Chapter 86: Breaking Into Ypres, Capturing French Alive
“I didn’t expect the creeping barrage tactic to be so effective. The enemy’s reserve forces behind the subsequent defense line simply couldn’t be committed.”
“There were also so many soldiers who, based on experience, hid in the trenches behind the coverage area. But as soon as the bombardment stopped and shifted, they were killed by our extended artillery fire in this unprotected state.”
Rundstedt the Lieutenant Colonel led his half of the men, advancing rapidly just like Lelouch.
Along the way, he saw countless British Army soldiers lying dead on the flat ground between trenches, as well as dense piles of corpses at the corners of communication trenches everywhere. He couldn’t help but sigh with such emotion, and his heartfelt admiration for Lelouch deepened further.
He was already 40 years old, with rich experience, and he fully knew what a normal trench bombardment battle should look like.
In a normal artillery battle, it was absolutely impossible for so many defending soldiers to die outside the trenches. These people obviously felt safe after the artillery stopped and wanted to take a shortcut, so they climbed out onto the ground and rushed from the rear trench to the front one, too lazy to take the detour through the zigzagging communication trenches.
Just like some people crossing the street who are too lazy to walk to a pedestrian tunnel or crosswalk and just jaywalk nearby.
Normally, crossing like that in the interval between two waves of fire preparation is not dangerous.
But they happened to encounter Lelouch, who didn’t play by the rules. So these British Army soldiers were like jaywalkers hitting a dump truck driven by someone not watching the road—they got extremely unlucky.
They died so miserably.
Relying on the exquisite coordination between the assault battalion and creeping barrage tactics, in just 1 hour—5 rounds of short and intense fire preparation, 4 creeping extensions—the entire 2-kilometer-deep Ypres south field defense line was magnificently breached.
By just 9:30 p.m., Lelouch and Rundstedt had led over 1,300 men to the edge of the Ypres urban area.
Throughout the entire process, including even the lightly wounded, casualties were only around 200, and most of those were light wounds, with direct combat deaths at just over 40.
In an assault battle that split and annihilated two enemy regiments, such losses could be considered extremely low.
The British Army’s terrifyingly low morale also played a significant role throughout the process. Countless soldiers collapsed and scattered like birds and beasts after encountering the deceptive coverage of the creeping barrage.
“We’ve reached the urban area—quickly adjust tactics.” After charging into a textile factory south of Ypres, Lelouch found a safe spot to set up a temporary battalion headquarters, then decisively issued orders.
“C Company and D Company hold off the enemy counterattacks on the left and right flanks. A and B Companies continue the attack. Concentrate each company’s machine gun teams, deploy them to the rear, find high ground to seal off streets and block reinforcements.
Concentrate the submachine gun teams to handle frontal breakthroughs. Switch the grenade launcher teams to firing smoke canisters—bring up the flamethrower engineers!”
A series of commands instantly shifted the troops from the tactical posture of breaking through field defenses to the posture of urban warfare assault.
Lightweight smoke grenades launched by grenade launchers quickly sealed smoke at key nodes along the troops’ advance path.
Especially those buildings and ruins already identified by fire probing to be held by enemy heavy machine guns—they were sealed with smoke as a priority.
Then the flamethrower soldiers, carrying flamethrowers, wearing steel helmets and gas masks, advanced through the smoke, spraying flames into windows or wall holes to purge the machine gunners hiding in every corner inside.
During the advance, they encountered several reinforced buildings where windows were sealed shut, even temporarily reinforced with cemented masonry, with no suitable spots for flamethrowers—the remaining windows were almost all machine gun positions.
The flamethrower soldiers attacked several times but failed to take them. Seeing this, Lelouch immediately instructed the troops to make a slight adjustment.
The soldiers gathered grenades, bundled them into cluster grenades, then rushed near those sturdy fortifications, threw them forcefully, and hit the ground.
Cluster grenades were too heavy to throw 50-60 meters—maximum range was only 20-30 meters. So the grenadiers had to pull the fuse and throw immediately, then quickly retreat a few steps and hit the ground.
With the cluster grenades exploding against the walls, even the most reinforced urban buildings would be slightly breached. Then flamethrower soldiers advanced, spraying fire through the breach, followed by submachine gunners to purge inside.
Because these buildings only had openings on one or two sides, the blind sides without windows were often poorly defended, and the heavy machine gun positions inside couldn’t possibly face that direction.
After the building was suddenly breached and enemies rushed in, the heavy machine gun teams didn’t even have time to adjust their firing angle.
The British Army soldiers defending the building could only exchange fire with rifles against the attackers’ MP15 submachine guns, immediately falling into an absolute disadvantage and being thoroughly purged.
Lelouch commanded meticulously like this, adapting as needed, quickly breaking through one street block after another. The few tactical innovations he left in this battle were deeply remembered by his subordinate officers and even colleagues.
Lieutenant Colonel Rundstedt was especially impressed by these tactical command innovations, observing and learning eagerly, hoping to summarize and organize these moves to better promote them in the future.
