Starting with the smashing of Dunkirk

Chapter 192 The enemy hasn't attacked yet, but we're already surrounded.

February 1915, 11, late at night.

At the Lusa 7th Army Field Hospital in Krivorog.

Thousands of wounded, some with severed limbs and others with disemboweled bodies, were crammed into filthy, dilapidated houses with poor conditions and a lack of medical care.

The cold autumn wind blew in through the cracks in the walls and the holes in the windows, making countless wounded soldiers shiver and suffer from persistent high fevers. Every moment, corpses were carried out—the hospital didn't even have enough people or stretchers to carry the bodies, so they had to be carried on their backs.

Lifting a corpse requires at least two people, while carrying it on one's back only requires one person. Moreover, most of these corpses were emaciated or missing large sections of limbs or torsos before they died, so they were not very heavy and could be easily carried by one person.

Vasily Blücher, a former second lieutenant platoon leader of the 6th Army who had been wounded and narrowly escaped death several times before, was now surprisingly in this field hospital.

Yes, he was injured again, but he survived again; he's incredibly resilient. And this time, it was his slightly lame leg that was injured. This butterfly effect led to his amputation; he'll be left with only one leg forever.

Although he did receive some promotions due to repeated injuries and the deaths of his superiors, and was now a full-fledged captain, the promotions could no longer bring him any solace.

“How many times have we risked our lives for the Tsar? To be treated like this is truly disheartening…” Blücher couldn’t help but feel endless doubts about life.

On the next bed was another patient named Yefremovich Voroshilov. He had also suffered minor injuries, losing several fingers to shrapnel, and his left hand could no longer grip the trigger. From now on, he would have to support the rifle with his left hand and fire with his right.

Voroshilov's unit was a reserve army group that had just been transferred from Tsaritsyn in the east to the Kiev theater.

Their battalion was originally made up of foundry workers at the Tsaritsyn artillery factory. But the war had escalated to such an extent that even the relatively low-skilled laborers from the artillery factory were being conscripted into the army.

At that moment, a military doctor came into the ward and gave some medicine to several seriously wounded soldiers who were receiving special treatment. After taking the medicine, the medic threw away the waste newspaper that had been used to wrap the medicine.

Blücher had attended a church primary school, and Voroshilov was also literate. So, Blücher, having nothing better to do, picked up a scrap of newspaper and glanced at it.

As a result, the above report immediately angered the wounded soldiers.

"Damn it! How exactly are those noble lords up there whitewashing the truth and deceiving the Tsar!"

"The war has escalated to this point, with such heavy casualties on the front lines, and ammunition and supplies can't even be transported out. They're just fighting with lives on the line to recapture a few mines. And the newspapers are still boasting about great victories and huge triumphs. They're just fooling themselves!"

Blyucher grew angrier and angrier, and angrily threw the waste newspaper on the ground.

Only they themselves knew that at least several thousand people were dying every day in the field hospitals of the 7th Army! And who knows how many more died on the battlefield and couldn't be brought back! Could this counter-offensive be considered a great victory?
However, he was ultimately simple-minded, so he hated the noble lords and the charlatans who deceived the Tsar. Even at this moment, he subconsciously felt that the Tsar himself was not very guilty, and that it was the treacherous officials who had ruined things.

A large group of wounded soldiers began to curse those who took credit, shirked responsibility, and whitewashed the battle situation.

But the next moment, the knowledgeable Comrade Voroshilov picked up the newspaper he had thrown away, read it for a while, and then came to a conclusion that was clearly from a higher perspective:
"Bah! If you ask me, it's not necessarily the charlatans and nobles who have deceived the Tsar! It's that the Tsar, that dog of a tyrant, is himself a warmonger who doesn't treat his people like human beings. He just scared off those generals by executing General Evert, and then the generals forced us to our deaths!"

His words immediately awakened some of the officers and soldiers, and many began to echo his sentiments and complain:
"Exactly! More than a year into the war, so many defeats, and millions of soldiers must have died by now, right? Can this be the fault of just one general? Any general would have lost battles, so it must be the fault of that tyrannical Tsar!"

