Chapter 124: Annihilating A Million Enemies, Shocking The World
The series of campaigns from Carpathian-Gorlice-Lviv-Romania, from the end of April 1915 to the end of June, lasted a total of two months.
With Belgrade being besieged and the Serbian Army inside the city annihilated;
Romania also finally switched sides and saw the light.
These two landmark events ultimately heralded the end of this string of continuous campaigns.
The rough results of the campaign are already known worldwide: the allied forces of three countries were annihilated, and of the two small participating countries, one was destroyed and one switched sides.
But carefully tallying the final results, the numbers are still shocking—even many of the participants who personally experienced this series of grand campaigns couldn’t help but be astonished upon hearing the final results, let alone outsiders.
On the Russian Army side, the total force committed in the early stage of the campaign was 710,000 men, of which 540,000 were led by Udovici to the southern mountainous battlefield, and 170,000 were left by Brusilov on the northern mountainous battlefield.
However, in the later stages of the campaign, Lusha rear also sent small numbers of troops incrementally to reinforce. Or escort troops providing transport supplies, or troops left on the battlefield due to insufficient frontline forces.
Additionally, after Lelouch broke through Lviv, he subsequently advanced southeast along the Carpathian Mountains, traversed the western edge of the Kievan Rus’ Plain, and fought to Romania, annihilating scattered small numbers of Russian Army along the way at roadside strongpoints.
These two parts combined also involved over 200,000 Russian Army, with more than 100,000 of them eliminated.
And the last intact units of the Lusha Army that escaped were just the 5 divisions, 2 infantry brigades, and 3 cavalry brigades（2 brigades 3 cavalry） that Brusilov took away, more than 60,000 men. The rest attempting to escape disorganized would at most not exceed 30,000 to 50,000—those who abandoned weapons, shed uniforms, and crossed the Carpathian Mountains on their own. At least a small half of these would die from falls, starvation, or disease in the mountains, unable to cross.
Scattered additions and subtractions netting out, the soldiers who escaped with Brusilov and those who fled scattered were still fewer than the Russian Army losses from Lviv to Bessarabia, with a difference of several tens of thousands between them.
Ultimately, the total loss of Russian Army forces reached the astonishing figure of 770,000 men, of which about 220,000 died directly in battle, 150,000 from wounds and illness, 90,000 from falls/missing while crossing mountains, totaling 460,000 deaths. 310,000 surrendered and were captured.
On the Serbian Army side, the initial 330,000 committed lost 270,000, and because of strong hatred between Serbs and Austria, most fought to the death. Few surrendered, less than 100,000, with at least two-thirds or more dead.
Later, the border campaign lost another 40,000 veterans, and the Belgrade siege another 70,000 veterans; by the end of the war, the total permanent loss of veterans reached the astonishing 380,000.
In addition, there were several hundred thousand mobilized soldiers who had only been trained by Latin for a few weeks, also annihilated in the border campaign and Belgrade siege.
Belgrade was actually the last to end in the entire Southeast Front campaign; when Romania surrendered, the siege here hadn’t ended yet, dragging on a bit longer.
Only the final besieging troops were Austrian Army, while the German 6th Army Group had long withdrawn to handle other more important matters.
The Austrian Army ultimately didn’t assault the city either, just cutting off all internal and external contact, forcing the Serbian Army to surrender. This was also to reduce casualties on both sides, while simultaneously undermining the prestige of the Serbian Army generals and civilian official clique, making it hard for them to rally civilians to fight for them in the future.
If the Serbian Army refused to surrender, ordinary civilians inside the city would hope to surrender after food ran out. Finally, the most die-hard Serbian civilian officials and generals were killed by their own starving people, leading to surrender and ending the war.
Ultimately, only about 70,000 regular Serbian Army troops, who were not in Belgrade during the campaign but in the southern mountainous areas, continued hiding in Macedonia or even Albania, persisting in mountain warfare harassment; there were also over 100,000 newly mobilized soldiers who went to the southern mountainous areas.
Considering the complex local situation, Austria temporarily had no way to deal with it.
Later, following the advice of Germania Advisors（also under pressure）, Austria’s top leadership, to release combat power and material resources, agreed to some enlightened minor reforms,
The Austrian authorities granted high autonomy to Croats within its borders, and designated the Croatian mountainous areas, combined with the newly captured occupied areas south of the Danube in Serbia, plus the yet-to-be-occupied southern Serbian mountainous areas, all into one “Croatian Autonomous Region”,
Henceforth granting Croats ruling rights over Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and southern Serbia. At the same time, letting local Bosnia and Herzegovina people manage themselves, with Croats not interfering.
In this way, Austria only kept Belgrade and its northern plains, incorporating these plains into Hungary.
The southern mountainous areas were relinquished, belonging to the autonomous region, and it was promised that Croats would not need to pay any fiscal tribute to Vienna authorities in the future, nor would Vienna give money to the area, letting them be self-sufficient.
Croatia only needed to stay aligned with Vienna on military and diplomatic matters, bearing no other obligations.
The direct governance power over this money-losing area was thus devolved. From then on, this powder keg region was also out of the World War, closing the door to solve its own problems, no longer consuming Empire resources.
