Chapter 85: Break Into Ypres, Capture French Alive
One day later, early on February 22.
Lelouch brought the two assault battalions he had pulled back from the Dunkirk Front Line, traveled dusty by train to the rear railway hub Stenford, and then rode horseback to the Kemmel Hill position on the Ypres front line.
The two assault battalions that participated in the Battle of Dunkirk had heavy casualties. After days of fierce fighting, more than 400 had been killed, and there were over 300 seriously wounded. Only about 1,100 men who could still move remained, including some lightly wounded.
The seriously wounded soldiers were of course pulled back to the rear for proper placement and priority treatment.
The sulfonamide project that Lelouch discussed with IG Farben when he returned to Frankfurt more than half a month ago was now close to producing the first batch of test drugs usable for human clinical trials.
At that time, they could be arranged for the seriously infected wounded who had no other choice.
In the end, Lelouch selected only 900 soldiers in excellent condition who could continue fighting, to join the battalion of Lieutenant Colonel Rundstedt guarding the Kemmel Hill front line, for the upcoming final battle against the Belgian Expeditionary Force.
The 6th Army Group had previously formed 3 assault battalions; 2 participated in the Battle of Dunkirk, and the last battalion stayed with Rundstedt（ but all the submachine gunners in the battalion had been transferred away for paratrooper training, leaving him only with fire support personnel）
After all 3 battalions merged, they could muster 1,500 personnel ready to engage in combat at any time.
In the outpost command post on Kemmel Hill, Lelouch met the garrison commander Rundstedt, and the two exchanged a few pleasantries upon meeting.
Rundstedt expressed some regret at not being able to participate in the Dunkirk assault battle.
Lelouch was good at comforting people: “Wasn’t it because your battalion suffered heavy losses during the assault on Kemmel Hill earlier and needed more rest? The commander always treats everyone fairly. For Dunkirk, Bock and I fought together; for the final Battle of Ypres, it will be you and me.”
Rundstedt: “…”
So the so-called “treating everyone fairly” meant that Bock and he, Rundstedt, had the same number of opportunities to perform, right?
But Lelouch definitely wouldn’t miss out on either side; he seized every opportunity to perform.
Moreover, Rundstedt was well aware that even if he and von Bock had the same number of opportunities, their prominence on the merit list would be completely different in the end. Bock had a chief of staff uncle, and those merits that could be counted or not would all be credited to him.
After Dunkirk, he had already been promoted to colonel.
As for himself, after Ypres, he definitely wouldn’t reach colonel.
However, Rundstedt quickly calmed down: Bock had a strong backer and rose quickly, which couldn’t be envied. Lelouch was the soul of the entire army group’s strategic planning; too many divine strokes in the campaign were his plans, so it was not surprising that the commander gave him opportunities whenever possible.
After calming down, Rundstedt mechanically asked for advice: “So how should we fight this final battle? We can break in the tactical arrangements first.”
Lelouch: “On the tactical level, I do have some new ideas. Moreover, after this battle, the British Army will go to the prisoner of war camp; even if they see some new tactics, they won’t be able to report to superiors and make them wary. It’s perfect for us to experiment.”
Rundstedt: “Tell me the details.”
Lelouch then introduced some new ideas and synchronized with Rundstedt some tricks he had just thought of during the Battle of Dunkirk a few days ago:
“For this offensive, I plan to use a small force for a surprise attack and rapid advance. I don’t even plan to do the conventional two-hour fire preparation before the attack; I’ll only use a 15-minute short fire preparation to guide the assault troops forward in stages.
I call this tactic ‘Creeping Barrage’; it’s hard to implement, but our troops have radios issued down to platoon level, so we can correct in time, and it will definitely work. After tearing open the defense line, one division of friendly forces will follow up in stages to consolidate positions and cut off enemy reinforcements.
Additionally, during the Battle of Dunkirk, we invented a new tactic, an improvement on flamethrower assaults: using smoke grenades for indiscriminate coverage combined with flamethrower charges. This move can also be used in the next two days’ offensive on Ypres. As the town where the enemy commander is located, Ypres will have urban warfare and sturdy fortification networks in the final stage; flamethrowers are perfect.