Seeing that he could win people's hearts, Voroshilov continued to spread some rumors he had heard in the past few days: "I heard that some of the commanders of the Baltic Fleet and the Black Sea Fleet were wrongfully killed! No one sold the minefield maps to the Demanians! The Demanians invented a new type of minesweeping weapon that can sweep mines into the Gulf of Riga and the Sea of ​​Azov without anyone noticing."

That tyrant is indiscriminately executing soldiers who speak out for justice, from the navy to the army! If the Demacians launch another counterattack, we might as well... stop serving that damned Tsar!

The situations of Voroshilov and Blyukher are merely a small microcosm of the mindset of the rank-and-file soldiers of the Rusha Army on the front lines of the Kiev theater at this moment.

However, this scene, like a glimpse of a leopard revealing its whole foes, is playing out repeatedly in countless corners of the front lines. The rank-and-file soldiers of the Lusha army have recently been pushed to the brink by various forms of discontent and low morale. They are like a dry powder keg, ready to explode at the slightest spark.

Meanwhile, in St. Petersburg, Moscow, and other places in the rear, public opinion was still able to be boosted by the repeated victories reported in the newspapers, which provided a temporary respite.

Many sober individuals who initially had doubts about the situation at the front seemed unwilling to seek further suffering, and like ostriches burying their heads in the sand, they chose to ignore the news and accept the reports of a great victory.

Moreover, to be honest...

Recently, the Demacian propaganda apparatus, especially Lelouch, the chief of staff of the 6th Army, has not used the time traveler's historical foresight to contact certain people in Russa who have wanted to rebel and overthrow the Tsar for many years.

Lelouch merely mobilized the propaganda forces he could control, spreading rumors through various channels that the Tsar was incompetent, indiscriminately killing innocent people among his own, and appointing treacherous officials.

But these rumors were really effective; they touched the hearts of the Lusa soldiers.

Many individuals and organizations within Lusa who wanted to rebel against the Tsar unconsciously used Lelouch's rumors and propaganda as evidence. Naturally, they became figures who, without taking any money, brought their own provisions to help with propaganda.

Krivorrog, where the fighting on the front lines was most intense, naturally became the center of this storm of rumors.

Meanwhile, Kharkiv to the east, and Vronsky and Zhytomyr to the west were also severely affected by these rumors.

The troops stationed in places like Volynsky and Zhytomyr were mainly the 13th Army transferred from the Western Front.

Many soldiers there were also in the Polish and Belarusian theaters of war, where they had been facing off against Dmanian generals such as Hindenburg and Rodendorff for a long time. They were exhausted and their morale was low.

After all, the Polish theater hadn't been idle for the past six months either, with both sides engaging in low-intensity wars of attrition and positional warfare. It was just that Hindenburg hadn't managed to obtain enough resources from the Emperor and Chief of the General Staff Falkenhayn to support a decisive offensive.

In the east, in places like Kharkiv, the garrison mainly consisted of reserve troops who had moved south from Kursk and the remaining Cossack cavalry divisions.

The new recruits heading south from Kursk are doing relatively well; their morale isn't too low.

However, the remaining Cossack cavalrymen were so enraged and resentful that they were no longer willing to serve the Tsar and could cause trouble at any time.

A cavalry captain named Semyon Mikhailovich Budyonny was also in Kharkiv at that moment.

A few days ago, when he was harassing the German-controlled railway line in Marieupol with his cavalry division, the division commander fell into Rommel's ambush, and the entire cavalry division was chased and cut off by armored car units.

They had finally managed to break out by heading south along the coastal mudflats, hoping to use the poor terrain mobility of their armored vehicles to escape. However, they encountered the Demacian fleet on Marieupol Beach, and the entire cavalry division was almost completely wiped out, with only a very few surviving, most of them wounded.

Semyon Mikhailovich Budyonny was one of the lucky survivors of that battle, though he was wounded. He was promoted to captain and company commander on the spot because his previous platoon and company commanders had all been killed in action.

