Chapter 9: Supreme Medical Aid For The Heart, Supreme Strategy Is Psychological Warfare
“The first day after transmigration is finally over.”
When Lelouch was completely woken by the rumbling cannon fire outside the cellar and could no longer sleep.
He reached into the breast pocket of his military uniform and pulled out his pocket watch, checking the time by the faint light of the small lamp on the telegram table.
It was only four-thirty in the morning.
Today was October 26th.
The pocket watch was given to him yesterday by Lieutenant Barrack after he led the cavalry company in clearing the battlefield and searched it from the enemy’s corpse. It was said that the original owner was Colonel Deyoka of the Belgian 4th Division’s 3rd Regiment, who was directly hit and killed by a 77mm field gun at dusk yesterday.
From the intermittent cannon fire that had lasted all night, Lelouch could tell that the Franco-Belgian offensive was wave after wave.
Especially in the latter half of the night, the cannon fire from the Belgian side to the east had intensified again. If Colonel Lister’s deduction last night was correct, it meant that Major General Viktor’s Belgian 6th Division had arrived on the battlefield by then.
The losses that Dejizer’s Belgian 4th Division had just suffered and the pitfalls they had stepped into, Viktor would definitely not step into immediately again.
It was almost impossible to hope that Colonel Lister could trick Viktor’s artillery over and destroy it too. So the war in the latter half of the night was destined to be a straightforward hard fight with no tricks, purely pitting strength against strength.
Lelouch tidied up simply, waiting for this round of cannon fire to stop and for the opportunity when the enemy’s next wave of offensive ended. Only then did he open the cellar door, go up to the surface to see if there was anything he could help with, and get some fresh air.
He had just walked a few dozen steps away from the cellar when he saw a row of temporarily built shacks, all made from wooden boards dismantled from the ruins, slanted against a broken wall, dividing out some stable triangular cross-sectional spaces. Below them lay two full rows of wounded soldiers, sparsely extending all the way to the street corner.
In the distance, there were several large bonfires burning, especially conspicuous in the darkness before dawn, visible from several streets away.
Lelouch couldn’t help but grab a medical orderly hurrying past with a medicine box and asked, “Aren’t those bonfires over there afraid of drawing bombardment?”
“They’re cremating there; the corpse handlers light the fire and run far away.” The medical orderly didn’t recognize him and casually tossed out the sentence before turning and leaving.
Lelouch stared fixedly at the bonfire resembling a jing guan, standing stunned for a full ten seconds or more, deeply shocked inside. He estimated that each pile had at least nearly a hundred bodies burning together.
He then looked toward the wounded soldiers on the other side, and at a glance, there were also hundreds of them.
In one night, the 16th Infantry Regiment of the 12th Division had lost nearly twenty percent of its troops!
A full-strength regiment of nearly four thousand men, with cumulative casualties estimated at over a thousand.
It was only because the troops had strict military discipline and tenacious fighting spirit, plus it was a do-or-die blocking battle with no way to retreat, that they fought so tenaciously.
If it were any other scenario or an army with weaker morale and fighting spirit, such casualties would have caused collapse long ago.
Yesterday, Lelouch had only been thinking about survival; he actively offered strategies to turn the battle situation around and make himself seem valuable, so he could be valued by his superiors and avoid being used as infantry to fill the line.
He had indeed succeeded; the colonel treated him very well, actually letting him sleep peacefully in the cellar for six hours in this environment.
But the bloody scenes he saw now, the sour smell of festering wounds and the rotten stench of corpses, all fiercely assaulted his senses.
He painfully twisted off his military cap and clutched it in his hand, unconsciously crumpling the hat into a ball. He bent over with hands on his knees, wanting to gasp for air but unable to bear the surrounding smells.
It took a good while to recover, until Klose patted his back to help him catch his breath, before he casually supported himself on Klose to straighten up again, sighing in self-mockery:
“I think until the moment of breakout, I won’t be able to sleep again.”
Klose: “Why?”
Lelouch: “When I close my eyes again, I’ll uncontrollably think of more comrades dying while I sleep. Just because we didn’t end all this as quickly as possible.”
After speaking, as if to make himself feel better, Lelouch ran to the row of shacks, first viciously washing his hands with boiled water, then helping the medical soldiers with bandaging.
From his previous life as a military enthusiast, he had learned some simple first aid knowledge. The severely wounded he bandaged mostly lay there with empty, lifeless eyes, showing little reaction.
“Sir, this isn’t your fault. You’ve already come up with many ideas for the colonel—and if not for your warning, yesterday’s massive flood would have caused huge casualties to our army.” Klose, unable to bear his self-blame, encouraged him loudly from the side.
