Chapter 51: Make A Little War Profit, Press On Relentlessly
When Lelouch’s soldiers rushed into Bailleul Town, they were almost all riding war horses, coming and going like the wind.
They were originally reorganized from the 12th Division’s cavalry reconnaissance company, with a solid foundation in horsemanship.
Early yesterday morning, after ambushing and annihilating the British Army’s 2nd Cavalry Division and heavily damaging the 3rd Cavalry Division, although more than half of the war horses were destroyed by machine gun fire and could only be butchered for horse meat, a small half of the unclaimed war horses were still captured alive.
The British Army cavalry killed directly in battle numbered at least over five thousand, so gathering two thousand good horses to distribute to the officers and soldiers of the two assault battalions for riding was more than ample.
Bailleul Town was not large in area, and most of the buildings were in ruins, but after Lelouch led the team charging into the town, they quickly discovered extremely bountiful spoils of war!
The company advanced into the town along the railway, and after walking not far, they saw a large amount of undisposed supplies messily stacked beside the train station platform—likely the cargo unloaded from the train that Model had destroyed yesterday on its return trip. Because the battle situation changed too quickly, the enemy didn’t even have time to warehouse them before fleeing.
On the other hand, several warehouses not far from the station seemed to have been set on fire by the retreating British Army.
Seeing this, Lelouch immediately ordered them to put out the fire. The train station’s fire hoses were intact, and over a hundred assault team members hurriedly connected the water and sprayed chaotically for a while, finally extinguishing the blaze.
It was probably because those British Army soldiers who set the fire had morale too low; they fled right after lighting it.
It was also thanks to Lelouch arriving on horseback; if they hadn’t captured enough war horses and had to come on foot, it probably would have all burned up.
After extinguishing the fire, Lelouch quickly took a rough inventory of the spoils of war.
The ammunition in the warehouses hadn’t been set on fire, probably because the British Army didn’t have the guts, fearing that hastily destroying the ammunition would be hard to control and might blow themselves up.
Lelouch captured at least over ten million rounds of 7.7mm bullets, plus nearly 200,000 artillery shells—but the vast majority were two-pounder shells, that is, 40mm caliber.
Those over 70mm numbered less than 50,000 rounds, and those 105mm and above were only a little over 10,000 rounds.
Most of this ammunition was incompatible with German-made weapons and could only be turned over for upper levels; perhaps in the future, when more enemy weapons were captured, an enemy-equipment division could be formed to use them.
Besides ammunition, more than half of the warehouse contents were grain and canned cured meat.
There were also flannel blankets, woolen overcoats, Britain-produced whiskey, Indian red tea, coffee cigars chocolate shipped from the New World—these could all be sold for cash.
The only thing that could be considered military strategic material was a warehouse full of rubber tires.
Additionally, there was a pile of cannons that hadn’t been transported away in time, but during the British Army’s retreat, they had stuffed grenades into the gun barrels to ensure the barrels were destroyed. After the German Army captured them, they could only check if parts besides the gun barrels had any salvage value.
“Damn, those British dogs live really well; after all, they control the navy and can continuously transport supplies from all over the world to the homeland. Unlike the Empire, where transporting anything has to be done secretly, and luxury goods haven’t been importable for a long time.” Lelouch’s subordinates all sighed in resentment.
Just as Lelouch finished a rough tally, Major Bock also arrived with Rommel, Lister, and a few others.
The trusted informant Klose reported the news first thing: “The battalion commander and others are here! Officer, how should we report the situation here?”
Without time to think much, Lelouch decisively instructed: “Report losses: the British Army set fire during retreat; except for the tin cans and glass bottles of whiskey, everything else was burned. Cover all items with wet cloths, saying they were soaked during firefighting.
I’ll discuss the specifics with the battalion commander myself. Seal all the train station warehouses and let them seek fortune elsewhere—the town has more than just this one spot with oil and water.”
Lelouch had only seized the fattest warehouse left by the retreating British Army ahead of time; there were still some scraps left, which his small number of men couldn’t claim anyway, so he left them for friendly forces.
These two assault battalions of his had fought desperately through life and death, bringing about the total collapse of the enemy’s 3rd Army.
After finally winning a victory, what was wrong with taking some spoils of war.
Bock and Rommel and the others soon found him, and Lelouch was very generous: he shared the whiskey with everyone, one bottle per officer and soldier in the two assault battalions, plus a box of New World cigars（ one box of five）, and distributed all the canned meat.
The soldiers of the two battalions definitely couldn’t consume that much whiskey and canned meat; the excess portions could also be shared among officers at all levels.
All the grain, ammunition, and tires were reported upward, with a little something for the superiors as well.
As for the remaining coffee, red tea, chocolate, cigars, plus flannel, woolen fabrics, and leather goods, Lelouch pocketed them all.
For Battalion Commander Major Bock, he promised to share a little in the future; after all, he was the officer and had a chief of staff uncle, so he couldn’t be offended.
For the others, this little benefit was enough for now; Lelouch wasn’t greedy for money, but he was thinking that after this campaign ended and they returned to the rear, he would definitely need to do more things in the military industry field.