The escaped cavalry officers, represented by Budyonny, naturally brought back some of the unfavorable things they had seen and heard at the front to the troops stationed in the Kharkiv defense zone.

In particular, the claims that the Tsar "could not distinguish between loyalty and treachery, harmed loyal and good people, and wrongfully killed and forced naval officers and soldiers to revolt, and that no naval commanders actually sold the minefield layout map to the Demanians" were spread by the Cossack officers who had escaped death from the attack by armored vehicles and naval guns, and were known to everyone in a tearful manner.

The garrison at Kharkiv was mostly made up of green recruits transferred south from Kursk. Now, before even seeing the battlefield, they'd been subjected to this reverse propaganda, making it practically impossible for anyone to be willing to fight to the death for the Tsar. Moreover, their journey south had been marred by bombing raids by Demanian airships. A few military trains were even destroyed by airships while in motion, or derailed and overturned because they failed to notice a broken track ahead.

These people were lucky to even make it to Kharkiv. All they heard were stories of friendly units being killed by enemy bombs on trains. An entire train carrying an infantry regiment had only one battalion survive; most of the soldiers died from the fall and impact when the train overturned.

When these soldiers saw the newspapers at home embellishing the great victory and praising the Tsar, while they themselves witnessed the tragic contrast at the front, one can imagine how they felt.

Under the combined attack of multiple factors, the morale of the defenders in Kharkiv also plummeted to its lowest point, second only to Krivorog on the central front, making it the second weakest point in terms of morale on the entire front.

……

The wheels of history rolled into the early morning of November 12, 1915, amidst such widespread anxiety.

At 4 a.m., the continuous artillery fire near the city of Krivorog in the middle of the southern front woke countless Lusa soldiers from their sleep.

These Lusha troops were originally in an offensive deployment state, with many units being pulled to the front lines.

For the past five or six days, Lusa's army had been playing an offensive role in this area, and they had never considered switching to a defensive posture.

This offensive posture also cost them dearly; thousands upon thousands of frontline soldiers were killed in their positions or makeshift barracks. The Demacian army, which had been retreating step by step, had suddenly launched a counter-offensive.

"Run! Voroshilov, take your company and come with me into the mine tunnels! Only in the mine fortifications left by the Demanians will we have a chance to survive!"

The division stationed at the iron ore mine northwest of Krivorog was also bombarded by countless Demacian long-range cannon shells. It is estimated that the division commander and the entire division command post were wiped out in the first round of shelling, and the entire division lost unified command, leaving only junior officers to improvise.

Captain Vasily Blücher happened to be in this unit. Having escaped death many times and possessing an extremely tough constitution, he realized the moment he heard the cannon fire that the only chance of survival was to hide in the mine. Just a few days earlier, when the Russa army launched a counterattack, the Demanians had methodically relied on the mine to hold their ground and even ambushed artillery observation posts in the mine, causing the Russa a great deal of trouble.

Now, experienced officers like Lusa naturally followed suit and adopted the enemy's advanced experience for their own use.

Voroshilov and some other officers, who had been in close contact with him in recent days, also believed Blyukher's experience in escaping and tried their best to lead their troops into the mine.

The shelling outside the mine lasted for an unknown period of time—perhaps an hour, perhaps two.

When the artillery fire finally stopped, a group of Lusha soldiers, who had been trapped deep inside the mine and dared not move, were trembling with fear and completely at a loss.

Finally, it was the militarily experienced Blyukher who suggested: "Brother Voroshilov, send your men out to scout. If the enemy attacks, let's see if we can hold them off from the mine..."

Voroshilov hesitated for a moment, but finally gritted his teeth and led his men out of the cave to observe.

However, he observed for a long time but did not return. Blücher and the others inside the cave grew uneasy, thinking Voroshilov had been killed by a stray bullet.

Half an hour later, Blyuher, unable to contain himself any longer, hobbled to the cave entrance, leaning on his crutch and his pirate-style wooden prosthetic leg, which had just been fitted with a piece of wood.