Many wounded soldiers heard Klose’s words and looked at Lelouch with eyes full of gratitude and awe.
“You’re the officer who warned of the flood yesterday? Thank you so much.”
“You must be exhausted; make sure to rest. If there were a few more clever minds like you, we could definitely hold out until victory!”
“Sir, we can hold out until the Belgians collapse first, right? If we fight like this for another full day, the whole regiment will be wiped out.”
A group of wounded soldiers pestered him with questions, some grateful, some excited, some fearful,
Several formerly completely listless severely wounded men even sat up in shock from their deathbeds, insisting on asking a couple of questions.
Lelouch couldn’t bear for them to worry more and solemnly promised, “Everyone, rest assured! We will definitely hold out longer than the Belgian Army! The current situation is like a ko fight in an ancient Eastern game ‘Go’; we and the Belgian Army are both in each other’s ko threats. It’s about which side has longer ‘liberties’ elsewhere!
Even if the enemy has more men, as long as they run out of breath first, we can link up with friendly forces in Blankenberge! And I guarantee, the regimental commander has already thought of ways to break the enemy; it’s just that these tactics can only be used after dawn. Everyone must hold on—I guarantee, the regimental commander will make the enemy’s morale completely collapse today!”
Lelouch delivered an impassioned impromptu mobilization speech; he didn’t hope for anything else, just to sustain the will to survive of those severely wounded.
During the mobilization, his own mindset was quietly changing.
In today’s battle, the sooner the enemy was forced to surrender, the fewer deaths on both sides.
The war had only lasted three months, and the hatred between both sides wasn’t that deep yet. As long as the other side changed its diplomatic stance and no longer sided with Britannia, reorganizing a cabinet friendly to us, things could still be settled.
These third-party small countries had been dragged into it; there was no need for total annihilation.
But those wounded soldiers didn’t know the high-level plans. They had thought they could only rely on force against a tenfold enemy, and after a night of bloody battle, they were already somewhat despairing.
Lelouch’s words, however, inspired their will to survive, giving them more motivation to stay alive.
“I’m quite ashamed; my bit of first aid skill really can’t save many people.” On the way from the wounded soldiers’ area to regimental headquarters, Lelouch couldn’t help but sigh.
Klose firmly refuted him: “No! Sir, the comfort you give everyone is something the medical soldiers can’t provide. I saw with my own eyes that many severely wounded had light in their eyes after hearing you!”
Lelouch nodded thoughtfully: Propaganda work for our own people is also very important. Originally, Germania was too poor at this, only using crude orders to force people, never explaining why.
……
With the desire to end the war as soon as possible, Lelouch hurried to regimental headquarters.
Colonel Lister had probably spent the night on a chair at regimental headquarters; when he saw Lelouch, his face was full of fatigue and pressure, but he still shared good news in an uplifting tone:
“Communicated with army group headquarters; the photographs and mimeographed leaflets are all ready. Also requisitioned a dozen reconnaissance aircraft to Ghent airport, only 70 kilometers away, can fly here in half an hour.”
The colonel checked his watch while speaking.
“That’s really great; I believe the Belgian Army’s offensive will weaken soon.” Lelouch sincerely thought so.
Colonel: “In a bit, I’ll have Barrack handle the refugee handover; you handle the continuous radio broadcasts negotiating surrender to enemy senior officers—don’t drop the ball, coordinate as much as possible with the reconnaissance aircraft dropping leaflets.”
Lelouch: “Yes! Sir!”
All sides quickly made their final preparations.
A few minutes later, temporary ceasefire flags were raised first on several ruins at the easternmost part of Nieuwpoort town, then the German Army reconnaissance company used all the megaphones they could find, taking advantage of gaps in the enemy offensive to shout toward the opposite side as much as possible.
All this was soon discovered by the Belgian 6th Division opposite and reported to Division Commander Major General Viktor.
Major General Viktor had only arrived on the battlefield after midnight last night and had now been leading the troops in attack for over four hours, all repelled by Lister.
After hearing the report from his subordinate, he quickly picked up his telescope and carefully observed westward.
“Germanians surrendering? No! That’s not a white flag, it’s a ceasefire flag! What gives them the right to demand a temporary ceasefire? They must be unable to hold and want a breather!
We can’t let them succeed! Quickly organize the next wave of offensive! Whatever the enemy wants, we do the opposite!”
Although Major General Viktor was not versed in strategy, he knew the simplest truth: never let the enemy succeed. So he instinctively wanted to do the opposite and mess with the enemy.
His subordinates didn’t dare question it and immediately went to prepare the new offensive.
