Chapter 119: Rescue 80,000 Prisoners Of War, Assault Lviv
Colonel Osmanov tried to hold off Lelouch’s surprise attack, but his efforts were doomed to be in vain.
His regiment had its heavy machine guns knocked out right at the start by the enemy, its few field gun positions were also destroyed, and it suffered another surprise attack.
When Germanians killed their way into the camp walls and engaged in melee combat with waves of Lushan soldiers armed with Mosin-Nagant rifles, the battle was already without suspense.
In the fighting inside the camp, engagement distances generally could not exceed two hundred meters.
On such a battlefield, soldiers armed with MP15 submachine guns could form absolute dominance against their counterparts with Mosin-Nagant rifles.
Large numbers of Lushan soldiers fell dead in the chaotic spraying of bullets; by the end, the Lushans were completely berserk, no longer futilely attacking the enemies raiding the camp, but instead turning their muzzles to indiscriminately fire at the prisoners of war locked up, trying to take a few more with them before dying.
The prisoners of war were locked in the large barracks with bunks and couldn’t rush out, so they lay flat on the spot seeking cover, firing chaotically at the earthen walls and doors and windows.
Fortunately, the Lushans were using Mosin-Nagants with insufficient firepower density; trying to kill large numbers of already prone prisoners inside the houses from outside was still quite difficult.
In the end, after the Lusha guards murdered over a thousand prisoners of war, they were finally purged by the parachute regiment. Of the 1800 Lusha guards, several hundred broke out eastward and escaped, while the others were all killed inside the camp.
“Brothers, don’t be afraid! We’re here to rescue you! Don’t panic, we’re all Germanians!”
The parachute regiment soldiers, fearing misunderstandings, repeatedly shouted in German before opening the cell doors to confirm that the fellow tribesmen prisoners inside understood the situation, only then slowly opening the camp doors.
“Long live! Long live! We’re saved!”
Tens of thousands of Germanic tribe prisoners of war surged out from the camp.
Over 40,000 people, crammed into over a hundred makeshift large bunk barracks.
These barracks were mostly hastily built by them themselves, extremely rudimentary, with people packed side by side plus upper and lower bunks, even lying in the aisles; one large barrack could squeeze in several hundred people.
Even that wasn’t enough to sleep; some had to sleep against the walls at the edges of temporary granaries next to the camp area—the prisoners’ main labor over the past week had been harvesting wheat fields within a dozen kilometers nearby under guard supervision; the harvested winter wheat wasn’t dried yet and couldn’t be transported to the rear, so it was temporarily stored in an area marked out beside the camp.
Now, at least they had all regained their freedom.
Lelouch had no megaphone and had to use a wooden horn, shouting himself hoarse to maintain order, and had his subordinate soldiers first identify all the officers among the prisoners of war.
Among the over 40,000 prisoners of war, there were over a thousand officers alone. Lelouch gathered the released officers, gave them a brief speech, and then had them return to their units to control the soldiers.
“Everyone listen up! I am Colonel Lelouch von Hunte, regimental commander of the 6th Army Group’s direct subordinate parachute regiment! You should all recognize this Lieutenant Colonel Kesselring; he was captured with you before, and even before your surrender, he brought you the last batch of supplies and the final orders. Today, it was he who guided us here to rescue everyone!
Now, although we have captured this camp, the situation remains extremely dangerous. We’re still at least seventy or eighty kilometers from the front line, surrounded by enemies. And we only have one regiment’s worth of troops and weapons. If everyone wants to survive, wants to go home, the key is to pick up the enemy’s weapons and fight to the death! Only then might we break out!
Theoretically, there are three paths before us: one is to head straight west, trying to cross eighty kilometers of enemy-occupied territory to link up with comrades besieging the Lusha Army at Przemysl Fortress! I know many cowardly weaklings prefer this path, but I also tell you this one is actually the most dangerous! And the hardest to succeed!
The second path is to split forces and head north to rescue the tens of thousands of brothers in the Bohemia prisoner of war camp a dozen kilometers away, then figure out next steps.
