Conquer Europe from the West

Chapter 145 Retreat
The motorcycle squadron formed by the motorcyclists of the 2nd Battalion almost instantly overwhelmed the Imperial Army troops located in the prepared trenches with their combination of motorcycles and machine guns, leaving them unable to even raise their heads.

These ordinary soldiers, whose machine guns were only assigned to battalion-level units, lay helplessly in the trenches. Every time a burst of bullets whizzed past their heads, they would tremble like leaves in fear.

However, some officers with a tough backbone were still able to organize a small but sizable force under these circumstances, and tried to force themselves and their soldiers to charge the Empire with shouts of "Hurrah!"

At this moment, on the front lines.

When another shout of "Hurrah!" rang out from the nearby reserve trench, all the soldiers, including the second battalion commander, immediately pinpointed the source of the sound!

The motorcycle driver twisted the throttle, using the fastest speed possible so that his comrade in the sidecar could pinpoint the direction the enemy was pointing.

The machine guns spat out merciless fire serpents, and the invisible whips easily tore apart the bodies of the imperial soldiers. Even the noble officers protected by shields were turned into a moving cloud of blood mist under the machine gun fire.

"Which wave is this?"

Standing at the very end of the support trench, the second battalion commander, holding his GW.98 rifle equipped with a 3x magnification telescope, shot down all the Imperial soldiers who tried to crawl out of the communication trench while shouting questions to his subordinates.

"I don't know! There are too many to count!"

As the sergeant yelled, he threw the last two grenades into the prepared trench ahead.

Soon, two explosions rang out, followed by the sight of several Imperial soldiers painfully crawling out of the trenches, waving their mutilated limbs.

They were immediately killed by machine guns and rifles, and even if they managed to escape, they would still die from excessive blood loss.

This made the second battalion commander feel very annoyed.

He had had enough of this environment where there were countless enemies who posed no threat to him whatsoever.

It's not that such an enemy is difficult to deal with, but rather that they are simply wasting their ammunition and preventing their troops from advancing smoothly.

According to the previously established battle plan, the Second Battalion should at least be able to penetrate the reserve trenches of the Imperial 27th Army, and after completely destroying the communication trenches, break through in the opposite direction and return to the starting point.

Each squad must repeat this operation at least two or three times, with the aim of completely shattering the Imperial lines and rapidly destroying the morale of the Imperial soldiers.

But it seems like this matter is beyond repair now.

Several more shouts of "Hurrah!" rang out from the other trench.

But the machine gunner was busy changing the ammunition belt for the machine gun, completely losing his previous carefree demeanor.

The second battalion commander immediately yelled, "What are you standing there for! Do you want to die?! Get back there!"

The sergeant next to him quickly took his rifle, fired all five bullets, and successfully killed two officers.

The remaining soldiers also began to fight back, and 9mm bullets swept away the lives of those Imperial soldiers like a whirlwind.

The motorcyclist exerted all his strength to successfully drive the motorcycle back into the smoke, but at the last moment, a soldier from the Imperial Army pierced two holes in his buttocks.

The second battalion commander saw all of this. He leaned against the earthen slope of the trench, quickly counted the soldiers around him, and after discovering that three men had been killed, he immediately said, "Have them retreat. This land is completely ruined and we can't fight here."

“But the colonel…” a sergeant began.

"Switch him over? Then we'll have to back off when that bastard John gets hit in the leg!"

The second battalion commander snatched the guy's submachine gun, replaced the magazine, and quickly took out the Imperial soldiers who tried to approach. He then kicked the idiot and several other soldiers into the trench leading to the rear. The soldiers who received the order to retreat immediately grabbed their signal pistols, clutching their backsides, and fired all the flares in the direction of the Imperial Army headquarters.

His actions immediately forced all the prepared "Ura" back down into the throats of the Imperial Army soldiers.

Meanwhile, the soldiers of the Second Battalion and the First Army, who already knew the meaning of the flares, retreated into the smoke as quickly as possible, running frantically towards the rear.

The only ones that didn't retreat were those three truck-mounted artillery pieces.

But they retreated quickly.

The fastest vehicle fired all thirty rounds of ammunition in just one minute, and then the driver, along with the exhausted loader and his crew, began their frantic journey.

The other two machines were a step behind, but they still managed to get the job done.

rear.

Inside the bridge of the Z331 ship.

Rennes has a view of the situation on the front lines.

Therefore, when he saw that the front-line troops were stuck between the support trenches and the reserve trenches, he immediately knew that this was a problem caused by the current weapon range and the number of troops being insufficient.

"Should we let them maintain their offensive?"

Brinkman looked at the light shining in the gray-blue sky, and his words sounded less than confident.

"No need."

Ryan shook his head: "The troops may not have enough firepower to advance. Let them come back."

As he spoke, Renn turned to François, who was standing to one side: "General, please order the troops to retreat. We have achieved seventy percent of our objective, which can be considered a success."

"Is it?"

François glanced at Rennes, then raised his hand to signal his adjutant to immediately contact the commanders of the various units.

Below, as the first batch of soldiers returned to the front lines amidst the scorching smoke, the Empire's offensive against the Imperial Twenty-Seventh Army came to a complete end.

As soon as these soldiers returned to their trenches, they immediately handed out a series of slips of paper with coordinate codes written on them to others, and began to look at the dense barrage of bullets that were once again tearing through the sky.

These precise coordinates were a devastating blow to the Imperial forces that were still in the trenches or trying to organize their forces to pursue them.

Ammunition with a caliber of 200 mm or larger can easily penetrate thick soil and send Imperial soldiers hiding in underground air-raid shelters and alleyways to meet their maker.

The remaining communication equipment of the Second Battalion formed a visible red defensive line, firmly holding the position of the 27th Group Army.

Under the cover of smoke, these communication devices, which continuously emitted red beams of light, acted like a city wall, preventing the imperial soldiers from advancing any further.

Of course, they had no idea that the Second Battalion had already returned to its position, so much so that there were hardly any survivors left in the trenches at the front.

All they knew was that the symphony of smoke bombs and grenades from the Empire continued, and they could only wait for the smoke to clear and the shelling to stop before they could safely enter the front-line trenches that had become a living hell.

(End of this chapter)