Chapter 175: Blue Plan
On September 20th, Lelouch finally inspected the troops until late at night before resting,
and he did not return to the division headquarters in Zhankoy City, instead finding a dormitory at the training ground outside the city to crash for the night.
Before sleeping, he also read some documents alone under the lamp, all battle reports on cooperative military actions by neighboring friendly forces.
Although these battles did not occur in the Kievan Rus’ War Zone where Lelouch was located, they would all have a profound impact on this war zone.
For example, the Ottoman Army as well as Germania’s railway gun unit, some airship force, and fighter unit are still fiercely battling the Britannian Landing Army on the Gallipoli Peninsula on the north bank of the Dardanelles Strait.
It is their fierce fighting that ensures the British Landing Army cannot break through the Dardanelles Strait into the Black Sea, and thus cannot support the Lusha Army around the Black Sea. This also leaves the Lushans’ troops in a state of relatively tight military supplies, short of ammunition and shells, before the great battle begins.
On the other side, taking advantage of the British Royal Navy being unable to enter, Admiral Spee, who has recently been rampant on the Black Sea, has also seized the opportunity to establish some new merits.
With the “Goeben” battlecruiser hastily repaired in September, Admiral Spee has again taken this legendary warship, along with the remaining 2 operable Vichersbach-class pre-dreadnoughts, several cruisers and destroyers, to the eastern Black Sea coast to carry out some bombardment missions and transport fleet interception missions.
These bombardment missions can often damage port facilities and even some port area warehouses of the Lushans in Sochi, Batumi, and other places, destroying some of the enemy’s material reserves.
They can also intercept the enemy fleets transporting supplies from Kerch, Rostov, and other Lusha inland hinterlands to Batumi, Trabzon, and other ports south of the Caucasus.
As a result, in fact since early August, the Lushans’ Caucasus Front Army’s reserve supplies have been gradually decreasing.
Of course, at the beginning, the Lusha Army still had reserves on the Gruia and Armenia fronts, so this shortcoming would not be exposed all at once. After more than a month of consumption, by mid-September, the Lusha Caucasus Front Army’s supply abundance rate finally dropped to a level lower than that of the Ottoman Army fighting them.
Originally, the Lusha Army’s land supply conditions in South Caucasus combat were already much worse than those of the Ottoman Army—
The Ottoman Army needs to cross the Eastern Taurus Mountains for over 200 kilometers without railways to transport supplies to frontline Van and Erzurum, which is extremely arduous. If key nodes are blocked by the Lusha Army, the non-rail mountain land transport distance may increase to nearly 400 kilometers, with enormous losses.
But if the Lusha Army also relies on land supply, they have to directly cross the Greater Caucasus Mountains, which are several times more treacherous than the Eastern Taurus Mountains!
However, originally the Lushans could choose the Black Sea route, but now the sea route has been forcibly cut off by the “Goeben,” forcing them to switch from cheap sea transport to crossing perilous high mountains.
The supply transport cost for the Lusha 300,000-strong army on the Caucasus front has suddenly increased 20 times! This is already harder than Zhuge Liang transporting grain via the Shu Road for northern expeditions!
Originally, the Lushans’ transport cost was one-fifth of the Ottoman Army’s, but now it has suddenly become 4 times that of the Ottoman Army!
Of course, the Lushans cannot possibly sit idly by forever bearing such high supply costs to maintain the Caucasus Front Army. Crossing the great mountains is only a stopgap measure, lasting just a few months. Now the Lushans are already deploying another backup plan, which is to complete supplies to the South Caucasus region via the inland Caspian Sea.
They are currently rushing to build new small shipyards in Astrakhan, the estuary city where the Volga River flows into the Caspian Sea, then building a batch of simple gunboats as inland lake escort forces, to cover inland river ships from the Volga River to the Baku Oil Fields in Azerbaijan for unloading ashore.
From procuring transport ships to initially establishing escorts, it will still take about a few months, and by next spring, Caspian Sea shipping can be ensured to be completely smooth.
For this, perhaps some in the Lusha high command will consider how to prevent cooperation between the Persians on the opposite Caspian shore and the Germanians, to avoid the Germanians using Persia to cut off the Caspian Sea route. It is also possible they will strike at the Persians directly and brazenly invade, but that’s a story for later—who knows.
