Starting with the smashing of Dunkirk

Chapter 122 Brusilov Abandons His Army and Flees

“听说了么？利沃夫在短短30个小时内被敌人攻陷了！19号早上6点，一支德玛尼亚空降团奇袭了利沃夫附近的两座大型战俘营，救出了八万多战俘。20号中午12点，利沃夫就彻底被攻破了！现在我们身后突然多了9万德玛尼亚军！”

"The Demanians are true war maniacs! I heard that a Zeppelin airship loaded with bombs has been rammed and destroyed by our interceptor fighters, and the people on board even piloted the wreckage directly onto the Lviv train station ammunition depot! Everyone within a two-kilometer radius was killed! The remaining troops in Lviv are terrified and completely stunned by the enemy's attack!"

Such news swept through the headquarters of the various army groups of the Southwestern Area Army of Rusa like a storm just half a day later, on the night of May 20.

Army Group Commander Yudovich wasn't entirely foolish; he had done his best to suppress the news. This devastating news was temporarily only known to senior officers at the army group level, and he was strictly ordered not to relay it further downwards, lest it shake morale.

Everyone knows that Lviv is the main logistical base for the Lusa Army's offensive and the stockpiling center for supplies for the entire Southwestern Front. Losing such a place would have a huge impact.

That place is at least 80 kilometers away from the front line, and there are two divisions of troops stationed there. How could it have been suddenly stolen by the enemy who came down from the sky?

"What should we do?" From Yudovich to Brusilov, all the senior Russian generals felt their blood rush to their heads.

General Brusilov, who was personally stationed at the Przemyshir fortress, made a decisive choice to cut his losses after a brief hesitation.

Because he knew very well that holding Galicia was completely hopeless, and if he hesitated for another day or two, he would lose everything.

So late on May 20, Brusilov set fire to the Przemyshir fortress, burning all the supplies he couldn't take with him, and then retreated with the remaining three cavalry divisions and two infantry divisions.

The three cavalry divisions, personally led by Brusilov, retreated towards Lviv, but not strictly along the railway. Instead, they chose to detour south as they approached Lviv, bypassing the city which had been occupied by the enemy.

His move was also intended to draw the enemy's attention away from Lviv and prevent the enemy in Lviv from spreading to other places and causing further devastation.

The two remaining infantry divisions could not take this route; infantry movement was too slow, and they would surely be overtaken if they did. So they chose to retreat directly north into the heart of Poland.

However, heading north also involves crossing some mountains, though not as treacherous as the Carpathian Mountains. Moreover, that mountainous area was originally controlled by the Lusa Army, so as long as some overly heavy burdens are discarded, the troops can still retreat north lightly.

While the defenders of Przemyshel safely withdrew, the defenders of Rzeszów, who were engaged in battle with the German 10th Army's assault forces, were certainly doomed. That division was in contact with the enemy and unable to retreat; by the morning of the 21st, the last few thousand remaining Rzeszów defenders chose to surrender.

Field Marshal Leopold's 10th Army recaptured the ruins of the Przemyhil fortress, which had been turned into a ghost town, the following day. The fortress had changed hands twice, and each time the defenders would blow up the fortifications before the change of hands, so when Field Marshal Leopold entered the city again, he found that everything was beyond repair.

Marshal Leopold continued his advance, marching eastward at a rate of 30 kilometers per day, while his cavalry moved even faster. Ultimately, his cavalry arrived in Lviv first on May 22nd, joining forces with Lelouch, who had infiltrated behind enemy lines. The infantry vanguard also arrived in Lviv on the 23rd.

At this point, the entire line from Krakow to Lviv had been restored by the Demanian army.

最终露沙人部署在喀尔巴阡山以北的13个师（7步6骑），只有5个师（2步3骑）在布鲁西洛夫的带领下逃了出来，其余都被歼灭了。

The fate of Lusha's army in the Shannan war zone will be far more tragic than that of Brusilov's.

……

On the other side of the mountain, Yudovich, he and his 3rd and 11th Armies were blocked south of the Dukla Pass, and there was definitely no way for them to break through and escape to the north.

Late on May 20, Yudovich convened a brief private meeting with the two army group commanders beside him to discuss countermeasures, ultimately reaching several points of consensus:
"Breaking through to the north is hopeless. Now we can only try, either by risking our lives to break through to the east, find another Carpathian Pass, cross it, and return to the Kievan Rus' Plain."

But this path is destined to be extremely difficult, and you will be constantly ambushed and pursued along the way, and in the end you may not be able to break through.

"Either we go all in and launch a full-scale attack on Budapest to the south. If we can capture Budapest before our own supplies run out, then everything will be fine—it's like trading with Austria. Trading Lviv for Budapest is definitely a win-win situation. Budapest is more important and valuable, and it has more military supplies stockpiled in the city than Lviv."

The main problem with this route is whether it can be substituted. If they launch a final all-out attack on Budapest until they are exhausted but still fail to capture it, then it will truly be a complete disaster!
"There is one last option, which is not really a separate option, but rather a backup plan to the previous one. If a direct assault on Budapest fails, we can only lead the remnants of the Russo army, along with the Seville army, downstream along the Danube River to retreat. That way, we can retreat all the way back into Serbia and reach Belgrade. Then we can find a way to go through the lower reaches of Romania and circle back to the Kievan Rus' Plain."