Moreover, compared to the previous days’ ‘artillery firing smoke grenades’ coordination, we made some improvements and temporarily produced a batch of manually thrown smoke canisters, making the smoke cover for flamethrower soldiers approaching buildings and crossing streets quicker and more efficient, without waiting for rear artillery.
The smoke coverage area of thrown smoke canisters is indeed much smaller, but it’s sufficient in narrow environments. For open field smoke screens, we’ll still rely on cannons; for urban warfare smoke screens, thrown ones will do. This is perfect to experiment one last time in the Ypres environment…”
Lelouch unreservedly rehearsed and discussed, sharing all the latest experiences and thoughts he gained from the Dunkirk battlefield with Rundstedt.
Although Rundstedt was 40 years old, his learning ability was good, and his attitude was very upright. Upon hearing Lelouch’s sharing, he knew it was all solid stuff and immediately dove into eager learning.
…
While Rundstedt was learning, breaking in, and training troops, Lelouch himself spent a daytime handling propaganda war and psychological warfare against the Britannians.
A large batch of pre-printed leaflets was airdropped that daytime via several Zeppelin airships over towns like Ypres and Poperinge, publicizing Germania’s surrender terms and prisoner policy, emphasizing that only those who lay down arms and come over count as surrendering; otherwise, they are just defeated and captured.
It also nitpicked a bunch of differential treatments, emphasizing the British Navy’s disastrous defeat and exaggerating its losses.
Before airdropping leaflets, several airships first dropped a bunch of 50-kg bombs and several 2,000-kg bombs to intimidate the British Army.
The British Army wanted to conduct air interception, but at this stage of the battle, they were completely encircled; even with over ten thousand men inside the encirclement, they truly couldn’t muster any airplanes.
All flyable things had been consumed in previous battles and shot down by Immelmann’s air squadron.
Facing one-sided bombing they couldn’t retaliate against, and the leaflets scattered after the bombing, the British Army was panicked, and morale fell to the extreme low.
Most people had completely lost the will to fight, just waiting for the higher-ups to initiate surrender negotiations.
They only hated that there were still too many great nobles among the British Army high command, who couldn’t swallow their pride. This left small nobles, small capitalists, and commoners’ sons without a voice.
The leaflets airdropped by the Germanianians were quickly sent to the desk of Expeditionary Force Commander-in-Chief French in Ypres city.
The intimidation open telegram message issued by the Germanianians was also intercepted and recorded by French’s cipher officer.
All this forced French to handle it cautiously.
That afternoon, he urgently summoned Lieutenant General Archibald the chief of staff, and the generals of the 2nd Army, for an emergency discussion on this matter.
“We definitely can’t fight on, but for the empire, we can’t leave supplies enough for 200,000 troops for a year or two to the Germanianians. What do you all say?” Marshal French clearly didn’t want to take the blame alone and first tossed the problem to everyone.
Everyone looked at each other, and Chief of Staff Archibald also bitterly defended:
“But if we destroy them urgently now, it will definitely anger the enemy, leading to a tragic fate for over a hundred thousand prisoners in the future—the Germanianians will absolutely strike hard, especially since they’ve now scattered leaflets and sent telegrams openly calling us out; we’d be knowingly violating.”
“Are we supposed to ignore national interests for the treatment in future prisoner of war camps?” The 2nd Army corps commander couldn’t help but reflexively sing a few high notes at this time.
Archibald, questioned like this, couldn’t help twitching his mouth, cursing inwardly: At this point, you still want me to be the bad guy so you can maintain your loyal image?
But there was no way; such matters usually didn’t let combat officers take the blame; staff officers had to play the bad cop—it was the old convention.
Chief of Staff Archibald thought and thought, finally coming up with a compromise: “But we have so much artillery shell inventory; we can’t destroy it all in a short time! Detonate in the city and blow ourselves up? To transport to open areas for detonation, how many days would that take?