The final path is to follow us in counterattacking Lviv! Lviv has 1 cavalry division, and possibly even 1 infantry division garrisoned, but Lviv is the total logistics base of the Lusha Southwestern Front; their weapons, ammunition, military rations, medicine, uniforms, fuel—all stockpiled in Lviv!
Our weapons are few, but we have many men; as long as we dare to fight to the death, we might still have a chance! I hope everyone will firmly follow this route and fight to the end to seek survival from desperation!”
Lelouch loudly mobilized these officers; he had no choice but to put in this effort, as these over 40,000 were after all prisoners of war, from Austria, and nominally not under his command.
Even after rescuing them himself, there was no rule they had to obey his orders; he still needed to negotiate properly, appealing to emotion and reason.
Fortunately, Lelouch’s speech and analysis were very successful; shortly after he finished, he saw large numbers of prisoner of war officers all turning to look at an old man in unison.
Lelouch immediately realized this must be a big shot.
And Lieutenant Colonel Kesselring beside Lelouch had already recognized him and hurriedly whispered an introduction: “He is the former Przemysl Fortress defense commander, Lieutenant General Kusmanek.”
Lelouch nodded slightly, suddenly understanding.
So it was this unit’s original commander; no wonder everyone looked to him.
Lieutenant General Kusmanek also stepped forward unsteadily, walked to Lelouch, shook his hand: “Austrian Army Lieutenant General Kusmanek. I am willing to temporarily obey your strategic command and execute the strategic objectives you set. But for the specific tactical arrangements of my subordinate troops, I still hope to control them myself. They have no weapons yet; I can’t let them go to their deaths.”
“Fine, on the tactical level, you have the say.” Lelouch immediately conceded a step each, reaching a deal with him, then pointed to the captured weapons nearby.
“These weapons left by the Lusha camp guards, distribute them to you first, but the quantity is still too few now; probably only enough for the officers. General, figure out the distribution yourself; I only require that when combat starts, you can pull out one or two thousand to cooperate with me.”
This annihilated Lusha camp guard unit couldn’t even equip every man with a Mosin-Nagant rifle, so the finally captured rifles barely reached about a thousand, plus 5 slightly damaged M1910 heavy machine guns and 3 75mm field guns—
Originally the camp had 8 heavy machine guns in total, but during the grenade launcher attack, 3 were completely destroyed beyond repair, and the remaining 5 each had minor damage.
Some had tripods blown apart, some had water-cooled jackets punctured by shrapnel and leaking. But at a time like this, if it could be used, they made do; no pickiness.
The only fortunate thing was that the ammunition reserves in this camp were quite sufficient; a thousand rifles could be matched with over a million bullets.
But Lushan rifles and machine guns were all 7.62 caliber, incompatible with Germania’s 7.92, so these bullets could only be used by soldiers with captured guns; Lelouch’s parachute regiment’s Mausers and MG15 light machine guns couldn’t use them.
Only 9mm pistol rounds, with several tens of thousands in the camp’s warehouses for Lusha officers and NCOs’ pistols, were compatible with the MP15 submachine gun.
Lelouch immediately adjusted the tactical details: in subsequent fighting, use MG15 light machine guns less, open up with M1910 heavy machine guns, and replenish submachine gunners’ pistol rounds consumed in the camp assault.
After sorting the weapons here and taking rations, Lelouch sent a telegram to Rommel via portable radio, then prepared to march east to link up with Rommel and plan next steps.
Right after landing and before rushing to the rescue, Lelouch had discussed the plan with Kesselring: two battalions’ soldiers would sprint to assault the camp, while the remaining two battalions ambushed near the main road from Lviv urban area to Gorodok town prisoner of war camp, hiding in a spot with woods by the roadside to besiege the point and strike the reinforcements, blocking enemy aid.
Between the two parts, there was a slight three-to-four-kilometer distance difference; marching on foot with equipment, they could arrive in an hour.
