Starting with the smashing of Dunkirk

Chapter 200: No one can escape

"Da da da~"

On an unnamed field along the Kyiv-Poltava railway, the sound of MG08 heavy machine guns came from all directions, weaving into a loose net of fire that swept down wave after wave of Rusa infantrymen who were trying to break out.

The crimson blood flowed and mingled, turning into fertilizer for the winter wheat that had just been planted a little over a month ago.

The Demacian machine gunners had almost completely locked their triggers, wishing they could leave fingerprints on them, but the enemy continued to try to break through the defenses.

This scene unfolded on the morning of December 8th, the day after the encirclement of Kyiv was completely closed, in an unnamed field dozens of kilometers west of Poltava.

The encirclement has been completed, but the temporary defenses are still very loose, and the trenches have not been fully dug. For now, there are only some short sections of makeshift trenches that cannot be connected, and some scattered foxholes.

The Demacians have a considerable total force, but to deploy along the more than 200-kilometer-long northern blockade line, even if they threw in nearly 200,000 men from almost half an army group, they would only have a few hundred men per kilometer of position.

In other words, if you put it in terms of 3 to 4 companies per kilometer, that would be about seven or eight heavy machine guns and two or three 77mm field guns.

每公里都分不到1门105或是150毫米榴弹炮——当然实际作战时，也不可能把火炮一门门单放在防线上，而是会把每5~10公里防区内的炮群集中起来，构成一个8~12门火炮的炮兵营阵地集中使用。

Wherever enemy troops broke out or the defending troops needed to call for artillery support, the artillery would use its range advantage to concentrate its fire.

The Lusha people, who were trying to break out, could unite all their forces into one and concentrate their efforts to break through.

Therefore, even though the Demacians had an absolute advantage in terrain, could use their pre-set heavy machine gun positions to fire wildly and kill the enemy, and could also call in a small amount of artillery fire, they still could not stop the Lusa soldiers from rushing over from the weak points of the defense line.

For example, at this very moment, the Demanian army defending this stretch of defensive line several kilometers wide consisted of only one infantry regiment. Meanwhile, the Lussa, attempting a breakout, had concentrated an entire corps, or even more. They had amassed and moved under cover of night, avoiding reconnaissance, and launched their breakout just before dawn.

The Demacians didn't have time to concentrate their forces to block the breach. Even though they inflicted more than 20 times the casualties by relying on their absolute advantage in terrain and firepower during the fierce battle, a portion of the Lusa people still managed to break through.

The fierce battle to break out lasted for a full three hours. The Demacians suffered more than 400 casualties, while the Lusa suffered over 3 casualties. Several thousand more successfully broke out, and many more were about to rush out.

Just as the battle to block the pass reached its most intense moment, a rumbling sound finally came from the west side of the battlefield.

Upon hearing this voice, the Demacian defenders, who were already parched and struggling to hold on, were immediately invigorated and their fighting spirit soared.

"It's Commander Lelouch's tank unit coming to reinforce us! Brothers, hold on! Kill all the Russa people back!" The Demanian commander in charge of guarding this section of the defense immediately shouted the order, and officers at all levels also stepped up the charge, urging the soldiers to fight to the death.

Dozens of tanks finally arrived at the battlefield at a speed of over 15 kilometers per hour, their engines running at full speed and almost overheating.

In early December, the area north of Lusha may have already cooled down and frozen over. However, the black soil plains of Kievan Rus' are relatively further south, and the weather is warmer. It is unlikely to freeze over until at least the middle of December, and if you are unlucky, it may not freeze until late December.

This means that the muddy period of early winter this year will not be completely over until then.

The water in the black soil plains of Kievan Rus' could not be completely drained. The mud caused by the autumn rains did not end when the water was drained, but when it froze.

Until the mud completely clears, tanks will be somewhat slow traveling on such low-lying, flat terrain, reaching a maximum speed of 15 kilometers per hour. Armored vehicles will be even slower, probably less than 10 kilometers per hour.

As the tank formation arrived, the dense machine gun fire from the rooftops quickly swept down thousands upon thousands of Lusha soldiers.