In my view, better to quickly seal those underground warehouses, then synchronously falsify accounts, so when the Germanianians come in they can’t find them, and that counts as fulfilling our duty to the empire! It can also bury hidden dangers for the future; maybe it explodes accidentally during their occupation.”
Marshal French and the two corps commanders, who originally couldn’t find a way out, finally felt relieved upon hearing this.
This way, they could avoid actually aiding the enemy as much as possible, and nominally fully fulfill their duty to the empire.
Marshal French finally decided: “Then it’s settled. Everyone hold on a few more days; wait until all those underground warehouses are sealed and disguised, fake accounts are done, and when the Germanianians attack again, we surrender—no need for pointless sacrifice of soldiers’ lives.
As for the supplies in the above-ground warehouses, don’t destroy them. Leave some for the enemy; they’ll believe we only had that much left. If we destroy all, they won’t believe it. As for after the empire wins the war and we’re released, we’ll say a very few supplies couldn’t be destroyed in time. That won’t harm our evaluation in history books.”
The generals then breathed a sigh of relief; finally, the marshal had spoken, no need for them to take the blame.
Everyone immediately went back to prepare to falsify accounts and bulldoze to seal the cellar warehouses.
However, after Marshal French’s meeting, it was already dark; that night, they could at most work late on a few fake accounts; other construction work would have to wait until tomorrow morning.
…
Meanwhile, at 6 p.m. on the 22nd.
The front lines of the Poperinge and Kemmel Hill positions.
Poperinge is about 20 kilometers west of Ypres city and is the only relay station on the railway from Stenford to Ypres.
In previous battles, the Germania Army had long reached West City of Poperinge. But later, the 6th Army Group changed tactics to focus on encirclement, so they didn’t continue attacking Poperinge; otherwise, it would have been taken long ago.
But tonight, the Germania Army broke the pattern and launched an offensive against the city again.
Starting at 6 p.m., fierce bombardment continuously fell on this small city, with a full two hours of fire preparation. One division of the 6th Army Group then launched a textbook conventional offensive after the fire preparation.
All this forced the busy-with-fake-accounts Belgian Expeditionary Force to divert troops to plug this gap.
Everyone inwardly cursed the Germanianians for not playing fair; they hinted at negotiable terms in the morning, but attacked suddenly after dark.
But there was no place to reason about such things; the two sides hadn’t formally started negotiations before, just expressed an intention, a propaganda.
In haste, the British Army generals around Ypres all assumed the enemy would definitely attack from west to east along the flat main road of the railway line, so vigilance in other directions naturally dropped to the minimum.
For example, the ridge on the east section of Kemmel Hill south of Ypres city had previously been controlled by the Germanianians; it was originally closer to Ypres, less than 10 kilometers, directly south of Ypres city.
But now, the defensive forces in the Ypres region were again drawn to the railway direction in West City, making the south side even more vacant.
And it was in this situation that Lelouch and Rundstedt launched the offensive.
At exactly 8 p.m., shortly after the one division on the main West City road finished fire preparation and began full-scale attack.
Several Germania 210 mm siege howitzer positions ambushed on the north slope of the Kemmel Hill ridge, and more 150 mm cannon positions, began a mere 15-minute short fire preparation on the defense line area south of Ypres city.
The entire British Army defense line instantly faced heavy bombardment. The bombarded defense line was about 3~4 kilometers wide east-west and about 1 kilometer deep.
The British Army soldiers on sentry in the defense line were caught off guard at first and all blown away or shredded, with limbs and flesh flying.
But because the West City offensive was fiercer, the British Army high command couldn’t even judge at first whether this was the main attack or feint, thinking it was just the Germanianians’ diversion, and sent no reinforcements to the south.
After 15 minutes, the bombardment paused for about 2~3 minutes. The few British Army high-ups who learned of this even rejoiced that “the south is indeed a feint diversion to prevent us from fully supporting West City,” and thus ignored the south even more.
Fortunately, those front-line regimental commanders still had some sense of responsibility.
