Chapter 65: Evolving In War
Out of absolute trust in Lelouch’s vision, Duke Rupprecht signed off with a flourish that very day, approving all the resources Lelouch hoped to coordinate.
The matter of applying to the Emperor and General Staff Headquarters for airships required the Duke to personally swallow his pride, begging and pulling strings everywhere, while also paying attention to confidentiality levels to avoid being overheard by too many irrelevant people.
For the matters requiring coordination with the Navy, he gave Lelouch another secret letter, asking him to personally find time to go to Antwerp and talk to Vice Admiral Hipper—
Well, as a side note, last November, when Hipper led the Germania Navy battlecruiser fleet in a surprise attack on Ostend and sank 4 British Royal Navy pre-dreadnoughts, he was still only a major general. At the time, due to Hipper’s issue of “disobeying orders and acting alone,” although he earned great merit, it wasn’t suitable to promote him immediately; the Naval Ministry still had to discipline him as needed.
So Hipper ultimately only received a Blue Max Medal last year, but no promotion.
It wasn’t until the end of the year, with the Naval Ministry holding a bunch of year-end summary meetings and the fuss over disobeying orders dying down, that it was time to turn the page.
Finally, at the end of January, Hipper was promoted to lieutenant general. But the reason for the promotion was written quite vaguely, only saying it was due to his various performances over many past years and accumulated merits warranting a rise, downplaying the matter of disobeying orders to earn merit.
The Naval Ministry also knew that not promoting after a great victory wouldn’t do, as it wouldn’t convince the troops. Being able to promote him while saving face for the Naval Ministry was a win-win.
So these past few days, Vice Admiral Hipper was still riding high on the excitement of his recent promotion. If Lelouch, the great benefactor who once delivered merit to him, visited again, Hipper would surely be very happy to receive him. Whatever outrageous suggestions he had, Hipper would give them serious consideration.
The tasks Duke Rupprecht assigned to Lelouch were roughly these two aspects: armaments and contacting the Navy.
As for the frontal assaults on Dunkirk and the Ypres Highlands, Lelouch didn’t need to worry about them for now.
There were plenty of rigorous and methodical generals in the Germania Army who could fight those by-the-book battles; a talent like Lelouch should specialize in stratagems.
The Duke estimated that even a normal siege of the outer positions around Dunkirk would likely take at least ten days to half a month—
This speed was completely reasonable at the time; for example, in the early war when the German Army’s momentum was strongest, the Siege of Antwerp also took over half a month, and the Liège Fortress took 11 days, and that was against the weak Belgian Army.
Not to mention that Dunkirk had now become the lifeline of the British Expeditionary Force; the British Army would defend it at all costs.
……
Lelouch knew he should have about half a month to operate, and everything was very urgent.
He had to plan well; there was no time to waste.
So that evening on the 26th, right after getting authorization, he roughly scheduled his own itinerary.
The most urgent matter right now was to first place an order with a textile factory qualified to manufacture safe parachutes, custom-ordering at least three thousand oiled canvas parachutes.
This was the highest priority; after placing the order, while the factory produced them, he could handle other things in time.
So that evening, he took a briefcase containing identification, documents, and paper and pen, and boarded a returning train at Armantieres Train Station.
There were currently no passenger trains to frontline cities, only military trains carrying supplies, but they generally had two passenger cars attached for emergency transport of important personnel and wounded.
The train Lelouch was on was the same; the first passenger car reeked badly and had no furnishings, packed like a sardine can.
The second passenger car was much better, with long benches in the front half and three rows of soft berths in the back half.
Fortunately, he had a letter of introduction personally endorsed by the Army Group Commander, so he rightfully took a soft berth.
Because he was wearing civilian clothes and looked too young and handsome, many officers on the platform waiting to “squeeze like sardines” gave him indignant looks, some even mocking him.
“Must be some noble lord’s young master coming to the front to gild himself and mix for military merit! So young, unscathed, and taking a berth!”
Lelouch had no time to pay attention to these complaints and didn’t take it to heart even if he overheard one.
Once on the train, he went straight to his berth, put down the tabletop, spread out paper and pen, and began sketching the parachute design in his mind.
Parachutes weren’t really novel; even without Lelouch’s improvements, professional factories in the rear could produce them.
Because although this era had no paratroopers, pilots needed to parachute to escape when airplanes malfunctioned, so as early as 1911, humans had invented parachutes that could be folded and packed into parachute bags.
Even earlier, in the era without airplanes, there were those primitive parachutes that couldn’t be folded and needed to be manually opened in advance, used for hot air balloon observers.
After the war began in August 1914, all countries considered pilot safety and began further studying upgrades and optimizations for parachutes. Now that the war had lasted over five months, pilots in each country were equipped with parachutes that “could be deployed by pulling a cord in windy conditions.”
In fact, up to the early World War II when paratroopers appeared, they used this kind of parachute; it could fight wars without improvements.
But Lelouch knew that old-style parachutes couldn’t control gliding direction; where you landed was up to fate. A strong wind would drift you away from the landing zone. On Earth up to the World War II era, paratroopers’ landing areas were hard to control.
The places he wanted to seize by air drop this time were just two shore battery fortresses northeast and due east of Dunkirk Port, not large in area. If they drifted everywhere, it would be easy to miss the landing zone, causing unnecessary losses.