When he saw that Voroshilov and the others were still alive and well, he couldn't help but complain about why they hadn't gone back to the cave to report:
"What happened? Did the enemy finish their artillery preparations but didn't launch an attack? Why didn't you go back and report?"

Voroshilov swallowed hard, pursing his dry, sticky lips, and said, "The enemy seems to have finished their counterattack—they seem to have bypassed the mining area, bypassed us from the east and west, and directly penetrated behind us."

As he spoke, he pointed down at the enemy's movements in the distance. Because the mine was high up, the view was excellent, and they could clearly see that the enemy had already divided their forces and circled around the mountain.

Moreover, they could clearly see two unexpected situations:

First, it wasn't just the Krivorod mining area that was bypassed by the enemy in just a few hours; the entire city of Krivorod was bypassed by the enemy.

The enemy had no intention of fighting another street battle; they simply infiltrated and surrounded both the mining area and the city, turning them into a dumpling-like encirclement.

Secondly, Voroshilov and Blyukher clearly saw that only a very small number of the troops in this counter-offensive were Demanians, while the main force was actually composed of Austrian army troops!

Weren't the troops that fought them before only small numbers of Demacian soldiers? Why are Austrians being sent in as well? Aren't Austrians just there to fill in the gaps?

But they no longer had the chance to answer these questions. Soon after, the enemy completely surrounded them and sent several Austrian officers under the guise of negotiation to make peace. They said that the Lusa army guarding the mine was already surrounded, and even if the mine was sturdy enough to withstand artillery fire, they would eventually be surrounded and destroyed. So they hoped that the Lusa army would be sensible and surrender as soon as possible.

Originally, the officers and soldiers of Lusa were very resistant to surrendering to the Austrian army, which was a weak and insignificant force, and felt that it would damage their sense of honor.

But with the situation developing like this, there's no time to worry about saving face.

After careful consideration, Blyukher and Voroshilov led several battalions of mine survivors down the mountain to surrender to the enemy.

Voroshilov was somewhat unwilling to accept defeat and wanted to use the opportunity of surrender to get an answer, so he pressed one of the Austrian commanders who had captured them for answers:
"You're from the Austrian 3rd Army? Weren't we fighting the Demandian 6th Army before? Where are they? Did they look down on us so much that they sent you to fight?"

"Behave yourselves!" The Austrian commander, sensing the contempt in the enemy's words, was also furious and gave them a few elbow strikes to make them behave.

Then, considering that everything had already happened and there was nothing to keep secret, the Austrian commander arrogantly said, "Do I need the Demanian 6th Army to deal with you?"
The main force of the 6th Army has gone to the east and is already launching a counterattack on your eastern defenses! The main force of the German 10th Army has also gone to the west and is launching a counterattack on your western defenses!

Our Austrian 3rd Army is responsible for the central front; we're content with pushing forward against you on the front lines! I've heard that our main elite forces on both the eastern and western fronts are equipped with mysterious weapons as vanguards. You're doomed this time!

Blyukher and Voroshilov were both bewildered, unable to understand what the enemy was boasting about—was it the armored vehicle they had seen recently?

If it's just an armored vehicle, it's still powerful, but it's not exactly mysterious.

But these issues are no longer their concern.

These troops have laid down their arms and become the first units to surrender en masse in this German-Austrian counter-offensive.

The initial collapse of the Lusa army did not come from the pincer movement on the east and west fronts, but rather from the very middle of the entire battle line, where the Lusa people had originally launched the fiercest counterattack. They simply couldn't catch their breath and were overwhelmed.

The city of Krivorrog, as well as the entire mining area, was recaptured by the German and Austro-Hungarian forces within half a day of the start of the battle. Three Russa Divisions located there were annihilated, two of which were decimated by artillery fire, then surrounded and infiltrated by enemy forces, and finally surrendered.

There was no struggle whatsoever; the morale of the troops had completely collapsed.

Meanwhile, Lelouch himself, along with Rommel and his tank division, was making a rapid northward advance on the easternmost front of the entire battlefield.

(End of this chapter)