“Lelouch is absolutely a genius—he excels from strategic vision to tactical innovation. A general who advances slowly from the grassroots like this will surely lead the Empire to ultimate victory!” Rundstedt’s inner admiration for him reached a new height once again.
The two assault battalions cooperated with each other like this, infiltrating and advancing relentlessly—the pace was so fast that the Britannia Expeditionary Force couldn’t react at all.
After another hour and a half of fighting, Lelouch finally reached the vicinity of Marshal French’s Expeditionary Force Headquarters.
French didn’t flee—perhaps he felt that fleeing was pointless anyway, and he didn’t want to lose face.
Near French’s headquarters were several of the sturdiest buildings in the city converted into fortresses.
After all, Ypres had been the Expeditionary Force’s headquarters for two months since the war began—that is, since last October, the British Army had been fortifying here for over 4 months, with many defensive fortifications specially constructed and modified.
Lelouch’s assault couldn’t break through these sturdy fortresses, so he called in the rear 210mm siege howitzers.
Every platoon on his front line was equipped with radios for precise targeting and calibration.
Soldiers from the fire observation team, about 1-2 kilometers away, began calling in artillery fire. The initial shell impacts were off by 700-800 meters, but quickly narrowed to 200-300 meters under targeting corrections, and finally direct hits.
They systematically demolished the sturdiest fortresses one by one.
Only then did Lelouch’s assault team charge up, finishing off with shots in the ruins or capturing obviously surrendered enemies for interrogation.
It didn’t take long to extract from a British Army Major Staff Officer—knocked out by the blast but woken by pain—the location of the headquarters cellar entrance.
Lelouch had men blast open the basement door with cluster grenades, then toss in two more grenades at the entrance, and finally pour in a large number of smoke grenades.
The smoke grenades for sealing were not as tear-inducing as professional tear gas, but they were still extremely choking. Even the Germania Army wore gas masks to advance through smoke.
As large numbers of smoke grenades were poured in, the people inside were all choked badly, unable to hide any longer, and frantically rushed out for fresh air.
“Everyone drop your weapons and come out! Anyone coming out armed will be shot on the spot!”
The first few British Army guards who rushed out didn’t hear the shouts clearly, ran out with guns in hand, and were mowed down on the spot.
Their bodies rolling back into the basement finally calmed the people behind.
Lelouch realized his men’s shouts were wrong—not using the mother tongue—so he personally shouted several times in the British language.
This time, finally, a group of disarmed officers and men crawled out one after another, hands raised high to avoid misunderstanding.
At the end of the group were a Lieutenant General holding a dress sword and a Marshal holding a scepter, raising their items overhead with one hand to signal exiting the cellar.
But after leaving the smoke area and clearing up the misunderstanding, the two immediately lowered their arms and regained their dignified demeanor.
That Lieutenant General’s dress sword had an ebony scabbard, but most of its surface was inlaid and wrapped in gold, with rubies and sapphires embedded in the hilt, and a diamond at the pommel end.
That Marshal’s scepter was entirely ivory, with spiraling gold inlays on the exterior. Similar to the Germanian Marshal’s Scepter, it had a crown-shaped head inlaid with a circle of gems.
Nowadays among nations, free countries like Frankish have no scepters for marshals, but monarchies like Germania and Britannia still retain such regalia.
Britannia is somewhat more secularized than Germania or Russia—marshals don’t carry scepters around casually, theoretically only using them at Imperial Family ceremonies or for color guards.
“I am the Commander-in-Chief of the Britannia Expeditionary Force, Marshal John French. I now surrender the Expeditionary Force to your army.”
After finishing his coughing and catching his breath, the Old Marshal spoke steadily with bewildered eyes but a trace of lingering pride. His voice wasn’t loud, but his tone and pronunciation were calm and clear.
“Lelouch Hunt, Lieutenant Colonel and Battalion Commander of the 6th Army Group Instructional Assault Battalion of Germania, accepts your surrender.”
Lelouch stepped forward proudly, with steady strides, one footprint at a time, to stand before French, receiving his scepter with both hands—a necessary sign of respect.
Seeing the other receive the scepter with both hands rather than one, French breathed a slight sigh of relief—at least no humiliation.
“Lieutenant Colonel? I was actually captured by a Lieutenant Colonel? Is my fate truly so… alas…”
French wanted to sigh a few words, but they stuck in his throat, feeling extremely dry. In the end, he just swallowed some saliva and said nothing.
Lelouch had no time for his dramatics, urging steadily: “Marshal French, shouldn’t you now have your radio operator send a message for all British Army to cease resistance? You can send in clear text—once we receive it, we will also halt hostilities.”
French nodded, but he never concerned himself with such trivial matters, just giving Archibald a look.
Lieutenant General Archibald, as Chief of Staff, immediately went to arrange it—every minute earlier for ceasefire meant less killing.
Ten minutes later, the surrender telegram spread throughout the Ypres Salient.
Another twenty minutes passed, and the warring sides finally pulled apart, confirming the ceasefire.
The final 132,000-plus British Army soldiers（—including Canadian Army, ANZAC Corps, and a few Indian Soldiers）—all laid down their weapons and awaited reception by the Germanian people on the spot.