But soon, the shouting from the enemy megaphones drifted over, followed by a group of ragged Belgian civilians appearing in front of the position.
“Don’t fire! These are Belgian civilians whose homes were flooded yesterday!”
“Our army sheltered them in the cellar overnight and is now handing them over to your army to avoid accidental injuries during combat!”
“Please don’t slaughter your own compatriots!”
Not only were the Germanians officers shouting, but the several hundred civilians were also terrified of being accidentally shot and all wailed and shouted at the Belgian Army to the east not to fire.
The number looked to be three or four hundred, actually more than half of the total Belgian civilians Colonel Lister had casually rescued yesterday.
The Belgian 6th Division soldiers preparing to attack saw women and children in the crowd and immediately erupted in uproar.
“Are they really our army’s civilians?”
“How would Germanian beasts rescue our civilians?”
“Who exactly blew up the dam? Why didn’t the Germanias get advance warning? Our civilians weren’t ordered to evacuate in advance either?”
Countless doubts surged in the hearts of the Belgian 6th Division soldiers; most of them hadn’t actually participated in the specific dam-blasting and flooding, and had also been kept in the dark by the higher-ups.
By the time Major General Viktor reacted and wanted to stop the rumors from spreading, it was already too late.
Last night, the Germanias had indeed sent several telegrams consulting the higher-ups, but all were about requesting aircraft to drop leaflets. As for releasing civilians and radio negotiation of surrender without wires, Lister could handle those himself without needing approval from above, so he naturally didn’t bother consulting.
So even if Britannians intercepted the German Army telegrams, deciphered them, and urgently passed them to the Belgian Army to Major General Viktor’s hands, he could only think to guard against the leaflet trick, while being completely unprepared for the other two.
Today, he had almost dispatched all the military police and discipline maintainers in the division to “prevent soldiers from picking up leaflets later; picking up paper from the ground counts as violating military discipline,” naturally reducing vigilance for other things to the minimum.
As a result, the enemy had sneaked an attack from another angle!
Over three hundred Belgian civilians, supporting the old and young, walked along the coastal highway toward the Belgian Army positions.
Deputy Company Commander of the German 6th Army Group 12th Division’s cavalry company, Lieutenant Barrack, personally rode his war horse leading a small team of soldiers, escorting these Belgians through the no-man’s-land between the two armies.
At the rear town entrance, the reconnaissance company’s military cameras were realtime filming all this from several different angles and positions.
If the Belgian Army dared to renege after receiving the refugees and suddenly open fire killing Lieutenant Barrack and the escorts, this country’s international reputation would be utterly ruined.
Even if the Belgians didn’t fire, these photos would suffice as important circumstantial evidence proving the ins and outs of this battle in the future.
The Belgians indeed didn’t dare act rashly and silently received over three hundred of their own civilians.
As the civilians entered the position, more unrest appeared within the Belgian Army.
Some soldiers had relatives stranded in the flooded area and immediately disregarded military discipline to come identify them, and some actually found their relatives, causing extreme chaos at the scene.
Those released civilians hadn’t received professional training and didn’t know what to say or not say, all speaking the plain truth, further unsettling the Belgian Army internally.
After delivering the people, Lieutenant Barrack immediately galloped back to the town center.
The half-hour temporary ceasefire handover period soon ended, and theoretically, both sides could resume firing and fighting.
But the chaos on the Belgian side hadn’t ended; Viktor couldn’t reorganize the offensive for a while and could only slowly try to restrain the troops.
Adding insult to injury, at that moment, the Germanians’ radio station went full blast, broadcasting surrender negotiation telegrams in French in clear code toward the Belgian Army.
Every regiment’s regimental headquarters radio in the Belgian Army could receive these messages; whether to listen was up to them. Several regiments wanted to shut off and refuse reception, but their eyes had already been polluted by the short, forceful clear-code telegrams.
Once an idea burrows into people’s minds, deliberately forgetting it is extremely difficult.
In the sky, buzzing sounds soon came, and a dozen reconnaissance aircraft flew over Nieuwpoort.
They flew along the coastal highway from Ostend to Nieuwpoort, and with the first rays of morning light, dozens of boxes of leaflets and photographs were dropped low and scattered everywhere.
Although military police restrained them, some inevitably slipped through. Some soldiers secretly picked up photos and immediately couldn’t look away.
Some photos even clearly showed aerial shots of soldiers in Belgian Army military uniforms tampering at what looked like canal seawall dam sites. Another photo showed a breach blown there, with torrential floodwaters surging down.
Though the photos were black and white, most soldiers were shaken.
Many people’s thinking was actually very simple: If the photos didn’t prove anything, why did the enemy insist on dropping them?
