Starting with the smashing of Dunkirk

Chapter 154 Run! The devils of Dunkirk have returned!
In the days that followed, on the main battlefields of the Gallipoli Peninsula.

Commander Mustafa Kemer, with his Ottoman 19th New Division and several reinforcements temporarily assigned to him by General von Zanders, held the Kilitbashir Heights, repelling at least five volleys of artillery fire and assaults from the enemy ANZAC forces each day.

He must hold the high ground for at least seven days to buy enough time for friendly forces to dig a network of reverse-sloping tunnels on the second line of defense and to excavate trenches in the subsequent buffer zone.

On the construction site behind, Ottoman soldiers, construction workers, and Demanian instructors were all working very hard and had very strict requirements for the construction.

"When digging the trench, remember to make the southwest-facing side wall as vertical as possible, and reinforce it with timber where necessary. However, the northeast-facing side wall can be dug with a gentler slope, and it doesn't need to be reinforced with timber!"

"The enemy is attacking from the southwest, while our troops will gradually retreat to the northeast and implement flexible defenses. Therefore, the side facing the enemy should have the strongest possible defenses and the best possible cover! The side facing us can be repaired casually. Not reinforcing the side walls will also make it easier for our artillery to continue bombarding and killing enemy soldiers in the trenches after the enemy has captured the position!"

"The reverse slope tunnel should have a slightly curved entrance on the front of the mountain, but the entrance must have two bends to ensure that even if it is directly hit by enemy shells, the impact of shrapnel will be absorbed by these two bends, ensuring that the area within 5 meters of the entrance is an absolutely safe zone!"

The Ottoman soldiers and workers knew that this was a matter of their own lives, so they dared not slack off at all during the construction and all strictly followed Brigadier General William Keitel's experience in protecting against artillery fire.

These experiences were the hard-earned lessons Keitel learned from his repeated battles against the Britannian battleships, from Dunkirk to Calais. There is no other artillery commander in the world who has withstood so many battleship bombardments.

The second-line troops in the rear would also report and communicate their daily construction progress to the front-line troops who were holding the line at night.

This gives Division Commander Kemmer, who is holding the line on the front lines, a greater sense of accomplishment, knowing that every extra day he holds the line, the strength of the second line of defense in the rear increases significantly.

Two or three days passed in the blink of an eye. It was August 28th. As night fell, Colonel William Loeb, a Demanian advisor from the small town of Egeabad in the rear, sneaked up the high ground under the cover of darkness and came to a bunker where Division Commander Kemmer was lying in ambush. He brought him some good news.

"The trench network in Ejalbad is almost complete after three days of emergency modifications. Now all that's left is the reverse slope tunnels in the second-line mountains behind, which will take at least another five or six days," Colonel Leb said bluntly.

"This is good news. Don't worry, I can hold out for another five days! Even without the buffer of the town, I'll just hold this hill to the death!" Kemer became excited when he heard that his persistence had played such a big role.

Colonel Loeb quickly stopped his pointless arguing: "There's no need for that. I came tonight with a new suggestion from Brigadier General Keitel. We've been observing your defensive tactics these past two days and have noticed some minor issues."

As you mentioned before, if your troops move too quickly from the reverse slope trench behind the hilltop back to the front trench after the enemy battleships finish shelling, they are easily caught in the aftershocks of the shelling, resulting in additional casualties. However, if they are slow to return to defense, the enemy can easily advance several hundred meters further, drastically reducing the engagement distance and making it easier for the enemy to also rush into the trench network for close combat.

This issue was not really a problem in the several Western Front campaigns our army fought. When we were at Dunkirk and Calais, when facing enemy naval bombardment and the infantry immediately charging, we always preferred to be slow rather than fast.

"Going too fast might lead to a trap. Sometimes the enemy hasn't truly finished their preparation for fire; they might pause for a couple of minutes afterward to lure us back into position before launching a sudden artillery barrage. So we'd rather be a little slower. Being slower just means the enemy gets close, which doesn't matter. As long as we have submachine guns and the enemy doesn't, they can get close!"

Upon hearing this, Colonel Kemer couldn't help but show an envious expression: "But the problem is that our Ottoman army doesn't have submachine guns!"