Both sides will have their own backup plans; that’s not surprising.
On the Germanian side, the Black Sea Fleet is also planning a latest action recently, also to cooperate with the latest actions in the Kievan Rus’ War Zone, to mobilize the Lusha Army and weaken the Lushans’ defensive forces on the Kievan Rus’ Plain before the battle begins.
……
After understanding all the latest movements of the surrounding friendly forces, Lelouch stayed up until the middle of the night before falling asleep.
The next day after waking up, he only slightly packed and ate breakfast, then promptly held a military conference to convey the campaign’s action plan to the officers under him.
The action plan had been formulated long ago, and Lelouch himself was very clear about it, but the officers under him did not know yet. It would only be revealed to mid-level officers in the last two days before the battle, also to avoid leaks.
Since such conferences are internally conveyed downward within each division, the officers of Bock’s armored division would not come; only Lelouch’s own subordinates would attend, at most some officers from friendly artillery units providing cooperation for him.
Attendees included Brigadier General Keitel, brigade commander of the army group direct heavy artillery brigade, Deputy Division Commander Rommel, Artillery Regiment Commander Leb, motorized infantry regiment commander William Lister, and several other supporting regimental commanders.
After the meeting began, Lelouch himself, due to recent excessive travel and fatigue, was a bit low on energy, so he had Rommel first brief everyone on the current front line situation and the enemy and friendly troop confrontation deployment posture.
Rommel readily took the pointer and began lecturing:
“Before the meeting, first a piece of good news for everyone. In fact, just this morning, in the southeast Caucasus battlefield direction, the Empire’s army has just launched a latest offensive, mainly to assist the Ottomans in combat.
This operation should pin down a considerable portion of the enemy’s forces, providing great help to our army’s offensive the day after tomorrow, at least reducing the enemy’s subsequent reserves sent our way.
The specific combat action in the Caucasus direction is as follows: Admiral Spee is escorting 2 divisions of the Ottoman Army, as well as one regiment of our army reinforcing them—who fought in the Dniester Estuary landing battle before and have landing experience—with 1 battlecruiser, 2 pre-dreadnoughts, and several auxiliary ships.
Landing at the original Ottoman port city of Trabzon, counter-encircling the Lusha garrison in the city, and recapturing it—this city was still in Ottoman hands when the war first started last year, but because at that time the Lushans had too obvious a maritime advantage in the eastern Black Sea, the Ottomans could not transport supplies and reinforcements by sea to help this port city, leading to it being seized by the Lushans.
After the Lushans seized this city last winter, over the next 8 months, the enemy used Trabzon as a forward springboard to transport supplies to its Caucasus Front Army frontline troops.
Now, because sea control has changed hands, the enemy garrison in Trabzon has not received supplies for over a month and is in an extremely weakened state. So the landing organized by Admiral Spee will absolutely succeed, and the Ottoman land forces can quickly arrive for inside-outside coordination.
After recapturing Trabzon, the Ottomans can restore sea transport supplies for the South Caucasus War Zone troops, reducing transport costs by more than half compared to now, making it even better for fighting a war of attrition with the Lushans.
Originally when the Lushans could sea transport but the Ottomans could not, the Ottoman transport cost was 5 times that of the Lusha. Later it became neither could sea transport, and the Greater Caucasus Mountains the Lushans had to cross were several times more treacherous, so the Lusha transport cost became 4 times that of the Ottoman.
Now it further becomes ‘Ottomans can sea transport, only Lushans unilaterally cannot,’ and the Lusha transport cost will soar to more than 10 times that of the Ottomans!
Moreover, according to the latest news from the joint operations command, while overseeing the Trabzon landing, Admiral Spee will also feign an attack by bombarding the Lushans’ Batumi port, creating the illusion of also landing at Batumi, to disperse the enemy’s attention, leaving them unsure whether to reinforce Batumi or Trabzon first.
Therefore, in the short term, the enemy’s Caucasus Front Army will inevitably be in crisis, causing the enemy’s total strategic reserves on the southern front to be pinned to the Caucasus direction, unable to reinforce our Kievan Rus’ Great Plain direction.