……
7 a.m., over an hour after the prisoner of war camp was attacked.
Lelouch hadn’t yet arrived to link up with Rommel; Rommel, with his directly commanded two battalions, was quietly ambushed by the roadside leading to the prisoner of war camp.
He had been in ambush for an hour, during which he allowed soldiers to rest, but absolutely forbade random movement or noise that would expose their position.
Germania soldiers’ military discipline was already good, and these were elites, so they stayed very calm.
It was just nearing summer, the weather a bit hot; ambushing in the woods, everyone had to feed the mosquitoes. After over an hour without moving, almost everyone had been bitten at least a dozen times by mosquitoes and various insects.
But everyone gritted their teeth and endured. Preserving lives, ambushing the enemy—that was the big matter. Being bitten by mosquitoes for hours was nothing by comparison.
Rommel held out until 7:15; just as he thought it might be a wasted stakeout, from the eastern Lviv city direction came the rumbling of galloping hooves.
“As expected, the enemy has dispatched the cavalry division stationed in Lviv to rescue the prisoner of war camp first! All light machine gun teams prepare! Grenade launcher teams prepare to block the road’s head and tail, set range elevation to maximum.
After the grenade launcher teams fire, block the main road five hundred meters east of the woods’ easternmost end, and the main road five hundred meters west of the woods’ westernmost end, preventing the enemy from quickly breaking out or withdrawing along the main road.
Raise all light machine gun muzzles slightly to avoid friendly fire on comrades in the woods across the road; before the general offensive order, everyone stay low, using the roadside and woods as cover.”
Rommel and his subordinate officers added some precise instructions at the end to avoid tactical mishaps.
This was an east-west woodland path, the road itself not wide, with dozens of meters of open space on each side, followed by woods.
Rommel’s two battalions were ambushed on the south and north sides of the road respectively, so machine gun muzzles had to be slightly elevated, or south-side guns might hit north-side friendlies, and vice versa.
Rommel had just finished final deployment adjustments when the 13th Cossack Cavalry Division’s troops came rushing urgently.
Since marching to rescue in their own deep rear, this unit obviously hadn’t deployed search formations or carefully checked the woods on both sides of the road, charging along carelessly in a formation close to a long serpent formation.
This couldn’t be blamed on that Cossack cavalry division commander for being uncultured or ignorant of military strategy. Cossacks’ cultural level was inherently low, relying more on instinct in combat; they didn’t understand anti-paratrooper tactics, nor how to deal with elusive underground resistance enemies, still copying frontline conventional combat experience.
Falling into the trap was thus not unjust at all.
“Da-da-da~”
Shortly after the cavalry vanguard passed the woods, the light machine guns’ sweeping fire erupted almost instantly across the scene, crossfire sealing the entire woodland road.
Dozens of grenades from grenade launchers densely blocked the road’s head and tail.
If not for the entire cavalry division being too large-scale with too long a column, Rommel would have wanted to encircle and annihilate the whole dumpling.
Helplessly, the enemy’s troop numbers were three to four times his, plus cavalry took more space and march formations were looser than infantry to avoid horse collisions. So Rommel ultimately only trapped a small half of the enemy’s forces.
At least seven or eight cavalry companies had charged out of the encirclement, with another dozen or so cavalry companies behind not yet entering. Only about twenty cavalry companies in the middle were just right caught inside.
Two parachute battalions, nearly 30 light machine guns in crossfire, instantly swept down large swaths of cavalry; even among them, seven or eight cavalry companies were instantly wiped out, not a single survivor.
“Whoosh whoosh whoosh”—hand grenades were frantically thrown from both sides of the woodland path; the roadside wasn’t far from the woods, sixty to seventy meters, and strong grenadiers could throw grenades that far purely by arm strength.
Even if not thrown far enough, it could startle war horses and prevent cavalry from charging into the roadside woods, buying more sweeping time for the machine gun teams’ comrades.
The Cossack cavalry were completely stunned, but today’s battlefield scene was very different from past machine gun slaughters of cavalry—Rommel had fought several machine gun vs. cavalry battles in his life, mainly at Ypres on the Western Front.