Loeb: "So, after observing this problem yesterday, we urgently requested instructions. This time, our army cannot spare a large number of main infantry forces to reinforce us, nor can we mobilize troops in time, so we only sent artillery units. But our equipment is very sufficient, and the close-combat weapons temporarily assigned to the artillery are all submachine guns."

After consulting with our superiors, we are willing to allocate 7000 of the 9000 submachine guns from our entire artillery regiment to your frontline defensive units.

Duke Rupprecht's forces now possess tens of thousands of submachine guns. The twelve directly subordinate assault battalions of the twelve divisions alone require 800 submachine guns each, totaling over ten thousand. Lelouch's Independent Army, in addition, also has over ten thousand submachine guns.

Under normal circumstances, the Duke wasn't wealthy enough to equip every artilleryman with a submachine gun.

However, while most of the 6th Army's personnel needed rest and preparation for the next phase of the offensive, their guns did not require repair. The Duke, with a stroke of his pen, equipped the artillery reinforcements with submachine guns for self-defense.

An artillery regiment has about 1500 combat personnel, not including the logistics system above the regimental level, so it is normal for six artillery regiments to put together 9000 submachine guns.

Are you worried that if you're slow to retreat, the enemy will rush up and engage in close combat? Well, here's a submachine gun for you. That way, you'll never have to worry about the ANZACs engaging in close combat again.

Upon hearing this, Kemmer could hardly contain his excitement: "Thank you so much, Marshal Rupprecht! You've actually given our second-line troops so many submachine guns! Now you can rest assured, we will definitely leave the ANZACs with at least 20,000 corpses! And we can hold out for a few more days!"

……

The following day, the 29th, early morning.

The Burkina Faso coalition forces, having suffered setbacks at the foot of the mountain for several days, were already seething with anger. Early that morning, the pre-dreadnought and protected cruiser groups on the sea once again unleashed their guns, ranging from 152mm to 305mm caliber, and relentlessly bombarded the Kilit Bashir Heights.

Unfortunately, no matter how hard the naval guns tried, they could never achieve the same high elevation angle as mortars. For the Ottoman soldiers hiding in the deep trenches on the reverse slope behind the hill, the shelling was just a tickle.

Admiral Sackville Carden, commander of the Mediterranean Fleet, was well aware of this, but he knew that such shelling would at least force the enemy to withdraw from their pre-arranged positions, buying more time for his own ground troops who were about to attack.

"How long has the shelling been going on?" After dozens of rounds of shelling, General Sackville Carden was somewhat distracted and only then remembered to ask the person next to him the time.

"Commander, the shelling has been going on for 40 minutes," the adjutant quickly reminded him.

"40 minutes already... How many days has it been? There's no point in continuing to bombard them. Cease fire in 5 minutes, then cease fire for 3 minutes, then bombard for another 15 minutes, then cease fire for 5 minutes, then fire rapidly for 5 minutes!"

Before the operation began this morning, Admiral Hamilton, the commander of the landing forces, told him that there would be 75 minutes of fire preparation. However, the Navy can decide for itself how to allocate the firepower and whether there should be intervals in between.

General Carden was also playing a "boy who cried wolf" game with the defenders, hoping that repeated pauses and rapid fire would cause the enemy to make the wrong judgment, either deploying too early and being killed in vain, or deploying too late, allowing his own side to advance more.

For the next half hour, everything proceeded exactly as General Cardin had planned. The shelling stopped two or three times, luring the defenders to engage, though it was unclear whether they actually did. But at least through the binoculars, no debris or broken limbs were seen flying up from the explosion sites.

"That's about it. Maybe the enemy has finally been scared out of their wits today. No matter how we try to lure them out, they won't dare to show their faces. We'll extend our artillery fire and then wait for the army to charge."

As General Cardin extended his artillery fire, Admiral Hamilton on the shore finally ordered Major General John Monash, commander of the ANZAC, to launch an attack.

John Monash was an Australian in his forties. Normally, a major general wouldn't be qualified to command such a large army corps, which now numbered 80,000—more than a single soldier in Britannia. But to motivate these colonial soldiers, the Britannian Army Ministry granted Monash the rank of Britannian major general, allowing him to personally lead his troops.