So he thought of going straight to converting the parachutes into “winged parachutes” with arc-shaped long sides, rather than traditional round ones.
This improvement had little technical difficulty; it just needed a clear description of the shape, trial production by the relevant factories, and air resistance tests—it was easy to achieve.
Moreover, after converting to winged parachutes, compared to traditional round parachutes, it was all benefits with no drawbacks. A winged parachute, even completely unoperated, would descend straight or with the wind like a normal parachute, with no downsides. But as long as you knew a bit of control, stayed calm, and followed the instructions, you could adjust the drift direction.
Before transmigrating, Lelouch had played thousands of hours of battle royale games, and since his aim in games was poor, he had more chances to practice parachuting than normal players.
He was extremely familiar with the winged parachute’s shape and planned to use the dim train lights, before drowsiness set in, to finish drawing the basic structure’s three-view diagram in one go.
This way, when he woke up tomorrow and arrived in Frankfurt, he could just shove the blueprints to a processing factory and save a day.
He focused intently on drawing at his desk, not knowing how long he worked.
A soldier in splendid military uniform in the same car suddenly got up and turned off the car lights, plunging Lelouch into darkness.
He was a bit stunned and instinctively cursed: “Who turned off the lights? I have urgent military affairs to handle!”
This era’s train electrical wiring was very rudimentary; other cars didn’t even have electric lights. This was the most VIP car with lights, but they couldn’t be wired separately—the whole car’s lights switched together.
The uniformed attendant officer who turned off the lights, roared at by him, couldn’t help retorting: “It’s eleven o’clock! You not sleeping means others can’t! You’re disturbing the VIP in the next berth!”
Lelouch then realized there were three rows of berths in the car; his light affected quite a few people, so minority should yield to majority.
But at that moment, a steady middle-aged voice came from the next berth compartment: “Joachim, don’t do that. I’m not tired; don’t delay urgent military affairs.”
The splendidly uniformed attendant officer immediately turned the car lights back on upon hearing this.
Lelouch hadn’t even reacted when he saw the lights on again, so he could only politely thank: “Very sorry, I was just handling official documents earlier and didn’t notice the time. I’ll turn it off once I’m done drawing.”
A few cane taps came from the next berth, then an elder around fifty turned over. The old man wasn’t wearing a general’s uniform but civilian official attire, rare at the front.
Out of respect for the elderly, Lelouch quickly stood and saluted, proactively introducing himself:
“Battalion Commander of the 3rd Assault Battalion, 6th Army Group, Major Lelouch Hunter.”
The elder nodded almost imperceptibly, instinctively looking to see what Lelouch was drawing.
But Lelouch, not knowing the other’s identity, covered it with good confidentiality awareness.
The elder then chuckled: “Even guarding against me? Young man has strong confidentiality awareness. Rest assured, we’re not interested in those fighting and killing affairs; we’re here at the front to inspect matters for the wounded and prisoners of war.
You’re young but not arrogant. Earlier when boarding, with so many questioning you, you didn’t take it to heart. It’s good for young people to stay composed.”
The uniformed attendant officer nearby, seeing this, indignantly reminded Lelouch: “Don’t be rude! Don’t you even recognize Grand Duke Mark von Baden? His Highness also serves as Minister of the Imperial Prisoner of War Affairs Department!”
Since the other had revealed his identity, Lelouch quickly recalled: wasn’t this grand duke the “last prime minister” at the end of World War I?
Among the Four Southern German States, the Hesse line had now declined, with no prominent figures in Imperial politics.
Among the leaders of the other three states, the Baria Crown Prince and Grand Duke of Württemberg served as commanders of the 6th and 4th Army Groups, respectively, both in military posts. Only the Grand Duke of Baden before him was a pure civilian official who didn’t like military matters.
This gentleman was known as left-leaning in the war, initially mainly handling prisoner of war affairs and humanitarian matters. Later, he also served as the Emperor’s secret diplomatic envoy, trying to help the Emperor secretly mediate for a separate ceasefire and peace with the Britannians, but it failed.
The Emperor using him this way was because he had good public reputation and was relatively acceptable to enemy countries. Later in the war’s end, feeling internal instability, the Emperor wanted to struggle on and made Mark von Baden Imperial Prime Minister, having this prime minister handle the “abolition of the monarchy” procedures in hopes of saving the nation.
But unfortunately, due to deep accumulated grudges between the Grand Duke of Baden and extreme warmongers like Hindenburg and Ludendorff, the Empire ultimately collapsed, and the grand duke only served as prime minister for over a month.
Since Lelouch knew the other’s identity, he naturally no longer acted superior but very politely asked him a few questions.
Fortunately, Lelouch’s return this time involved more than just “parachutes” in his plans; he also intended to spend a few days laying out some matters regarding wounded medical affairs.
Now that he’d met officials from the department specifically handling prisoner of war and wounded affairs, it was good to chat about his ideas, do a favor, and build some connections.
After all, Lelouch was also a passionate young patriot saving the country and people, not some demon who only knew killing.
He had topics to discuss with those somewhat left-leaning humanitarian advocates.
——
PS: Everyone, don’t worry about padding; it’s just inserting a connection, and this plot point will be used soon.
Next chapter will return to the Frankfurt paratrooper and wound medicine plot.
Thanks for everyone’s patience; that’s it for today, total of 22,000 words.
