.

The magnificent Carpathian Mountains unfolded before everyone, stretching for thousands of miles. Just by standing at the train station and looking at the mountain shadows on the skyline, one could feel how difficult it was to cross this mountain range.

For hundreds of years, even though the Ottoman Empire had completely declined, Austria still used the Carpathian Mountains as its border with the Ottoman Empire. It was already very difficult to cross the mountains, let alone in winter when the mountains were covered with heavy snow.

Chapter 37: Twenty-Second Army

Dusk enveloped the snow-covered Romanian mountains. On the train, the officers and soldiers of the Great German Battalion had already put on a white snow coat over their field-gray German uniforms.

After getting off the vehicle, all the soldiers regrouped according to squad and platoon organization. The soldiers lined up and reported in turn, shouting out their names, numbers, ranks and positions. In just over ten minutes, the army of more than a thousand people was fully organized.

A major officer wearing a wide-brimmed military cap walked over from the snow across from the train station. Because Colonel Epp was still on his way to the front line from Munich, the Great German Battalion was currently being served as acting commander by the commander of the first company, Rommel.

Rommel shook hands with the major who was in charge of the reception. The major then shook hands with Scherner, Kesselring and the others one by one. Finally, the major walked up to Faust, looked at the eye patch on Faust's face, and smiled:

"Lieutenant! You are Lieutenant Faust, right? Such a handsome face, and that iconic eye patch. I've seen your picture in the newspaper, Lieutenant Faust."

Faust also held out his hand and asked, "Major, what is your name?"

"Chief Operations Staff Officer of the 22nd Reserve Army, Gerd von Rundstedt!"

As the name suggests, he is another veteran Junker noble officer from the Black Banner. However, Rundstedt treats everyone in the Great German Battalion very well and is not as arrogant as Colonel Epp.

Major Rundstedt briefed the officers of Greater Germany on the current situation on the Eastern Front and said:

"Before the Romanians joined the war, our army in the Balkans consisted of only the Danube Army Group commanded by General von Mackensen, with fewer than 100,000 troops. Romania, on the other hand, mobilized 500,000 troops. The Bulgarian army was primarily responsible for dealing with the Serbian army on the Allied side. Marshal Mackensen could only rely on the German-Austrian coalition of fewer than 100,000 men to deal with the Romanians. However, before you arrived in the Carpathians, General Mackensen had already completed the first phase of his mission. We used 90,000 soldiers to drive out hundreds of thousands of Romanian troops."

Marshal Mackensen was also a direct descendant of the Hindenburg-Ludendorff twin stars on the Eastern Front. He participated in the Battle of Tannenberg and later mainly supported the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In the Battle of the Carpathians, Marshal Mackensen wiped out the Tsarist Russian Third Army and captured more than 100,000 enemies, for which he was awarded the honor of marshal.

In the past two years, Marshal Mackensen has led his troops to capture the city that Ukrainians later called Lviv, which was still called Lemberg at that time. He also captured Brest, the shameful city and heroic city of Russia in later generations. He also swept across Serbia and captured Belgrade, the capital of the Kingdom of Serbia. He was indeed a famous general of the time.

This time, the Romanians suddenly joined the war with an army of 500,000, which really put the German army in a passive position. The entire belly of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was open to the Romanian army, but the result was that Marshal Mackensen used only a coalition force of less than 100,000 people to turn from defense to offense and even entered Romanian territory.

Faust asked, "Major Rundstedt, which large unit will the Grossdeutschland Battalion be assigned to next?"

Rundstedt continued to explain as he led several officers from the Grossdeutschland Battalion out of the station:

"All mountain troops are being assigned to the 22nd Army. Besides you, there are several other Jäger Regiments and Battalions from Bavaria. Oh, and there's also a Württemberg Mountain Jäger Regiment. This means you'll be under the command of our headquarters from now on. However, the situation may change. Have you heard? Chief of the General Staff Falkenhayn... no, General Falkenhayn, he's coming with reinforcements to take over the Romanian battlefield."

The Falkenhayn mentioned by Major Rundstedt was the former Chief of the German General Staff. After the failure of Moltke the Younger's raid on France in the early stages of the war, he resigned and was replaced by Falkenhayn as the Chief of the German General Staff.

As a result, Falkenhayn caused the failure of the Battle of Verdun and was forced to resign. Not long ago, Hindenburg on the Eastern Front replaced Falkenhayn as Chief of the General Staff.

Falkenhayn was demoted to the Romanian battlefield, which was very embarrassing, because after losing the title of Chief of the General Staff, Falkenhayn was only a German general, and his rank was not as high as that of Field Marshal Mackensen, commander-in-chief of the Danube Army Group.

Now Hindenburg asked Falkenhayn to command Marshal Mackensen. In addition, Falkenhayn had to command and coordinate a large number of Austro-Hungarian Empire's ragged troops. It is conceivable how difficult it would be.

Faust, Rommel, and Kesselring looked at each other and understood that this was another manifestation of the political struggle among the German high-ranking officials affecting the front line.

I'm afraid Hindenburg and Ludendorff originally wanted to make Falkenhayn look bad.

When it came to the issue of manpower, Rundstedt sighed repeatedly: "Alas, alas, alas! We have too few troops in Romania. The Romanians have dozens of divisions, while the Germans have only a few. If we want to win this battle, we must make good use of the Austro-Hungarian troops, but the Austrians... damn them, they were only good at dragging their feet in the early stages of the war. Conrad vowed that he could reach Belgrade in 24 hours, but in the end, tiny Serbia counterattacked and allowed the Serbian army to drive into Austro-Hungarian territory, and Germany had to clean up their mess."

The troops under the 22nd Army, in addition to a group of mountain hunters from Bavaria and Württemberg, are the mountain troops of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire.

"Before you arrived at the battlefield, Marshal Mackensen had already ordered us to launch a counterattack against Romania. The operation went smoothly at first, but after reaching the Carpathian Mountains, the offensive came to a halt. The Romanians relied on their superior numbers to hold the mountain defense line. The 22nd Army assembled three mountain regiments to force the assault, but the result..."