The Australian and New Zealand soldiers felt respected and had a corps commander of their own nationality, which boosted their morale. They charged fiercely during the landing.

At Major General Monash's command, tens of thousands of ANZAC soldiers surged out of their trenches and began their assault on the Kilit Bashir Heights.

"What a lucky day! The enemy must have been scared out of their wits by the repeated harassment from the battleships! They thought this was just another feigned ceasefire to lure them in, so they haven't come back to the front lines from behind the hill! Maybe we can just charge up to the top and engage in close combat!"

Many Australian and New Zealand officers on the front lines thought the same way. Even Major General Monash, observing his men's charge through high-powered binoculars, thought so.

Major General Monash was so nervous that his palms were sweating, and he could barely hold the binoculars steady. He kept wiping the sweat off his uniform.

"They're charging up! They're really going to make it! They're less than 400 meters from the summit!"

The Kilitbashir Heights are not actually very high in elevation, but they are relatively high compared to the surrounding terrain. The area is only a little over 1 kilometer from the coastline, so the absolute elevation is only 160 meters.

However, just as Major General Monash was overjoyed, the situation on the hilltop finally changed.

Large numbers of Ottoman soldiers had already poured back to their positions on the front of the hill from the back of the hill through the trenches, and then began to fire down from their high vantage points, using the cover as cover.

It took time for these Ottoman soldiers to return to their designated positions; they couldn't teleport back instantly. Therefore, the initial firepower was sparse, gradually increasing in intensity.

Despite suffering continuous casualties, the ANZACs took advantage of the time gap between the enemy's firepower and their own, which was about to intensify but had not yet fully concentrated, to further close the distance between them.

"Less than 200 meters left! Our vanguard has already stormed into the trench area! Don't be afraid! We're going to win this time! Charge!" Major General Monash watched as his vanguard stormed into the trench network, his adrenaline pumping. He immediately ordered the ANZAC reserves to be deployed wave after wave, determined to take the high ground in one fell swoop.

However, the situation suddenly reversed the next moment.

"Da da da~ da da da~" The continuous and crisp sound of submachine guns soon echoed throughout the entire mountain.

The scenario I imagined—going into the trenches and fighting the enemy fairly, exchanging fire with Lee-Enfields and Mausers, and throwing grenades at each other—none of it happened.

Instead, MP15 submachine guns were used to unilaterally and flexibly slaughter Lee-Enfield riflemen.

A line of ANZAC infantrymen pushing forward in the trenches could be killed by a dozen men if they were mowed down by a single MP15 submachine gun fired from around the corner.

The submachine gunners didn't even need to stick their heads out; they just stretched their arms out from the corner of the trench, didn't look at anything, and blindly fired based on sound.

Large numbers of ANZAC soldiers were trapped on the hillside, unable to advance or retreat. After all, if they left the trench area and ran down the hillside, they would only die faster if they were hit by enemy heavy machine guns.

On the position, the sound of heavy machine guns soon rang out. When the Ottoman army retreated to avoid artillery fire, they did not move the heavy machine gun positions; only the men withdrew.

If the gun is left on the position, it won't be easily damaged by artillery fire. As long as it's simply lowered from its tripod and placed on the ground at the bottom of the trench, it will generally not be directly hit by artillery shells.

Now that the Austrian troops have returned to their positions, they first use submachine guns to block the enemy's offensive. If they can buy three to five minutes, the heavy machine guns in the rear will gradually resume firing.

Submachine guns could only engage enemies within 200 meters, while heavy machine guns could cover over a thousand meters and the entire hillside. As these heavy machine guns opened fire, the ANZAC soldiers had no chance of turning back. They either desperately pushed forward into the trenches to find cover, or lay down on the hillside to find relatively low-lying depressions for refuge.

Bullets whizzed overhead, terrifying the inexperienced Australian and New Zealand soldiers who trembled with fear.

Just when they thought that hell was nothing special, an even bigger change occurred.

Just a few minutes later, the faint sound of grenade launchers rang out on the reverse slope of the hilltop, followed by hundreds of projectiles that flew high over the top and crashed into the positions of the Australian and New Zealand soldiers on the front of the hill.

