Chapter 53: Christmas Eve Offensive
“Are you expecting to use heavy cannons on the level of battleship main guns transported by railway, pull them directly to coastal cities with railways that our army can capture, like Dunkirk, to provide the army with sea denial fire?”
Major General Karl’s eyes lit up involuntarily when he heard Lelouch’s wild and imaginative suggestion, realizing it was a flexible tactic never considered before.
To prevent the fleet from shore bombardment, building coastal defense gun fortresses all the way there was really too cumbersome and slow, and would consume massive resources and time.
If they could maintain a flexible and mobile deterrence that kept the enemy’s fleet from approaching the coast, that would be the best.
This issue had never been seriously addressed in the German Army before, mainly because there was no such battlefield environment or urgent practical need.
And the senior generals from the Baria Faction, Württemberg faction, and other Four Southern German States had previously found it hard to influence the General Staff Headquarters’ armament planning, hard to bypass the Junker Officer Corps and directly meddle with Krupp Company.
But now the situation was different, just because of the offensive over the past few days; the 4th Army Group had encountered real difficulties in the Ostend direction. Because they couldn’t perform “area access denial” against the enemy fleet, the Empire’s entire strategic plan was hard to execute.
At this time, if the front-line troops proposed some well-founded urgent rectification plans, Krupp Company would have to follow through, whether they wanted to or not; otherwise, it would chill the hearts of the front-line officers and soldiers.
Those in the General Staff Headquarters and Junker Officer Corps who might originally resist the South German factions’ “bypassing levels to report and cross-circle dispatching” would also make allowances due to the front-line urgent needs, feeling this matter was “understandable.”
After thinking these things through, Major General Karl couldn’t help but feel: Lelouch this kid was simply a lucky star for their Baria Faction!
After sorting out his thoughts, Major General Karl decisively instructed: “This suggestion of yours is excellent. In a bit, draft a brief requirement as soon as possible first; I’ll report it to the commander. Then, while submitting requirements to Krupp to get them preparing, also file with the General Staff Headquarters—
By the way, your battalion commander Major Bock, isn’t his uncle the Chief of Staff? For the Empire, and to get this suggestion approved and emphasized as quickly as possible, I think the final formal report can be co-signed with him.”
Major General Karl’s implied meaning was very clear: this was giving von Bock a chance to share the credit for the proposal, and also to make follow-up matters easier to handle.
And Lelouch didn’t care about exclusively claiming the fame for this “proposal”; it wasn’t much merit anyway, just an idea. Using this opportunity to connect with Krupp’s people and get a familiar face was what mattered most.
He immediately humbly accepted Major General Karl’s suggestion in a very accommodating way, and this topic was temporarily set aside.
……
The discussion about railway guns was just an interlude in this meeting; today’s core topic was still the Stenford assault battle right in front of them, figuring out how to take the enemy’s railway hub.
The earlier discussion had already helped Lelouch and the others grasp the current situation:
Currently in the Stenford direction, the German Army could muster two divisions’ worth of rotation assault troops, plus two assault battalions. While the British Army, constrained by other directions, only had the 1st Reinforcement Division, 2nd Reinforcement Division, and Indian Soldiers from South Asia, with no Britannia homeland troops.
From the scale comparison, the enemy had the advantage in troop numbers, 4 divisions against 2, but their combat quality was relatively low; this battle still held good hope.
There weren’t really any tactical details worth discussing; they would fight the same way as four days ago at Bailleul. In such a short time, they couldn’t come up with new tricks.
After a rough rundown, Lelouch only offered some supplementary suggestions on the timing of the attack:
“I think today’s offensive should try to be a surprise attack, choosing to act after dark. During the day, routinely conduct two to three fire preparations and artillery barrages to build momentum. But right before the general offensive at night, don’t fire the guns; advance directly in the dark.”
Major General Karl immediately understood Lelouch’s implied meaning: “You’re planning to take advantage of the enemy’s relaxation on Christmas Eve to launch the offensive? Hmm, it’s a bit ruthless, but not breaking faith either; there’s no established practice between our two armies for a Christmas Eve ceasefire—I’ve heard that today on the western front line, the French Army had a tacit understanding with us; neither side launched any more charges, just shooting and shelling across the trenches.”
In Earth’s history, in the first year of the World War, on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, there was a brief truce between the Germans and French, not permitted from above, but spontaneous from the bottom-level soldiers.
But by the second year, with the war so bloody that both sides beat the dog brains out of each other, there were no more such fancy things.
Now it was the first year; theoretically, achieving a temporary tacit ceasefire on Christmas Eve was possible, but not ceasing fire was also completely reasonable, with no prior promises made.
But exploiting the enemy’s psychological relaxation, inducing them to lower vigilance, thinking no one would charge tonight, was also reasonable.
In later war history, similar things happened many times, especially in the Middle East region, because the warring sides had different faiths; many countries would ramp up assault intensity on days when the opponent’s faith made them lax while their own didn’t, and it was all legal.
And Lelouch had the soul of a transmigrator; after transmigrating, though he changed bodies, there was no rule he had to believe in the Western set, and he didn’t want to celebrate Christmas Eve anyway, so he might as well get down to business.