But in those places, Britannian cavalry always formed loose formations from afar, charging fiercely at assault battalion positions in a single direction, giving machine guns sufficient range to exert firepower.
Today, to trap more enemies, Rommel had been too aggressive, choosing to let the enemy into the encirclement before firing.
This way, though inflicting massive kills on the enemy in the first instant, also gave the enemy a chance to close in early.
When the machine gun teams opened fire, many cavalry were already less than two hundred meters from Germania soldiers; 30 machine guns couldn’t fully seal every area of the road.
Those Cossacks, after paying four-digit casualties in almost an instant, had their remaining soldiers charge straight over with incredible ferocity, not collapsing despite losing at least twenty to thirty percent of comrades in a short time.
“Are these Cossacks so unafraid of death?”
Rommel was greatly shocked seeing this.
He had underestimated the enemy’s willpower!
This was a distance where grenades could be thrown directly; for cavalry to start a charge, less than ten seconds to reach them.
“Da-da-da~”—The parachute battalion officers and soldiers frantically poured bullet rain with their submachine guns, sweeping down swaths of Cossacks. But the enemy’s starting distance was too close; countless wounded war horses still crashed over by inertia, knocking down some paratroopers.
Cavalrymen on horseback gripped sabers in one hand seeking melee kills, and M95 revolvers in the other, firing off six pistol rounds before dying.
In extreme close-range combat, pistols’ range and lethality disadvantages could be ignored.
A revolver’s six shots could roughly match the time for a submachine gun to empty a 30-round magazine. In other words, every Cossack cavalryman could at least output twenty percent of a submachine gunner’s firepower.
One to two thousand Cossack cavalry fighting desperately was at least equivalent to three to four hundred submachine gunners’ outburst.
The shortest and most brutal battle since the outbreak of this world war unfolded here and now.
A force with automatic firepower versus another with near-semi-automatic firepower suddenly engaging at full force within 200 meters or even 100 meters.
Over a thousand lives harvested every minute; a battle with thousands of casualties actually ended in just a few short minutes.
Hundreds of paratroopers died or were wounded under saber slashes and war horse collisions, with even more paratroopers killed or wounded by close-range revolver bursts.
But the Cossacks opposite paid total casualties far exceeding five or even ten times Rommel’s. Across the one-to-two-kilometer battlefield, everywhere lay dead and riderless war horses.
However, just as the fierce battle peaked, reinforcements from the west finally arrived.
Lelouch’s reinforcements hadn’t reached the battlefield yet; while rushing frantically, they heard and saw distant booms and machine gun fire.
Helpless, Lelouch immediately had all machine gun teams provide long-range suppressive fire support, while grenade launchers couldn’t even enter range.
Dozens of MG15 light machine guns from Lelouch urgently deployed far to the west on the road, estimated one to two kilometers from the battlefield, blindly spraying far down the road surface without aiming, ensuring nonstop fire as long as any human figures remained on the road.
The covering fire from Lelouch finally annihilated the Cossack cavalry companies that had already overcharged. The cavalry division’s rear echelon that hadn’t entered the encirclement saw the tide turn, with enemy reinforcements arriving and frontline comrades nearly wiped out, finally forced to withdraw toward Lviv.
Rommel also thoroughly breathed a sigh of relief, still somewhat dazed, and hurriedly had men clear the battlefield. The heavily wounded cavalry moaning on the ground couldn’t be treated now; they could only use bayonets to end the enemy’s suffering.
“Too brutal! In less than 10 minutes! Over four thousand killed! Our side has nearly two hundred killed by saber slashes and horse collisions! Plus three to four hundred killed or wounded by revolvers. Two paratrooper battalions, nearly thirty percent casualty rate! Too tragic!”
The young Rommel, who had been smooth sailing all along, finally began questioning life. Since meeting Commander Lelouch, he had risen through merits, full of high spirits; he thought today’s ambush circle was too perfect, who knew the enemy’s resistance will was so resolute—even after over a thousand instant kills, they could still organize desperate fights.