A single grenade from a grenade launcher landing in a trench could turn a throng of ANZAC soldiers into a blurry mass of blood, with every flying steel rod, shrapnel, and scrap metal embedded in their flesh.

Even the sound of exploding grenades seemed to become muffled; the bodies of the Australian and New Zealand soldiers were the best silencers, catching and cushioning every piece of shrapnel.

……

Major General Monash, standing in the distance, was already in a daze and stunned when he saw the enemy troops with what appeared to be MP15 submachine guns appear.

It was only because the distance was too far that he could not see the submachine gun clearly, so he only had a vague premonition that the enemy seemed to have a submachine gun.

This premonition stemmed from the fact that he himself had participated in the Battle of Dunkirk six months earlier. At that time, two battalions of Demania commandos were airdropped directly above the coastal fortifications of Dunkirk and captured the fortifications. Then, ANZAC soldiers were forced by General Haig to charge the Malloreban and Ronan fortifications on the north and south sides of Dunkirk.

At that time, Monash was only a colonel, not a major general.

He had witnessed thousands of his comrades fall at the hands of the Demandna commandos who had taken refuge in the gun emplacements and tunnels, under the dense barrage of MP15 submachine guns, and under the close-range direct fire of 150mm coastal defense guns bombarding each other's surface positions on the hilltops.

Major General Monash harbored deep psychological trauma. Of the 2 ANZAC troops that time, only a few hundred returned alive.

He was promoted to major general simply because he returned alive, had experience, and there was no one else available.

The feeling was similar to that of the Lusha troops on the eastern front: once a battalion was wiped out down to the last man, you became the battalion commander.

Therefore, he had a strong psychological aversion to the MP15 submachine gun. Even without seeing the gun directly, just watching his own soldiers fall in rows, being driven back, and rolling down the hillside, his intuition told him that the enemy was likely heavily equipped with submachine guns!

All of this was finally proven when rows of small-caliber grenades, launched from the reverse slope of the hillside, landed on the position.

"How come these Ottomans also have small-caliber grenade launchers! The kind of close-range indirect fire that's so flexible it can be deployed by a single soldier!"

When Major General Monash saw through his binoculars groups of soldiers crammed together in the trenches being blown into a bloody mist, he finally collapsed to the ground, his body covered in cold sweat and his hands and feet ice-cold.

"Why is it you again? Why is it always you?"

How old are you!

Even from that distance, Major General Monash felt his hands and feet go cold, sensing a fear suppressed by his bloodline.

On the front lines, the Australian and New Zealand officers who had experienced the Dunkirk siege felt it even more acutely. Six months ago, the few hundred men who returned alive from Dunkirk were now at least platoon leaders or company commanders.

At least nearly a hundred officers felt the same fear they had experienced six months earlier at the Maroleban Fortress.

"Run! Retreat! Those Dunkirk-borne devils are back! They must have been sent to Gallipoli to reinforce the Ottomans!"

This familiar recipe, this familiar fear, there's no mistake!

"We're doomed! That devil who captured Marshal French six months ago must be back!"

Surprisingly, more than a dozen junior officers were the first to lose their minds, shouting like madmen that they were abandoning their troops and running away, only to be mowed down by the barrage of MG08 heavy machine gun fire from behind.

For these people, being shot to death might be a way to escape from traumatic stress.

The Australian and New Zealand soldiers, who were grinding meat on the hilltop, gradually collapsed. They scattered in disarray, being mowed down by continuous gunfire and high-altitude grenades from behind. Two entire infantry regiments were wiped out in a single charge.

The bodies of 6000 ANZAC soldiers tell a terrible story: the devils of Dunkirk have returned.

Although, he didn't actually come back.

Only a few henchmen who had learned a trick or two from that Dunkirk devil were sent here.

-

PS: Another 12,000 words today.

With multiple narrative threads, it's unavoidable. In the first phase of the Gallipoli campaign, the protagonist can only remotely influence and indirectly bleed the Britannians dry. But they can't have him appear in person.

Because both the Black Sea and Baltic Sea fronts require the protagonist's personal involvement. But don't worry, the Gallipoli campaign won't continue indefinitely; tomorrow we'll switch back to Lelouch's perspective and move on to the Baltic Sea front.

World wars are inherently fought on multiple fronts simultaneously.

(End of this chapter)