According to intelligence, the enemy’s previous total strategic reserves on the southern front were stationed in the Tsaritsyn direction, that position being the closest transportation hub between the Don River and Volga River. There are stationed at least 1 army group of the enemy’s newly conscripted reserve troops, just inducted and not yet completed military training.
Originally, this force if moving west could come to Rostov or even further west to fight us. But now they are very likely to maneuver downstream along the Volga River, first to Astrakhan, then pulled to South Caucasus; the enemy we need to face in our subsequent first phase might be short 1 army group.”
Rommel first outlined the recent cooperative actions of the friendly forces. Strictly speaking, this new campaign counts as already started today, just not fired by the troops on the Crimean Peninsula side, but by the Caucasus friendly forces first as a feint to attract fire.
As for the “Tsaritsyn” mentioned by Rommel, this place name may not be familiar to many in later generations, but it is actually the later “Stalingrad,” the transportation hub connecting the Don River and Volga River; whether reinforcing Kievan Rus’ to the west or Caucasus to the south, troops must depart from here.
After introducing the friendly forces’ actions, Rommel outlined the current deployment confrontation situation along the frontline between the two armies:
“The day after tomorrow, our army will begin the offensive. Before the offensive, first talk about the participating troops on both sides. In this great campaign, our army has the entire 6th Army Group, plus 4 corps from the 10th Army Group participating.
Our 6th Army Group has a total strength supplemented to around 450,000 men, organized into 7 full-strength reorganized corps.
However, about 1 division’s strength, plus almost all the railway gun unit, is in the south helping the Ottomans deal with the enemies on the Gallipoli Peninsula and Trabzon.
Additionally, there is 1 reorganized corps under it, with 3 divisions, of which 2 divisions are besieging the enemy garrison in Sevastopol, and 1 division is encircling Kerch. And the enemies they are besieging have at least 3 times the besieging troops’ numbers, so they can only first build solid defense lines and besiege without attacking, mainly to consume enemy supplies.
Excluding these 4 divisions that cannot participate, our 6th Army Group actually has 5.5 corps and 17 divisions, 380,000 men, available for offensive combat.
Part of the 10th Army Group must be responsible for the defense line north of Krakow-Lviv, confronting the enemy’s Polish Western Front Army; the ones that can be drawn to assist us total 4 corps and 12 divisions, 220,000 men. So in this campaign, our army’s offensive troops’ army total strength is 600,000 men.
Additionally, besides our army, other allied countries’ armies can also participate in this campaign. The Romanian Front is willing to send 8 divisions, totaling 120,000 men.
There is also Austria’s 3rd Army Group, which can be thrown into offensive combat, about 300,000 men. Additionally, Austria’s 5th Army Group must assist this army group and our 10th Army Group, filling the original defense line left vacant after our offensive and providing rear occupation.”
Including the combined forces of Germania, Austria, and Rome, total offensive troops 1,000,000 men, but only Germania’s 600,000 count as elite and main force; the other 400,000 allies are only for filling the line and plugging gaps.
After finishing our side’s situation, Rommel introduced the enemy’s participating troops:
“On the enemy side, since the complete end of the Romania border campaign in August, the Lusha side has already disbanded the Romanian Front Army designation.
And incorporated its remaining, non-encircled 6th Army Group remnants into the Southwestern Front. Original Romanian Front Army Commander General Evert was demoted to 6th Army Group Commander due to ineffective combat.
The enemy Southwestern Front’s current commander is General Pavel Pleve, under which are Lusha 4th, 6th, and 7th Army Groups, of which the 6th Army Group has been urgently supplemented with over 100,000 new recruits in the past month to restore its establishment.
Among these 3 army groups, the 4th and 7th each have 6 corps’ establishment, the 6th has only 5 corps left, totaling 17 corps and 52 divisions; full strength theoretical total 1.14 million men. In reality, it probably won’t be full strength, but they have also tried to fill with untrained newly conscripted sources; let’s say 1.1 million men, basically equal to our army’s participating troops’ total strength.
Additionally, the Lushans have another armed force not in these army group sequences but directly under the Southwestern Front, which is their Cossack cavalry corps.