So he followed this line of thinking and planned some details: “We don’t need to talk ceasefire or not with the enemy, no contact at all; just fire once at 9 a.m., once at 1 p.m., once at 5 p.m., each round spaced 4 hours apart, then launch the assault around 7 p.m.; the enemy definitely won’t be prepared…
Moreover, after the enemy got two Lahore divisions as reinforcements from South Asia, I think those Lord Canna will be even more relaxed—they’ll surely think that with two divisions of friendly forces in their army who don’t believe in our set of faiths, celebrating South Asian nations’ own festivals, they’ll stay vigilant tonight.
Then the officers and soldiers of the 1st Reinforcement Division and 2nd Reinforcement Division, when night falls and no fighting starts, will definitely relax more, go feast, even drink some alcohol. We’ll advance in the dark while those Lord Canna are having dinner…”
Major General Karl found all this very reasonable and highly credible, approving it on the spot.
So this world’s one and only Christmas Eve laxity would be left to Stenford City, this British Army railway hub!
The German Army from top to bottom quickly began emergency dispatching and deployment, and under radio silence, using cavalry messengers for physical notifications.
And to boost morale and reduce soldiers’ resistance to fighting today and tomorrow, the 6th Army Group leadership was very willing to spend.
All officers and soldiers got extra meals in the morning; breakfast had already been eaten, but the two divisions acting at night still each received a big piece of chocolate.
At noon lunch, the generals distributed all the canned cured meat seized from the enemy at Bailleul a few days ago, ensuring every soldier got two big meat meals; they could even have some whisky at noon, but absolutely no alcohol at dinner to avoid drunkenness during the offensive.
After Lelouch seized that large batch of supplies a few days ago and reported enemy fire losses, he originally wanted to quickly find enough railway cars to transport it all back and sell it. But due to transport bottlenecks, it still wasn’t done.
Then they hit the Christmas Eve offensive; the higher-ups wanted to collect chocolate and coffee by all means, so Lelouch considered and found an opportunity to temporarily use a local businessman as a front to offload the goods—
Fortunately, Major General Karl and Duke Rupprecht didn’t care where the stuff came from; seeing high-quality New World imported chocolate and coffee, they took it all as listed and paid normally.
Even though the packaging clearly showed it was British Army supplies, they didn’t ask further.
In wartime, for important matters, you can’t quibble over money; being too picky means no one will help next time.
Lelouch saved three railway cars’ worth of transport capacity, selling 150 tons of chocolate, coffee, and cigars for over 800,000 marks. He gave a few tens of thousands of marks to the runners and reviewers for kickbacks, pocketing a clean 800,000 himself.
No wonder war makes money fast; before with Bergmann Company on submachine guns, they only paid “technical equity” worth 50,000 marks for his idea; this time it multiplied over tenfold.
After the campaign, he’d just need to take back the previously smuggled flannel and wool products to sell. Other luxury spoils of war were cleared out except for black tea.
The soldiers got ample extra meals and could each have a cigar to perk up before the action; morale was thus maintained, and resistance emotions dissipated invisibly.
The three fierce bombardments morning, noon, and evening were routine, each half an hour, stopping right on time.
Many houses in Stenford City were bombed down, but the defending army’s living forces didn’t suffer obvious casualties. The defenders seemed to think the German Army was just showing off muscle, not according sufficient vigilance.
During the German Army’s second bombardment, the defenders’ reconnaissance troops and artillery observation posts reported the front-line situation to Major General Edwin Alderson, division commander of the 1st Reinforcement Division.
Major General Alderson was also the Stenford city defense commander and the highest officer of the Canada expeditionary force.
Because Canada’s two divisions weren’t formed into a higher-level army unit, the 1st Division commander was directly put in charge of commanding and coordinating all Canadian forces, which showed just how makeshift these Lord Canna were.
Major General Alderson didn’t fully take the enemy bombardment seriously, even instructing:
“Doesn’t the enemy’s bombardment have a pattern? Seems like every three or four hours for a round; those Germanians are blustering but weak inside, knowing they can’t mount an offensive now, so they fire a few extra rounds to threaten. Have the officers and soldiers withdraw early from the front-line fortified zones to avoid artillery; no need to die in vain.”
After dark, Major General Alderson grew even more lax, ordering: “Extra meals for all officers and soldiers tonight; temporarily lift the alcohol ban for a few drinks, just don’t get drunk. Swap some front-line defense lines with the Lahore people; I’ll coordinate. Give them some canned beef as compensation.”
His subordinates reminded him that colonial troops from South Asia don’t eat beef.
But Alderson thought his men were mistaken and argued for half a day with them over whether these friendly forces avoided beef or pork, then verified with people before issuing the compensation supplies, avoiding a big joke—
In the eyes of Britannia’s white lords, those South Asian monkeys had too many too complex faiths; some tribes avoid this, some avoid that—it was really annoying. They didn’t see them as people at all, just tools.
As a result, while these Canadian white lords went feasting and drinking, leaving only South Asian soldiers to fill the line, the opposing German assault battalions launched their offensive under cover of night.
