Germany does not seek survival

The German Navy intercepted and successfully stopped four battleships, three cruisers, thirty-four destroyers and torpedo boats, two patrol ships, seven submarines, three minelayers, six minesweepers, four icebreakers, nine patrol boats, fifteen tugboats, and twenty-eight transport ships and ferries.

If what Manstein said was true, the German Navy's captured spoils were indeed extremely rich.

Manstein drank the coffee in the tin cup in one gulp.

Like Faust, he was wearing a field-gray double-breasted woolen coat, the kind worn by German field-level officers. However, Manstein, following the Russian practice, had the collar changed to a warmer bearskin collar at his own expense.

Outside the house, the wind and snow were howling, and the German-Austrian coalition forces were making a devastating breakthrough in Arsero. Manstein drank the coffee and wrapped his coat tightly, and he felt his body warming up. He put the still hot tin cup in Faust's hand to warm him up.

This scene, between the two people who each have their own ulterior motives, may be the most friendly memory for many years to come.

"Manstein, what are you planning to do with these captured Russian ships? You won't just assign them to the High Seas Fleet, will you?"

Manstein smiled and said, "I'm trying to get some connections with the navy. I hope to hand these ships over to the newly established Kurland regime. They'll become the foundation of the Kurland navy in the future."

Faust said: "If you succeed, you will be the father of the Courland navy."

Manstein said conceitedly: "Faust! You and I, if we succeed, we will be the fathers of Courland."

After saying that, Manstein turned the topic back to Faust. "What about you? I've heard Paulus explain a little bit about the Italian operation. You're planning to advance quickly to Vicenza and Padua in one go, hoping to cut off the retreat of the one million Italian troops on the front line? I don't think it's possible. Infantrymen can't do that on their own two legs, and you don't have enough horses either."

Manstein raised his head, his breath puffing up into a puff of white mist. "The beans the horses need to eat are so scarce that we can't even afford them. Otherwise, if we had a sufficient supply of mules and horses, while they wouldn't be effective against the Western Front, they could have been a great help in quickly breaking through against the Italians. What a pity! If we had attacked Italy first in 1914, we would have had enough horses."

Faust smiled faintly. "Don't worry, I'm also trying every possible way to collect means of transportation. Besides horses, there are many things that can replace the two legs of the infantry, or in other words, can improve the efficiency of the infantry's two-legged walking."

Manstein's eyes lit up: "I see, how many bicycles have you collected?"

The modifications Guderian made to the Po Plan were not particularly miraculous. He just thought of using bicycles as a means of transportation in addition to the infantry's two legs.

Faust first collected a thousand bicycles from the German army. Later, as the Po Plan was approved by Ludendorff and General von Bülow, the resources that Faust could mobilize gradually increased. Finally, he found a total of more than 8,000 bicycles from Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

In addition to bicycles, Faust also gathered together all other means of transportation he could think of.

Cars are the most convenient means of transportation. If there were a large number of trucks, there would be no need for makeshift bicycles. The problem is that Faust can only mobilize a few cars.

As for the problem of mules and horses, as Manstein said, in the later stages of the war, neither Germany nor Austria-Hungary could provide the concentrated feed needed for horses, so a large number of mules and horses died of starvation, and they could only barely find a group of poor horses to use.

In the mountainous areas of Tyrol, dog sleds are traditionally used in winter to partially replace mules and horses.

By piecing together bicycles, a very small number of cars, a small number of horses and a group of sleds, Faust was able to barely ensure the transportation needed for a rapid advance.

After listening to Faust's explanation, Manstein was still a little skeptical. "This vehicle is still not enough. At most, it can guarantee the advance of light infantry. It can't carry much heavy weapons. How are you going to break through the Italian positions?"

Faust nodded, acknowledging Manstein's doubts, and then said, "Sleds and horses can pull mortars, but heavy artillery certainly can't be delivered to the front lines anytime soon. Therefore, we rely primarily on infantry infiltration. Past experience shows that when Italian troops are infiltrated from the rear, they don't choose to hold their ground; they prefer to abandon their positions and flee."