Moreover, tanks are not limited by fixed positions; they can be deployed to wherever there is a crisis. They can block the enemy at near-face-to-face distance and launch a fierce attack on the breaking-out enemy group within 200 meters.

The Lusa people were finally routed and completely abandoned any attempt to escape, scattering in all directions like a tide.

Such scenarios occurred at least several times on December 8th, and not every location could receive timely support from mobile units.

In total, at least tens of thousands of people escaped, but far more were killed during the breakout.

Tens of thousands of Lusa soldiers were severely wounded, and the Demacians did not have enough medical resources to treat these die-hards who were determined to break out. So they were left to lie on the battlefield and fend for themselves.

……

The breakout and encirclement battles that took place throughout December 8th went relatively smoothly.

Never before in the history of human warfare had such a large encirclement been formed, and there were many new problems that were encountered for the first time.

Lelouch, along with von Burke, Rommel, and other commanders of the mobile forces, adapted to changing circumstances and used their strengths to improve their tactics as they learned.

At the same time, Lelouch, considering the overall situation, suggested that the army group commander, Duke Rupprecht, negotiate with the Austrians to urge the Austrian 3rd Army, which was assisting in the operation, to step up its efforts and accelerate the offensive from the south.

Judging from the strength of the Lusha people's breakout, it was only at this point that they belatedly realized they had almost all drawn their main force to the north, leaving the south quite vulnerable.

Therefore, the Austrian army, which was originally locked in a stalemate with the incompetent French army, should have launched a full-scale offensive in order to quickly compress the enemy's living space and shrink the encirclement.

Only when the encirclement becomes smaller can the number of troops used for the siege be reduced, allowing manpower and equipment to be freed up in large quantities, and the defense line to become increasingly robust.

Duke Rupprecht adopted the suggestion after hearing it.

Originally, he didn't want the Austrian army to suffer too many losses, so he never allowed them to launch deep offensive campaigns, at most advancing only twenty or thirty kilometers along the control line before stopping. Now that the situation has changed, the Austrian army naturally has to adjust accordingly.

……

That evening, along the southern line between Krivorrog and Sofievka,
Lieutenant General Hermann Kusmanek von Burgnøystadt, who had just taken command of the Austrian 3rd Army before this battle, quickly issued orders to his troops to prepare for a general offensive the next day after receiving orders from Field Marshal Rupprecht, an ally, and from Chief of Staff Lelouch.

That's right, this Lieutenant General Herman Kusmanek is the same general who, more than half a year ago, held the Przemeshir Fortress until he ran out of ammunition and food before being ordered to surrender, and was later rescued from the Lviv prisoner-of-war camp by Lelouch.

Along with him, over 4 Demanean Austrian prisoners of war and over 4 Bohemian prisoners of war were also rescued. These rescued soldiers later became subordinates of Lelouch and Lieutenant General Karl, forming an independent corps outside the regular German 6th Army. Lieutenant General Kusmanek even served as the commander of this independent corps for a time before being replaced by Karl Ludbert.

Later, some of the elite Demacians were used by Lelouch to form the "Greater Demania" Armored Training Division.

However, as Lelouch took command of that unit for longer and was promoted to brigadier general, he became more confident in directly implementing commands and no longer needed the assistance of the unit's original leaders.

However, Lelouch was always kind to people, so through Marshal Rupprecht, he suggested to the Austrian General Staff that before this battle, Kusmaneke be returned to the Austrian army and appointed as the commander of the Austrian 3rd Army, which could be considered a promotion for Kusmaneke.

He was able to hold the Przemeshir fortress for more than half a year, fighting to the death without yielding. He can be considered a resolute and courageous general among the Austrian army generals, and he was perfectly capable of managing a main army group.

Because the Austrian army's military strength was really not very useful, and they relied almost entirely on the Demanian army on the battlefield, and Marshal Rupprecht's prestige was growing, even the Austrian Emperor did not dare to reject his suggestion. In the end, the Austrian General Staff went with the flow and agreed to the matter.