Without the paratrooper battalions’ high submachine gun ratio, fearless of melee against numerically superior foes, they might have capsized in the gutter today.
“Erwin! Your appetite is too big! Relying on two paratrooper battalions to encircle a whole cavalry division? Enemy three times your number—what were you thinking? Daring to let so many enemies within 200 meters before firing! Why not open fire at 800 meters!”
After roughly understanding the battle situation, Lelouch couldn’t help reproaching him a few words.
He knew Rommel’s growth trajectory had been changed by him; the guy had risen too fast and smooth, a bit cocky, overly confident as a tactical genius.
Though the results were indeed outstanding—over four thousand enemies directly killed, plus finishing off the wounded just now, total kills estimated at five to six thousand.
From casualty ratio, it was ten to one. But this was an ambush; the ambushing paratroopers were elites among elites—one for ten Cossack cavalrymen, and Lelouch didn’t feel it was a gain.
Rommel nodded repeatedly in shame, saying he would certainly learn the lesson and not claim merit for this battle. But now wasn’t the time for that; they needed to quickly adjust and prepare for the next step.
Seeing his sincere attitude, Lelouch didn’t dwell, saying everyone hurry and pack up, look forward.
Soon, Lieutenant General Kusmanek, responsible for commanding the prisoners of war, also arrived at the battlefield with his over a thousand warriors, followed by large crowds of released prisoners of war.
After Lieutenant General Kusmanek roughly understood the situation, he also spoke up for Rommel: “Colonel Lelouch, I think you shouldn’t be too harsh; battlefields change in instants, Battalion Commander Rommel was also for quickly achieving decisive results, a bit risky yes.
The most important now is to quickly capture horses and weapons to arm ourselves.”
Lelouch knew this reasoning too; after thinking, he pointed to the just-collected over three hundred unowned submachine guns: “Lieutenant General Kusmanek, these over three hundred submachine guns to the lieutenant and above officers among your prisoners of war, one each; these are left by our just-fallen comrades.
The pistols, rifles, sabers left by the cavalry, and these dropped cavalry guns, all left for your people. Pick some good riders, follow the submachine gun and grenade launcher teams I’ve selected here, assemble one to two thousand, ride to assault the Bohemia prisoners of war camp and rescue those people too.
Now we already have nearly ten thousand armed… Perhaps we can attack Lviv! Then hold Lviv and wait for relief without moving! Lviv is the enemy Southwestern Front’s total logistics base. Occupying the granaries and armories here, with ninety thousand men, enough to hold until the enemy collapses first!”
Lieutenant General Kusmanek, Rommel, Kesselring all supported this decision.
Everything seemed to be escalating, but it felt fated to choose this way.
……
From the six thousand dead cavalrymen’s weapons, ultimately only four to five thousand usable were selected. The battlefield also had over a dozen M1910 water-cooled heavy machine guns not yet deployed, and 6 cavalry guns.
These weapons were quickly sorted and handed to prisoners of war, arming two infantry regiments.
On the other side, Lelouch had Rommel atone with merit, leading two battalions in good condition plus some just-armed prisoners of war, all mounted to rush to the Bohemia prisoner of war camp.
The battle there had no suspense, resolved in half an hour, over a thousand Lusha guards killed, rescuing about forty thousand Bohemia and other ethnic prisoners of war.
However, at the Bohemia prisoner of war camp, the Lusha guards had more preparation time, knew friendly forces had trouble, so were very alert, no surprise attack opportunity.
During the rescue, Rommel again suffered three to four hundred casualties, but fortunately not all parachute regiment elites—Rommel brought some just-rescued prisoners of war this time, having friendly forces share some manpower-intensive assault tasks.
Moreover, because the Lusha guards were alerted early, upon encountering the cavalry assault they knew they couldn’t hold and began machine gun fire on the prisoners of war. In the end, before the camp was breached, they killed fully three to four thousand Bohemians.