After careful consideration, the high command of the Southwestern Army ultimately decided to choose the second option, while remaining prepared to switch to the third option at any time. Choosing the first option would result in a pure loss, and even then, there was no guarantee of escape.

The second option at least offers a gamble; even if it fails, both sides will suffer heavy losses, at least not just one side. Finally, switching to escaping downstream along the Danube is simply a roundabout way of fleeing.

Moreover, in the five days from May 15th to May 20th, the Southwestern Front had actually made some progress in approaching Budapest and occupying the heart of Hungary.

On the 15th, they had just broken through Košice; by the 20th, they had advanced another 40 or 50 kilometers southwest. They had captured Miskolc and Erg, small towns along the railway between Košice and Budapest—

In retrospect, it's unclear whether Yudovic's achievements were due to genuine ability or deliberate bluffing by the Demacians, which made it increasingly difficult for him to recover and ultimately led him into a quagmire from which he couldn't extricate himself.

Moreover, in the previous five days of fighting, Yudovich's losses had been mounting, and his available fighting force had shrunk further from over 5 to just over 40. Each day, to advance a dozen kilometers, he suffered at least 30 casualties. The troops' supplies and ammunition were being depleted, and morale was steadily declining.

Previously, in order to prove that a strong attack on Budapest was possible, Yudovic had also persuaded his allies in Seville and Romania to also make every effort to advance north. At the time, Field Marshal Putnik, the commander-in-chief of the Seville army, believed Yudovic's persuasion and was willing to cooperate with the French army for another five or six days to observe the situation.

Therefore, from May 15 to 20, the Serbian and Romanian armies continued to advance northward along the Danube River.

Meanwhile, Duke Rupprecht, commander of the German 6th Army, was also employing a "retreat and decisive battle" strategy, slightly loosening the defenses along the Danube to allow the enemy to advance more quickly. However, he was simultaneously inflicting heavy casualties on the enemy in the ensuing defensive battles.

Every time the Serbian army advanced ten or twenty kilometers and captured another town along the Danube River, it suffered tens of thousands of casualties. The Serbian army launched its offensive with a total force of 330,000, but by May 20, its remaining total force had fallen below 250,000.

While Duke Rupprecht fought and retreated in the middle of the defensive line, he defended the left and right flanks of the line more resolutely. Although he also pretended to retreat a little, he did not retreat as quickly as he did along the central line near the Danube River.

Therefore, as the Serbian army continued its northward advance, it became increasingly isolated, with enemy-occupied territory on both its flanks. If the enemies on either side could exert their strength, they could potentially cut off the Serbian army's retreat at any time.

Given Marshal Putnik's intelligence, he wouldn't normally make such a basic mistake. But now he was being led astray step by step, unable to resist falling into the trap—his allies on the northern front kept exaggerating and promising him the benefits of capturing Budapest.

Putnik has already invested too much sunk cost in this goal. If he loses his nerve or takes a step back now, all the losses will be pure losses, and he may be hunted down by the enemy.

At this stage of the war, generals with unwavering resolve know that in a close contest, the brave will prevail, and they must fight to the bitter end.

Even at this moment, on the night of May 20th, Putnik was still kept in the dark. He was unaware of the major upheaval in the northern Lusa forces, unaware that Brusilov had been forced to make a drastic breakout, that the entire support force north of the mountains had been abandoned, and that Lviv, the main logistics base of the Southwestern Front, had been captured.

To prevent their morale from plummeting, the Lusha people concealed the defeat in Shanbei from their own people, and they were even more determined to deceive their allies, clinging to them and sticking together for mutual support.

All of this enabled Duke Rupprecht of the German 6th Army to better execute his "retreat and decisive battle" plan.

On May 21, Duke Rupprecht, who was in Budapest, issued the following order:
"Yudovic is definitely not going anywhere. There's no rush to take him down. We'll just keep him there and slowly wear him down. Anyway, he's completely out of ammunition. Every bit he uses is one less, and he'll die sooner or later."

The northern defenses are temporarily handed over to the Austrian 3rd and 5th Armies. Our 6th Army will concentrate its forces to outflank the Serbian forces, first encircling them as they penetrate deep into our territory! The western army will directly penetrate the Serbian rear, cutting off the west bank of the Danube from west to east. The eastern army will take a shortcut, breaking through the Romanians from the front, and then cutting off the east bank of the Danube!
While launching the offensive, we must also widely publicize that Lviv has been captured by our army, that Brusilov has fled to Poland, abandoning friendly forces south of the mountains, and that Yudovich has been cut off from supplies for many days and is unlikely to rejoin. Yes, we will use radio and plaintext telegrams for propaganda, plus leaflets dropped from airplanes, to demoralize the Serbian and Romanian troops.

In episode 6, the Germans quickly sprang into action, expanding their gains according to His Highness the Duke's orders.

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P.S.: Still writing 10,000 words a day.

Tomorrow I plan to slightly accelerate the progress, because small countries like Serbia and Romania aren't actually very strong militarily. The Serbian army is quite effective at guerrilla warfare in the southern Balkan mountains, but once lured to the Danube plain, they pose little threat.

So I'll just briefly describe the rapid advance tomorrow. I hope no one objects? Because I think that after the Southwestern Front Army's reinforcements were completely driven away and its supplies were completely cut off, the outcome of the battle was no longer in doubt. You should all understand that an army that has run out of ammunition, even if it still has hundreds of thousands of men, will collapse very quickly.

(End of this chapter)