Lelouch also took this opportunity to plant a bigger mole in the Austrian army, which can be seen as laying the groundwork for the division of spoils after the war.

He needs more pro-German figures in the future Austrian military leadership so that they can work together in the face of future turmoil.

Lelouch was Kusmanek's savior, having personally rescued him from the prisoner-of-war camp. If he were to further reward Kusmanek with merit, elevating him to the highest ranks of the Austrian army, Kusmanek would surely repay the favor in the future. To help Kusmanek quickly familiarize himself with the troops, Lelouch persuaded Marshal Rupprecht before the battle to reassign the more than 20,000 Hungarian prisoners of war who had been trained and reassigned to the Austrian 3rd Army, ensuring Kusmanek would have sufficient loyal subordinates upon taking command.

As for the Demanian and Bohemian soldiers he rescued, they obviously couldn't be returned; they were already Lelouch's core group. The reason the Hungarian soldiers could be returned was because they were rescued in the Carpathian region during the final stages of the Hungarian campaign, not by Lelouch himself, making it easier to do him a favor.

As for Kusmanek's own position, he was also eager to prove himself again, so as soon as he received the order to attack, he was very excited and eager to contribute.

……

With Kusmanek launching an attack on the southern front, the area of ​​the encirclement shrank rapidly within just two or three days.

Before the offensive, the Austrian 3rd Army's front in the Dnieper Bend region was maintained along the Krivorog-Sofyvka railway line, which extended eastward all the way to Dnieper.

On December 9th and 10th, Kusmanek made a breakthrough of several dozen kilometers.

The Lussars had almost completely withdrawn their troops from the southern front, and the remaining rearguard were demoralized. Caught off guard by the Austrian army's sudden and resolute attack, the Lussars suffered two entire corps of rearguard units that were subdivided, encircled, annihilated, and surrendered within two days.

On December 10th, Kusmanek's third installment of the campaign advanced to the Kremenchuk-Klopivnitsky line—for those unfamiliar with these place names, it can be roughly understood that Kusmanek pushed the battle line to the railway line that would later connect Poltava to Chisinau, the capital of Moldova.

In other words, the southern front was pushed forward by more than 80 kilometers, occupying all the areas where the enemy was vulnerable, and the entire encirclement was cut from a trapezoid to a triangle.

The shortest side of the trapezoid was cut off, and the two points on the top of the trapezoid were originally Poltava and Dnipro. After Kusmanek pushed for two days, Dnipro had become the rear area.

The Russian army was eventually squeezed into a triangular area with Kyiv-Poltava-Uman as its apex, and the area within the encirclement was reduced from more than 3 square kilometers to more than 2 square kilometers.

……

While Kusmanek was rapidly squeezing out enemy-occupied territory on the southern front, Lelouch and von Bock were also busy on the northern front.

On December 9th and 10th, the blockade battle on the northern front also showcased many new tactical innovations.

After the Lusa's breakout attempt on the 8th was unsuccessful and dragged on for too long, and they were driven back by the Demacians who used mobile forces to reinforce them at any time, they learned their lesson and began to devise countermeasures.

That evening, after General Plevee and Lieutenant General Misoilo conducted a sand table simulation of breakout tactics, they decided to have the frontline breakout troops deploy heavy artillery ahead of time at night, in order to create a breach in the enemy's blockade line using heavy artillery.

During the breakout battle on the 8th, the Lussa people did not make much use of artillery, not because they did not want to use it, but because they did not have time to deploy it.

Artillery positions in this era required at least half a day to deploy before they could be used; they couldn't be deployed immediately upon request. Furthermore, large-scale artillery concentrations made it easy for the enemy to anticipate and predict the breakout direction. Fearing exposure, the Lushar people had no choice but to use light infantry for their breakout, resulting in heavy casualties.

Having learned their lesson, the artillery began to assemble before midnight on the 8th, choosing the western outskirts of Rubna, a small town along the railway line between Poltava and Kyiv, as their planned breakthrough point.

Then, in the middle of the night, they rushed to gather the field artillery of several armies, and took advantage of the few hours before dawn to urgently deploy artillery positions, and finally began artillery preparation half an hour before dawn on the 9th.