The feud between the surviving prisoners of war and Lusha guards was thus thoroughly sealed.
Originally, these Bohemians, compared to Germania core tribe prisoners of war, had much lower loyalty to Austria.
Even pre-war, the Lusha Army had recruited some Bohemian tribesmen who immigrated from the Slovakia region to the Kievan Rus’ region to serve, forming a “Czech Legion.”
But this burst of fire completely tore off the facade.
After Rommel assaulted the prisoner of war camp and rescued everyone, realizing this scene might be useful, he had those with cameras in the force take plenty of related photos, especially the corpse piles of four thousand Bohemia prisoners of war mowed down by guards’ heavy machine guns, all photographed.
To use back in Austria proper, perhaps to dispel some Bohemian illusions about the enemy.
The Bohemia prisoner of war camp battle netted Rommel several heavy machine guns, over a thousand Mosin-Nagants, and large quantities of 7.62mm bullets.
Rommel had no intention yet of issuing weapons to Bohemia prisoners of war, only giving rifles to some officers among them; the rest of the guns still needed to be brought back to prioritize arming Germania core tribe prisoners of war.
However, the food supplies left by the guards were allowed for prisoners of war to eat and drink a bit, but not unrestricted gorging— this was Lelouch’s instruction; Lelouch had done the same when rescuing the core tribe prisoner of war camp.
People starved too long, if suddenly gorging, easily fatal from electrolyte and metabolic disorders. This was common medical knowledge in later generations, but many in this era might not know.
After all the commotion, that afternoon, about ten thousand armed Germania Army troops and over seventy thousand unarmed captives assembled west of Lviv city.
While inside Lviv city, the Lusha garrison—including 1 full infantry division and 11 returned cavalry companies—were in strict defensive posture, preparing to defend Lviv to the death and calling for nearby friendly reinforcements.
To prevent enemy reinforcements arriving immediately, Lelouch had blown up the railways from Lviv west and north along the way. But Lviv’s south and east railways, Lelouch couldn’t reach, so had to let them continue functioning.
After Lieutenant General Kusmanek and Kesselring slightly checked the situation, they gave Lelouch bad news:
“If we can break Lviv in 36 hours, all good; if not, enemy emergency reinforcements from various rear areas can reach Lviv. Brusilov’s guards at Przemysl Fortress and elsewhere up front can also return to aid here.”
Lelouch looked at the map, face slightly grave: “36 hours? Roughly this afternoon and night, plus all of tomorrow.
If not broken by tomorrow midnight, dragging to the day after dawn, enemy reinforcements arrive endlessly…”
But no matter; Lelouch believed his troops would grow as they fought.
He had over eighty thousand men, but only ten thousand guns.
At worst, in today’s special situation, he would allow subordinate units to do “front troops charge first, rear soldiers wait to pick up guns then fight.”
Purely by numbers, Lviv city’s one full division plus those cavalry companies definitely couldn’t match his fourfold numerical advantage.
But by gun count, enemies still had double his. And enemies were defenders, holding terrain advantage.
He decided to first focus along the railway assaulting the urban area, fighting straight to Lviv train station.
Because intelligence showed Lviv train station vicinity was the Lusha Southwestern Front’s logistics warehouses, including the armory.
Capturing Lviv train station meant having everything.
This was a target worth going all-in, sparing no cost to seize.
——
PS: Still 12,000 words today, begging for monthly tickets. Friends planning to vote double at month-end, don’t hold back, please vote early. I don’t plan to compete for the final September monthly ticket list, as I know I lack the strength.
I hope everyone votes early to linger longer in the top three of the military category monthly ticket list; even if overtaken mid-month, no matter, at least front half-month exposure goes up. Everyone has different strengths; monthly tickets have different uses.
Those able to compete for final settlement care about double tickets. I don’t; I just need initial exposure rush. Thanks, so please those planning to vote for me but waiting for month-end double, don’t wait. Month-end useless for me, as I definitely can’t compete; I just need this interim exposure.