Hoping that the enemy will collapse at the first touch seems a bit too ridiculous on the battlefield. What if the enemy does not collapse?

But when Manstein thought that the enemy this time was Italy, it seemed to make sense again.

The only thing to worry about is that the Italian army still has several fortresses along the way from Arsero to Vicenza and Padua. The enemy can easily abandon ordinary positions, but will not easily abandon such fortresses.

The German army still had to spend effort to capture the fortress.

Faust said, "We plan to bypass most of the Italian fortresses first and surround them without attacking them. Only a few fortresses that block the transportation lines must be captured."

Manstein asked, "Paulus explained your battle plan to me. Even a single day's delay would have an impact on the overall situation. Are you so confident of taking the fortress?"

Faust put down his coffee cup, took off his military cap, and placed it on the table. He said confidently, "I will fight in person. I am very confident that we can capture Fort Corbin."

Faust's trump card, in addition to a special commando team he trained to capture the Italian fortress, the most important trump card, of course, cannot be forgotten is Faust himself.

The Aryan Superman card is not used at this time, as there may be fewer and fewer opportunities to use it in the big scenes of the 1920s and 1930s.

Chapter 112 Bicycle Blitz

The Allies attack!

At the headquarters of the Italian First Army in Vicenza, the sudden change was completely unexpected by the Italian commander, General Brusatti: Are the Austrians really that bold?

Although his behavior and appearance were unremarkable, in the eyes of most people, General Brusatti was regarded as one of the most capable generals in the Italian army.

In the eleven Isonzo River battles that had broken out in the past, General Brusatti performed well. He was cautious, good at defense, and a very cautious person.

This is also reflected in Admiral Brusati's defensive deployment.

The Italian army deployed a total of three main defense lines in a circular shape with Vicenza as the center. The main direction of defense was all facing east, and it seemed that it was not well prepared for the German-Austrian coalition forces in Tyrol that suddenly rushed south from the north.

General Brusatti was very cautious. He did not concentrate the main forces of the Italian army on the first line of defense. This was originally a correct move, but now a big problem has arisen. There are only two divisions on the front line, which cannot block the mountain pass on the southern foot of the Alps. The Germans broke through the most easily defended and difficult to attack mountain line without much effort.

When the German-Austrian coalition forces broke through the first main line of defense of the Italian army, it was the critical moment when the Italian army should have responded quickly, but all General Brusati did was to issue a notice and convene a meeting.

On the day Arsero fell, General Brusatti convened a meeting in Vicenza. The meeting lasted from nine in the morning to four in the afternoon, but no conclusion was reached. Disappointment and ominous emotions quickly spread among the defenders.

A division commander named Badoglio persuaded General Brusatti: "Excuse me, Commander, but wars cannot be won with documents and meetings. We must immediately reorganize the front and concentrate our forces."

Division Commander Badoglio and General Brusatti also pointed out the weaknesses in the Italian First Army's troop deployment from a tactical perspective.

The Italian army's defense was layered, and the specific deployment was to control all the key positions, but it failed to form a troop advantage at any point. Although it had an absolute advantage in numbers, this kind of division of troops resulted in its troop strength at any local point not exceeding two divisions.

The fall of Arsiero has proved that the two Italian divisions were completely vulnerable and could not even slightly hinder the advance of the German-Austrian coalition forces.

"Commander! This kind of scattershot defense, attempting to defend everywhere, will inevitably lead to failure to defend anywhere. To repel the enemy's attack, we must establish a decisive battle line and concentrate our forces there for a decisive battle or launch a counterattack. There is no other way. With our absolute numerical advantage, the outcome of a real encounter is uncertain. At least we can die tragically!"

General Brusatti was enraged by the divisional commander. "No, no! If we deploy our garrisons this way and fight and retreat, the enemy will continue to weaken. They will gradually wear down their forces before reaching Vicenza, and we can wait for reinforcements."

