It's better to conquer them than to command the steel torrent

Chapter 156 | A Thousand Miles to Aid?
On this day, Colonel Belyaev personally came to the Margaret Bridge area, where the battle had just ended. Although a whole night had passed, the devastation left behind was still chilling.

Looking around, on the ravaged battlefield riddled with shell craters, one could see fallen soldiers from both sides... or rather, soldiers from all three sides.

Colonel Belyaev stopped at a position that could barely be identified as a platoon-level defensive position. On this small position, less than a hundred meters wide, the corpses of Huns, Romanians, and Ivan Rus's were mixed together.

Broken weapon parts were scattered everywhere. Many rifle stocks had come off their pins, and there were also many broken bayonets. Several bodies of Hungarian, Swiss, and Romanian soldiers were still in the position of wrestling and grappling before they died.

The simple earthworks were reduced to dust under repeated artillery fire, and in several shell craters, mud and flowing blood mixed together and froze into ice.

The Luo soldiers were cleaning up the battlefield, carefully examining the corpses in hopes of finding valuables, but their efforts yielded little.

Looking at this incredibly tragic scene, Colonel Belyaev felt a pang of pity and admiration, and he stared at it for a long time, speechless.

Is this the power of hatred? He wondered.

Major Luo, indignantly, shouted, "Have the Huns not realized the situation yet? We must kill all these bastards! Foolish! Stubborn!"

Colonel Belyaev actually wanted to speak up and instruct Major Luo Jun to pay attention to the discipline of his troops, but in the end he didn't say it.

The battle for Budapest has progressed to this point, and the sunk costs are so high that there's nothing more to say but we must grit our teeth and seize the final victory.

midnight.

The chilly basement made Shank's hands and feet feel cold. He went to a makeshift stove made from a gasoline drum cut in half to warm himself, gazing at the leaping flames, lost in thought.

He only slept a few hours in total over three days and two nights. Overwhelmed by drowsiness, he collapsed onto the stove.

Fortunately, a female sergeant was loading bullets into her pistol magazine a few steps away. She caught a glimpse of this out of the corner of her eye, immediately rushed over and grabbed Shang.

"Colonel, be careful," the female sergeant said helplessly. "I think you should get some sleep."

Startled, Shang Ke casually joked, "It's alright, thank you. I almost got disfigured."

There are very few people with such a good attitude as him, and the female sergeant could only manage a forced smile.

At that moment, Captain Zeno walked over with a weary-looking messenger.

"Good news! Reinforcements are on their way!"

"what?"

Captain Zeno, beaming with delight, quickly composed himself and said, "Colonel, Mariana's expeditionary force crossed the border by train yesterday and arrived in Jell. The General Staff has indicated that they are planning a counterattack to relieve the siege of Budapest..."

Everyone listened attentively, but no one could cheer up.

This is indeed good news; however, it remains to be seen whether the current, desperate remnants of the army can hold out until reinforcements arrive. Mariana's army, having traveled a long way, will certainly need to regroup and rest first, won't they?
Then we'll need to send liaison officers and translators to coordinate with them, right?
Next, they will need to maneuver to pre-established positions to prepare for a large-scale counterattack, right?

It could take anywhere from three or four days to ten days or half a month, but given the current precarious situation, even a desperate fight to hold out for two days would be difficult.

Shank thought to himself that the Mariana people had actually obeyed and sent an expeditionary force, and they were quite efficient, deploying an army across borders and entering the country in less than two weeks.

“I think there is still hope.” He pondered, “Anyway, let’s do our best. The enemy is almost exhausted. Ivanros’s army has suffered heavy casualties among its junior officers, and the coordination of the attack is obviously much worse.”

What Shank didn't know was that this week the Controlled Government and the United States Federal Government reached an agreement, strongly urging Marianne's side to take immediate action. Unable to withstand the aggressive diplomatic pressure, Marianne acted swiftly.

The Varland army failed to halt the powerful offensive of Ivanros' army north of Perlin, and Perlin was in grave danger.

The importance of tactical air power was once again demonstrated. The Imperial Russian Air Force concentrated almost all of its available medium and heavy bombers to launch four waves of fierce air raids on the railway marshalling yard and railway station on the northern outskirts of Polin.

The Imperial Russian bomber force paid a bloody price under the attacks of Imperial German fighter planes and anti-aircraft guns.

三次昼间空袭和一次夜间空袭总计出击大约800架次，损失36架新锐的雅克-1战斗机、47架佩-2轰炸机、22架叶-2轰炸机、30架进口的英制‘汉普顿’轰炸机，才两天时间就有五个轰炸机团由此失去战斗力。

Such an operation may seem to result in heavy losses on both sides, but from a strategic perspective, it yielded tremendous results.

Due to the paralysis of the railway hub, the strategic deployment capability of the DID ground forces was severely hampered, and the General Staff could only order some troops to make forced marches.

The strategic reserves of more than a dozen divisions were unable to provide timely reinforcements to Army Group B, which was under attack from multiple directions. The 1st Brest Front and the 4th Brest Front of Imperial Russia defeated Army Group B and then made a sudden incursion into its interior.

The 267th Infantry Division of the Imperial Russian Army, one of the strategic reserves, became the most disgraced unit in the military history of the Valland. When the unit marched to the town of Templin, it was almost falling apart. The division commander ordered the troops to regroup, rest, and eat. But just when they were completely unprepared, they suddenly encountered the Imperial Russian 8th Independent Tank Brigade and the 19th Cavalry Division coming head-on.

The 267th Infantry Division was unable to mount any effective resistance. Before the troops could even deploy, T-34s and a large number of infantrymen in vehicles rushed to the vicinity of the division headquarters within just over ten minutes. Only half an infantry regiment was able to complete its tactical deployment, but the 37mm anti-tank guns that had been painstakingly deployed could only watch helplessly as the rampaging T-34s charged forward.

Desperate DED soldiers were forced to engage the T-34s in close combat with cluster grenades and mines, but often only managed to sever their tracks. Ultimately, the 267th Infantry Division crumbled within just two and a half hours of engaging the enemy.

Even in such a decisive battle, the casualties of the Imperial Russian 8th Tank Brigade and the 19th Cavalry Division were still nearly twice that of the annihilated Imperial German 267th Infantry Division, which shows that the Imperial German soldiers were quite skilled in tactics and techniques.

In this battle, the Imperial Russian forces suffered a total of 20.3 casualties, losing 677 tanks and 303 aircraft. However, only a few divisions were completely annihilated. Most of the Imperial German forces abandoned their heavy weapons and equipment and desperately tried to break out, resulting in a total of approximately 12 casualties.

The Fourth Alexander (Alexandrovna) Offensive was not perfect; it was mainly a series of defeats with too few decisive battles, and it can only be said that it barely achieved its strategic objectives.

However, with the collapse of the northern front, Perin's northern borders were wide open, completely exposed to the more than two million troops of Ivan Rus'.

This historic city is in grave danger and seems to have already fallen into the hands of the Tsar.

(End of this chapter)