At the founding of the Croatian Region, Germany and Austria gave the autonomous region a batch of startup equipment, all second-line obsolete gear,
If more equipment was wanted later, buy at internal prices, or let Croatian soldiers serve as mercenaries for Austria or Germania, exchanging mercenary pay for more weapons, equipment, and ammunition; no need to elaborate.
In summary, Serbia lost 380,000 veterans and about 400,000 militia, exiting the war from then on.
In original Earth history, when Serbia exited the war in 1916, because Greece in the south was also lured by Britain to join the war, and Britain provided sea transport to Southeast European countries. So Serbia’s defeated army could retreat into Greece or be transported by British fleet to Corfu Island.
But in this timeline, due to Lelouch’s butterfly effect, Britain’s Army was almost completely annihilated at Ypres beforehand, even the Gallipoli Campaign was forced to be postponed. So Britain has achieved nothing in the Eastern Mediterranean to date, completely unable to pick up the Serbian Army.
After Serbia exited the war, Britannians hoping to use allied refugee manpower as cannon fodder for themselves couldn’t even get that, indirectly reducing Britain’s military cannon fodder manpower by 300,000.
……
Among the three defeated countries in this battle, Romania, the last one, had the total losses that were easiest and clearest to calculate.
Because they only had 160,000 armed forces total, sending out 110,000. During the Hungarian Campaign, after losing over 20,000, they were completely rattled, with subsequent small nibbling losses, not daring to seriously engage again.
So until the end of the war, Romania’s total casualties and missing were just 40,000, with 120,000 either captured on the battlefield or directly surrendering with the whole country after the war.
However, when Germany and Austria calculated battle results, they definitely counted all 160,000 Romanian national military forces.
Beating the enemy into national surrender also counts as annihilating the enemy.
“So, the two-month battle on the Southeast Front totally annihilated 770,000 Lusha Army, 780,000 Serbian Army, 160,000 Romanian Army? Total annihilated enemies 1.71 million? Of which 1.01 million deaths from various causes, 700,000 captured?”
When this number was finally reported to Emperor Wilhelm and Emperor Franz, both imperial families and authorities were shocked.
Lelouch himself, upon finally hearing this reported number, even felt a bit embarrassed, thinking inwardly:
“Accounts can be calculated like this? Serbia had at least 400,000 temporarily grabbed militia, right? Deducting that padding, real solid annihilation at most 1.3 million! Romania was national surrender, not battlefield captures; deduct that and it’s only 1.2 million! The padding in this battle report is really…”
But only someone like Lelouch, with a modern soul, would feel embarrassed about padding battle reports.
Everyone else thought this calculation very reasonable; even the emperor and general staff wanted to round it up with a stroke of the pen to two million enemies annihilated!
……
The campaign ended at the end of June; precisely because the results were so huge, at the beginning of July the emperor and general staff hurriedly set the rewards.
Among everyone, the most prominent recipient was naturally the 10th Army Group Commander, Old Marshal Leopold.
He became the first marshal to receive the Grand Iron Cross during this World War!
The award ceremony was held in Berlin, on a very grand scale, with national newspapers going all out to wildly propagandize the great victory on the Eastern Front.
Actually, strictly speaking, in this campaign, compared to the 6th Army Group, the 10th Army Group’s military merit was indeed more critical, but the 6th Army Group grabbed the final kills to expand results, reaping far more.
Saying Duke Rupprecht was equally indispensable is also justifiable.
But finally considering that one campaign shouldn’t award two marshals the Grand Iron Cross—the Grand Iron Cross isn’t that cheap to devalue—it was given first to Leopold.
This involved comprehensive considerations of uncle-nephew seniority and age/experience. Especially since Old Marshal Leopold was over seventy; what if there was no chance for another victory in the future?
Just like later Nobel awards considering candidates’ health and lifespan, whether they could last if awarded late.
But no matter what, with Duke Rupprecht’s battle results in this campaign, next time if there’s a chance for another great victory annihilating over 500,000 enemies, his Grand Iron Cross is basically assured.
Besides the two marshals, other meritorious officers in the 6th and 10th Army Groups also received promotions and rewards.
Lelouch himself temporarily remained at colonel rank. After general staff consultation, there was some resistance to directly giving brigadier general for this merit of offering strategy and patching up.
As mentioned before, before promotion to colonel, Duke Rupprecht could decide; as long as Lelouch earned merit, it was a green light all the way.
But to have “general” in the title required emperor approval, with promotion difficulty skyrocketing countless times.
However, Lelouch was ultimately compensated in nobility title; Duke Rupprecht, in the name of the Baria Royal Family, added the “Ritter” infix（Ritter） to his name.
Thus elevating him from an ordinary “von” lifetime knight to a hereditary knight.
From then on, Lelouch’s full name was “Lelouch von Ritter Hunt”.
At the same time, though the emperor didn’t promote him to brigadier general, he approved promoting his official position.
Lelouch’s “War Ministry Propaganda Bureau External Propaganda Department Director” was promoted half a grade,
Becoming “War Ministry Propaganda Bureau Deputy Director（in charge of external propaganda work）”.
In addition, there were large amounts of invisible benefits, battlefield captures, incorporation of prisoners of war, etc., all waiting to be digested and utilized.
Not to mention anything else, just the development rights to Romanian oil fields, and all those Austrian prisoners Lelouch personally rescued, required considerable maneuvering to settle.