Without money, there was no way to implement his ideas, let alone expand production. The same amount of money in the hands of a transmigrator like him could generate at least several times the value compared to others.
Once he became somewhat successful in the military industry in the future, he could take out a bit to give back to his comrades, providing extra compensation and subsidies to those killed or wounded in battle, which would also form a virtuous cycle.
Major Bock vaguely knew that Lelouch had fiddled with things a bit, but he was too lazy to quibble over such details.
After receiving half a train car of liquor, Major Bock said he could handle the connections above. He also pointed out to Lelouch:
Don’t report those rubber tires directly to division headquarters or corps headquarters, but to the logistics transport department, including the military’s railway dispatch department. That way, they could discreetly add enough extra train cars to help transport everyone’s goods back.
Lelouch immediately understood and struck all rubber products from the report list, letting Major Bock handle them, then slightly embellished the fire damage description in the report.
That same day, several military trains loaded with goods arrived from the rear, two of which had five extra cars added, secretly transporting Lelouch’s things away to a designated rear location.
……
After capturing Bailleul Town and receiving the abandoned supplies of an entire enemy army, the German Army had recovered a great deal of blood, gaining much more confidence to carry out subsequent campaign objectives.
However, a balance of tension and relaxation is always needed; the assault battalion had fought bloody battles in succession and was utterly exhausted.
After taking the town, frontline combat tasks were handed over to other friendly forces, and all the officers and soldiers of the assault battalion occupied the best inns in the town, eating and drinking their fill and sleeping soundly for two days.
Fortunately, the British Army’s previous defensive depth wasn’t very thick, and with Bailleul being breached so quickly, the enemy’s rear positions hadn’t had time to be reconstructed or reinforced.
So the open wilderness area from Bailleul to the next important stronghold Stenford City was breakthrough, occupied, and digested by German Army regular troops within just two short days.
By the morning of December 24, the German Army vanguard had pushed forward to a position about two kilometers southeast of Stenford City, advancing nearly ten kilometers in two days.
Only the final two kilometers before entering the city were blocked by the British Army’s newly constructed urban defense positions—originally, the German Army could theoretically have advanced a bit faster, but after all, it was already December 24, and Westerners mostly observed Christmas Eve and Christmas customs, so soldiers on both sides weren’t very motivated to fight.
In Earth’s history, on the first Christmas Eve of the war, both sides had a tacit ceasefire. But in this world, with the Battle of Ypres at its most intense, a complete temporary ceasefire was obviously impossible.
Probably only on the southern German-French engagement line would there be a Christmas Eve ceasefire. From this, it seemed that hatred between Germany and Britain was faintly trending toward surpassing German-French hatred.
And similarly within these two days, the opposing British Army had actually done a lot of defensive deployment adjustments and hadn’t just sat idly by.
As early as the evening when Bailleul was lost, the highest levels of the British Expeditionary Force already knew that relying on the troops at hand probably couldn’t hold the defense line.
So Expeditionary Force Commander-in-Chief Marshal John French personally wired London for aid: “Front line critical, request immediate dispatch of Lahore 7th and 8th Divisions still in emergency training at Dover to the front!”
Less than two hours after Marshal French’s aid request, London replied by wire, personally from Army Minister Kitchener.
Kitchener was Britain’s top army figure, also holding marshal rank and a count’s nobility title. In the reply, he stated that those rabble from South Asia had training levels far too poor, combat power well below previous expectations, and fundamentally unable to enter battle.
But Marshal French persisted: “The front line is now extremely critical! The 3rd Army was completely crippled after just two days, and the Cavalry Corps has lost over half! I urgently need every able-bodied live person to fill the line! Soldier quality doesn’t matter!”
Faced with French’s such intense wording, Your Excellency Minister Kitchener ultimately approved release. Thus, 24,000 reinforcements sailed from Dover, arriving at Dunkirk the next day, then transferred by train to Stenford.
So when the German Army reached the outskirts of Stenford City, the enemy they faced mainly consisted of the following units: Canadian 1st Division and 2nd Division from Canada, Lahore 7th Division and 8th Division from South Asia.
On the German side, Baria 6th and 12th Divisions, which had previously main-attacked Bailleul, were too fatigued from continuous combat and had suffered certain losses, needing to rotate for rest. So the 6th Army Group brought up the veteran Baria 2nd Army’s 2nd Division and 3rd Division for first-line assault tasks, with the other 4 divisions as reserves.
It looked like at Stenford, this railway choke point hub, the German first line had only two divisions facing four British divisions in defense. But everyone up and down the German side was full of confidence, because they knew these colonial troops were completely different in quality from British homeland troops.
At the same time, the British Army’s main elite forces, the British 1st Army and 2nd Army, were pinned down on the Ypres Salient front and coastal direction by friendly forces of the German 4th Army Group, equally unable to disengage to reinforce Stenford.
When Lelouch, Major Bock, Major Rundstedt, and others finished resting and could re-enter combat, the situation they faced was precisely this.