This statement seems to make some sense, but in the final analysis, the reason why General Brusati chose this strategy was to seek stability. He did not want to take risks and just wanted to delay the German army.

However, Division Commander Badoglio keenly felt that the German attack would not be that simple after the lightning-fast fall of Arsiero. The enemy must have other means of rapid breakthrough. If the Italian army did not concentrate its forces for a single battle, it would be doomed.

But Commander Badoglio was unable to convince his superiors, who could only sigh, "A group of lions led by sheep is no better than a group of sheep..."

Faust on the opposite side had no time to stop and hold a meeting - because a group of Austrian generals led by Marshal Conrad had already helped Faust finish a lot of meetings.

Faust was very worried about the Italian army concentrating its forces and was also worried about the Italian Second Army in Padua reinforcing Vicenza. Time was the German army's biggest enemy.

Faust believes that there are only two words to overcome the above difficulties: speed.

The German army must continuously break through from the center, advance as quickly as possible, and not give the opponent any chance to breathe.

In front of Faust, hundreds of bicycles had been modified, with the soft tires removed and moving forward with metal wheels.

"If one car stops, throw it away. If two cars stop, throw them away. Whether you encounter friendly or enemy forces, you must pass them without hesitation and keep moving forward! Even if you are being shot at from the side or from behind, you are not allowed to stop and fight!"

The officer commanding the bicycle troops on the front line was Rommel. Wherever there was fighting, wherever it was most dangerous, wherever he could stand out the most, there was the bravest Rommel.

Originally, Faust suggested that Rommel command the troops in a car, but Rommel insisted on riding a bicycle.

Rommel patted his chest and said: "Because this way officers and soldiers are treated equally, it is the revolutionary fighting style advocated by the National Socialist Party."

Faust was extremely relieved. The bicycle troops rushed towards Vicenza like a drill. The Italian soldiers on the first line of defense had not yet seen the enemy, but just heard the noise of countless bicycles, which made them panic. A large number of Italian soldiers became frightened birds, mistakenly thinking that they were under tank attack. Before the battle even started, they began to abandon their positions and flee.

Rommel led the Grossdeutschland Regiment as the spearhead to implement a breakthrough. When he led his troops to the Brenta River, there was a heavy snowstorm. The Italian army had deployed a large number of heavy howitzers and machine guns along the road, but there was no sign of anyone anywhere.

It turned out that many Italian soldiers, in order to avoid the wind and snow, did not stay in the trenches, but rested in shelters further behind the trenches and bunkers.

"Hit! Pull out the nails that are blocking the way!"

At Rommel's command, German soldiers rode their bicycles and seized many heavy weapons that the Italians had not yet used, then turned their guns and began firing at the Italian army.

Many Italians ran out of the shelters in panic, but before they had gone far, they were strafed by French machine guns captured by the Germans. Many Italian soldiers did not resist, but knelt down on the ground and begged for mercy. Some even turned around and ran away, losing their shoes.

In the Italian army's shelters and underground warehouses, Rommel was surprised to find that the Italians had left a large amount of supplies. The warehouses were filled with tobacco, red wine, biscuits, canned food, pasta and other items.

Some German soldiers had not seen such excellent supplies for a long time, so many of them stopped in the Italian warehouses and ate a lot of food.

Rommel had to strictly enforce military discipline, and only after the Cheka shot several soldiers did he urge the troops to resume their offensive posture.

This short episode in the Battle of the Po River did not have much impact on the German army at the time, but it made Faust further realize that the Germans' material conditions were too poor. Even Italy's logistics were better than Germany's. Some tactical victories would certainly not change Germany's overall defeat.

The battle continued. According to the battle plan, Guderian and Paulus both believed that the German-Austrian coalition might have to pay the price of two to three thousand casualties to break through the Italian army's first line of defense. However, the coalition forces only suffered hundreds of casualties and had completely broken through the Italian army's first line of defense.