As expected, the Demacian forces on the opposite side did not have time to concentrate their forces in a targeted manner. Faced with the enemy's local artillery advantage, the line-filling troops had no choice but to abandon the first line of trenches, retreat across the railway line, and retreat to the second temporary trench behind them. They also frantically dug additional foxholes on the spot.

Half an hour later, the Lusha people launched their attack as the first rays of dawn broke.

Because their defensive depth was greatly compressed, the Demacians' defensive lines were quickly brought to the brink of collapse.

The day before, the Lusa people had been engaged with them for three whole hours before they barely managed to break through, and then it dragged on until armored reinforcements arrived to save the day, causing the Lusa side to fail at the last minute.

The Lussa people are now preparing their artillery overnight, concentrating their firepower in an attempt to achieve a swift victory. General Pleve estimates that they can break through the defenses in a little over an hour, and the tanks probably won't arrive in time.

However, just when General Pleve thought he was about to succeed, a new turn of events quickly shattered his illusions.

A faint buzzing sound came from the sky; it turned out that dozens of Demacian fighter-bombers had arrived.

In the past two days, after the Demacian army closed the encirclement, Chief of Staff Lelouch ordered the engineers to work overtime to build a field airfield with a temporary runway on the front line, and also transferred a batch of aircraft and ammunition from the rear.

With a limited number of aircraft, and the small size of air forces in various countries during this era, coupled with their limited payload, aircraft were unlikely to cause significant damage to large infantry formations.

However, it can be extremely effective in suppressing hastily assembled artillery groups.

The Lusa's artillery preparations before dawn had already alerted the Demacian army to their breakout direction.

Although this offensive would be much faster, and the tanks probably wouldn't be able to arrive in time, the planes would. Ground crew made urgent preparations before dawn, and took off with the first rays of sunlight. In less than half an hour, they located the artillery groups that the Lusa people had deployed behind the defensive line at night.

Then a barrage of 5-kilogram bombs and machine gun fire followed, briefly silencing the Lusa people's artillery fire.

While cannons are difficult to destroy directly, artillery casualties are enough to prevent the Russa from restoring their firing efficiency for an hour or two. This time difference is sufficient for armored vehicles to arrive on the battlefield as reinforcements.

Ultimately, General Pleve's latest attempt to break out was also thwarted.

Moreover, after the depletion of resources in these two battles, a large number of the most determined core members of the Lusa people who had the strongest desire to break out were lost, and most of the survivors no longer had that kind of spirit.

The total area of ​​the encirclement is shrinking at a rate of 10-20% per day.

With each passing day, the troop density along the Demacian blockade line could increase by another ten percent. The further time goes on, the slimmer the Lussa's hopes of breaking out become.

Even more critically, Lelouch, having learned from his mistake, offered Duke Rupprecht a new suggestion after the battle on December 9th.

That means starting from the 10th, we need to increase the depth of our aircraft reconnaissance in the open-air control area every day, by at least 50 kilometers.

Previously, due to insufficient numbers of reconnaissance aircraft and the ongoing construction of temporary airfields, the reconnaissance coverage area was too small, which is why the enemy artillery cluster was not detected in advance.

With increased reconnaissance depth, the Lussa's artillery could not be transported and moved over long distances overnight. Therefore, as soon as there was a slight tendency to concentrate, the Demacian army could immediately issue an early warning and predict the enemy's possible general breakout direction in advance.

In this way, the advantage of concentrated local artillery like that of the Lusa 9 would no longer exist.

Sure enough, on December 10, General Pleve tried again in a different location, but he ran into a brick wall and lost another artillery group.

The remaining Lusha troops inside the encirclement were unable to even muster their artillery, thus completely extinguishing any hope of breaking out.

The morale of the troops was at its lowest point. Voices of not wanting to fight anymore and only wanting to surrender to save their lives spread more and more among Lusa's army, and eventually even reached the ears of General Plevey, the army commander.

Even General Pleve himself was completely shaken.

(End of this chapter)