The Kievan Rus’ Great Plain, especially the eastern Don River steppe, is the Cossacks’ old nest, with massive Cossack populations locally; normally they don’t bear taxes to the Lusha officialdom, nor participate in regular military training systems; they only need to be temporarily conscripted in wartime.
Their frontal combat effectiveness may be poor, but they can still harass and strike logistics; if not handled well, it will be very troublesome. According to reliable intelligence, the Southwestern Front now no longer organizes large cavalry divisions over 9,000 men, generally medium-small Cossack cavalry divisions of 6,000 to 7,500 men.
And the entire Southwestern Front has at least 20 cavalry divisions not in army group sequences, that’s 150,000 Cossacks. If the battle situation is critical and mobilization is intensified, there could be even more.
Therefore, in the first phase, our army must face 1.25 million enemy with 1 million men, and our core main force is only 600,000, still bearing the offensive task; the pressure is still very great.
If the campaign lasts more than a month, Tsaritsyn in the east, Kursk and Voronezh in the north, may have newly formed army groups just conscripted coming to reinforce. However, these troops’ combat effectiveness is negligible; they haven’t received military training before. As long as we can severely weaken the enemy frontline troops before they arrive on the battlefield, it won’t affect the overall situation.”
After Rommel detailed the enemy and friendly strength comparison, he put down the pointer and cast an inquiring glance at Officer Lelouch.
Lelouch nodded, indicating he spoke well, then took the pointer and added a few words on subsequent specific tactical arrangements:
“Deputy Division Commander Rommel spoke very well, very clearly; the current enemy and friendly strength comparison is like this. Next, I will talk about our troops’ specific offensive tasks, the enemies we will face, and subsequent tactical arrangements.
First, as Deputy Division Commander Rommel said earlier, the enemy has 3 full-strength army groups, of which Lusha 4th Army Group is placed on the eastern front, mainly to counter our army on the Lviv-Vinnytsia line, that is, to deal with friendly forces of our 10th Army Group. The 4th Army Group’s headquarters is set in Zhytomyr, 150 kilometers west of Kyiv.
Lusha 7th Army Group is placed in the central part of the enemy defense zone, with Kyiv City as headquarters, also responsible for the northern sector defense line from Vinnytsia to Odessa; because this defense line segment is relatively short, the 7th Army Group can still draw 3 corps’ strength as the front army’s total reserves.
And confronting it are mainly our allies, the Romanian Army and Austrian 3rd Army Group. Our Germanian 6th Army Group will also detach 1 corps as the central route confrontation backbone, lest relying entirely on Austrian and Romanian armies with too low morale, making it hard to steadily maintain the front.
Lusha 6th Army Group is placed from the Dnieper River Estuary upstream along the river areas, even to the east of the Dnieper River mouth until adjoining the Crimean Peninsula. Its headquarters is placed in Zaporizhzhia.
This army group is also our old opponent; in the previous Romania border campaign, we heavily damaged them once, and after being crippled by half, they were pulled back to the rear for reorganization. Now we must continue to strike at them!
Our Germanian 6th Army Group’s 14 divisions and 330,000 men will annihilate Lusha 6th Army Group’s 15 divisions and 330,000 men in the offensive campaign! Plus possibly appearing Cossack cavalry corps!
Therefore, although our army is at a disadvantage in total strength numbers globally, at least in the northwest sector, central sector, and southeast sector these three front lines, the southeast sector where we are has exactly equal strength on both sides! This is also the main attack direction of this campaign.
As for those Cossacks, with our army having armored car troops, there is no need to fear them too much. Next, I will specifically assign our division, as the army group’s vanguard breakthrough troops, the specific tasks to be responsible for when the campaign begins.”
——
（PS: In 1915, Zaporizhzhia’s place name should still be “Alexandrovsk.” But the Tsar period loved naming places after imperial family members, leading to many place name duplicates. There is also a city called “Alexandrovsk” on Sakhalin Island in the Far East, still used today. So Zaporizhzhia was renamed in 1925. To avoid confusion, I still call it Zaporizhzhia.
Additionally, the following image is the September 20, 1915, both sides’ control line map. No image in the previous days, supplementing here. There will be two updates today, another one tonight.）