The victory was so easy that Rommel was surprised by the weak resistance of the Italians.

On the Italian side, the defeat was like a landslide. Around the Italian division commander Bagdoglio, after nightfall, the roads were littered with Italian defeated soldiers. Because they ran too fast and were familiar with the road, the German bicycle troops could not catch up with them.

Division Commander Bagdoglio was extremely nervous. The headquarters had not yet realized how dangerous the Italian First Army's situation was!

The enemy's offensive momentum was very fierce. At this rate, the enemy might reach Vicenza directly the next day after dawn. However, a large number of troops of the Italian First Army were still deployed in the east and had no time to return to support.

Division Commander Bagdoglio can now only rely on the Corbin Fortress, which is located in Treschié Conca in the Vicenza Province of Italy. It is at a higher altitude and overlooks the Astico Valley. As a transitional defense point between the mountains and the plains, the fortress is equipped with a large number of artillery, which can prevent the German-Austrian coalition forces from continuing to move south.

The main position of the Corbin Fortress was equipped with 152mm howitzers and observation posts, overlooking the movements of the Austro-Hungarian army. The secondary defense line was connected by trenches and barbed wire to form a cross-fire network.

At the outermost edge, there is a circular city wall left over from ancient times. Outside the city wall, the Italian army's engineering corps dug a trench 3 meters wide and 2 meters deep last year to deploy machine gun nests and mortars.

In addition, on the railway from Vicenza to the Corbin Fortress, the Italian army converted retired locomotives into mobile artillery positions to patrol and prevent German infiltration.

Fort Corbin is such a military fortress with powerful firepower and tight defense. Division Commander Bagdoglio hopes that this fortress can delay the German army for a few days. As long as another three or four days pass, General Brusatti's meeting will be over sooner or later, and Italian troops from other directions can also be dispatched to support and counterattack the German army.

As long as the Corbin Fortress can hold out for four days... no, three days, the Italian army will be able to turn defeat into victory.

Chapter 113: Faust, the God of Snipers

The large formation of thirty planes made a lot of noise in the air. Behind each biplane propeller plane, there was another glider tied with a cable.

The carrying capacity of the German gliders was still very limited at the end of 1917. Faust could only cram three soldiers into each glider, and even mortars could not be carried.

The most weapons the core members of the National Socialist Party in the glider could use, apart from rifles, grenades, and engineering shovels, was a light machine gun.

Wave after wave of planes flew across the sky like flocks of white storks, rising and falling, connected front and back, like an aerial train, flying rapidly towards the Corbin Fortress.

Faust himself was also fully armed. He changed into the uniform of an ordinary private soldier, carrying a G98 rifle, a Luger pistol, eight grenades and a trench stick. Over the uniform, he also wore a heavy lobster armor.

The gliders were originally scheduled to take off before dawn. According to the time calculation, the skytrain would arrive over Corbin Fortress before sunrise and launch a surprise attack.

Because it is a night flight, this aircraft formation must fly safely according to the lighting guidance of the ground forces to avoid accidents.

Even so, Faust was still worried that with the level of aircraft in 1917, such a large-scale night formation flight would be too risky.

Faust would rather expose the intention of the glider surprise attack than fall in a night flight accident, so he changed his plan and postponed the take-off time until after sunrise. The glider formation will arrive over Corbin Fortress at about nine o'clock.

The German planes formed three parallel columns in the air, and the long cables dragged the gliders forward.

There were a total of thirty planes and thirty gliders. According to the standard that each glider could carry three soldiers, Faust's glider raid had a total of only ninety members in the entire commando team, including Faust himself.

Faust didn't think that ninety commandos could capture Fort Corbin by glider.

Their main task was to use gliders to land near the Corbin Fortress and do everything possible to destroy as many of the Corbin Fortress's artillery as possible to create opportunities for the attack of other friendly forces.