For example, Colonel Jackson, regimental commander of the 3rd Regiment of the British 1st Division, was currently responsible for the south city defense line.
Seeing the Germanianians’ bombardment pause, he immediately ordered: “Have the second defensive line guards immediately reinforce the front! Re-establish defense on the first-line positions; the Germanianians might charge up!”
So groups of listless soldiers, dragging heavy steps with drooping heads, reluctantly moved through communication trenches from the second-line positions to reinforce the first line.
“At this point, what’s the point of fighting this battle.” Countless soldiers cursed inwardly but didn’t dare openly disobey.
However, the next moment, they soon regretted their decision.
“Boom boom boom!” Continuous cannon fire roared again; the positions they were about to enter were soon covered again, and even their own starting positions were covered together.
Originally, in those previous 15 minutes, the British Army thought they had figured out the enemy’s bombardment range as before, so they waited at the edge of the enemy fire zone, planning to move up as soon as the guns stopped.
Who knew the enemy didn’t play fair; shortly after stopping, when firing again, the coverage extended forward!
This covered in the soldiers who had been waiting at the edge of the coverage zone!
Experience killed them! Who let them presume “how large the enemy’s artillery coverage area is, where the boundary is”? They were killed by this very assumption.
Truly efficient bombardment shouldn’t let the enemy find patterns.
…
“Looks like good effect; after 15-minute short bombardment, extend forward 500 yards, so the south-side 500-yard position just uncovered, we can easily enter. And the enemies between 500 and 1,500 yards will be covered again and unable to reinforce.
Even if a few soldiers in the trenches originally weren’t killed, they are no match for us. Charge immediately!”
After observing the effect of the first “Creeping Barrage” bombardment in human history through his telescope, Lelouch decisively issued the charge order.
1,500 assault team members advanced in loose formation, by squads and platoons, infiltrating and charging forward.
The troops quickly entered the trench network area, and indeed a few British Army soldiers in the trenches hadn’t been killed, but their numbers were at most less than 30% of original strength. Such sparse forces were breached with no effort.
“Da da da~” Submachine gun sweeping sounds extended forward, fiercely attacking and charging.
Surviving British Army infantry holding Lee-Enfield Rifles were either pierced through the skull or torso by bullets, or disemboweled by grenades.
The 500-yard position was quickly occupied, not even taking 15 minutes.
However, even though progress exceeded expectations, the assault team still rested in place for a few minutes, waiting for the full 15 minutes.
Because the pre-war plan was to extend artillery fire every 15 minutes. Charging too fast would run into their own artillery coverage and die in vain.
Although the assault battalions had many more radios than regular units and could request real-time adjustments to artillery support duration via telegram, sending telegrams took time, and not every assault squad advanced at the same speed, so with only a few minutes left, there was no need to bother.
The 15-minute deadline finally arrived; the artillery group extended forward another 500 yards again, and after Lelouch’s troops observed and confirmed, they launched another assault, easily occupying another position.
“What tactic is this? How can the enemy’s offensive be so smooth? This isn’t scientific!” The defending regimental commander Jackson and another British Army regimental commander were stunned by the Germanianians’ offensive.
But before they could recover, shells had extended to the position where their regimental headquarters was.
Although the regimental headquarters was very sturdy with some underground pits for shelling, Regimental Commander Jackson and others were pinned down by the fierce artillery fire and unable to move.
When another 15 minutes passed and the bombardment stopped, they dazedly tried to withdraw, only to find the Germanianians had closely followed the artillery line and charged up.
“How can their infantry follow the bombardment line so closely? Won’t they be hit by their own shells?”
Regimental Commander Jackson was taken away by a burst of MP15 submachine gun bullets from the charging enemy, with this eternal unsolved question.
He clutched his chest and fell unwillingly, his eyes still filled with confusion at death.
Lelouch didn’t care about these small targets at all and didn’t know his assault teams had killed a colonel regimental commander in the darkness. He just wanted to quickly break through the outer defense line, enter Ypres city for urban warfare, and capture Expeditionary Force Commander-in-Chief Marshal French alive.
Nothing else mattered.