After daybreak, as predicted by the Innsbruck Meteorological Observatory, the snow stopped falling and the wind speed was normal. No accidents occurred. Only one cable behind the towing fuselage got entangled in the wing of the glider during the flight, putting it in danger of capsizing. They had to untie the cable in advance and lower a glider before reaching the battlefield.

All the commandos on the remaining twenty-nine gliders were very nervous. On the glider that Faust was riding, besides him, there were two other commandos. One was Faust's guard Vasily, and the other commando was a Czech named Putacek.

Ptacek was Tito's subordinate. He won a silver medal in the Austro-Hungarian military games before the war and was also a good fencer.

Because after the glider raid, the main battle would definitely be close combat, so Tito persuaded Faust to bring along Vasily and Putacek, two fencing masters in the army, who were both very good at hand-to-hand combat.

Naturally, their hand-to-hand combat skills are definitely not as good as Faust's.

But the more protection, the better, because in Tito's view, Faust is too important to the National Socialist Party. It can be said that the entire National Socialist Party currently depends on Faust alone.

If anything happened to Faust, the National Socialist Party could be dissolved tomorrow.

Vasily and Ptacek were both very nervous. Faust joked, "You two need to be as prepared as possible. If anything happens to me, the order of succession to command will be as follows: Lieutenant Ptacek first, then Vasily, in that order."

Vasily's face suddenly changed: "God bless you, nothing will happen to you."

The long sky trains had already swarmed across the Brenta River. Below the fleet was the Italian defense line. Trenches, like spider webs, outlined countless black lines on the white snow.

The aircraft formation flew directly over these trenches, targeting the Corbin Fortress. Because the Air Force had never played a big role in the entire Italian battlefield, the Italian army's air defense firepower was very weak. During the entire flight, Faust did not see even a single anti-aircraft machine gun fire point.

At this moment, the twenty-nine planes, according to the plan, untied the cables one by one, and the more than twenty gliders behind them were freed and began to fly towards the Corbin Fortress at a low speed.

With the glider technology of 1917, in addition to the extremely pitiful load capacity, the flight speed and landing accuracy were also big problems. One glider landed directly in the trench in front of the Corbin Fortress. After the glider landed, the barbed wire wrapped around the glider's tires, causing it to stop quickly.

The Italian soldiers were stunned as they watched a plane land in their trench, and then a moment later, three German soldiers with guns rushed out of the glider.

Many Italians didn't understand what was going on and surrendered.

There was also a glider that was the most unlucky. During landing, it crashed directly into the wall of Corbin Fortress, causing the plane to be destroyed and the people on board to die, resulting in unnecessary losses.

More gliders landed smoothly, and the commandos immediately rushed out of the cabin and ran towards the Italian bunkers and artillery positions as fast as possible. Because the distance was too close, the Italians did not react and watched the German commandos throw grenades into the bunkers.

The artillery batteries equipped with 150mm howitzers were unable to deal with the German commandos at such a close distance and instantly became useless.

Faust, and two other team members, Vasily and Putacek, successfully landed on the roof of the Corbin Fortress by parachute. They jumped down from the top, driving away the Italian gunners while installing explosives at the gun emplacement, detonating the Italian heavy howitzers one by one.

The Italian army stationed a battalion of soldiers in the Corbin Fortress, and there were also a large number of troops in other secondary defense lines outside the fortress. Logically speaking, no matter how powerful the dozens of commandos led by Faust were, they could not seize the fortress from a battalion of defenders.

But Faust's mission was not to take the fortress by himself. The commandos aimed to create chaos, with the focus on blowing up the cannons.

At the same time, the main force of the German-Austrian coalition, a total of eight divisions, was also launching an all-out attack on the Corbin Fortress and Vicenza. The Italian troops were tied down, and inside the Corbin Fortress, the Italians could not even tell how many German troops there were.

At this time, most Italian soldiers had not realized that Faust had flown to the Corbin Fortress by glider. Instead, the Italians thought they were surrounded on all sides, so some surrendered and some fled, and their morale and military spirit collapsed.