Starting with the smashing of Dunkirk

Chapter 206 Let the cloth dog be dominated by fear once again

On the southern front, Model and Dieter led thousands of "mercenaries" and 20,000 Greek troops in a desperate struggle to buy time.

Near the Strandja Mountains on the Bulgarian-Ottoman border in the north, Brigadier General Lelouch Ritter von Hunt had secretly deployed his armored division, along with several corps that had come with him to reinforce the southern front.
And it was hidden in the Strandja forest near Burgas, an important port city in Bulgaria.

The western third of the Bulgarian-Ottoman border is plains, forming the triangular area where Bulgaria, Austria, and Greece meet. The eastern two-thirds of the Bulgarian-Austrian border is entirely covered by the Strandja Mountains, which extend all the way to the Black Sea coast.

The Strandja Mountains are not particularly high or steep, but they cover a large area. Their northernmost point extends to Burgas, a major Bulgarian seaport, and their southernmost point reaches Kerkrarelli, an Ottoman stronghold. They are 130 kilometers long from east to west and 80 kilometers wide from north to south.

The Strandja Mountains are characterized by erosion-prone terrain. Over millions of years, the winds from the Black Sea and the rainwater and river water flowing into the Black Sea have eroded the mountains into relatively flat terrain, exposing large areas of granite and gneiss. Where there are no exposed rocks, dense primeval forests mostly cover the terrain.

Only a few narrow mountain paths wind through the dense forest, connecting places like the port of Burgas and Corclarelli—and these paths are quite famous, called "Via Pontica" in Latin, which is a transliteration of either "Via Pontica" or "Via Pontica".

Players familiar with games like "Total War: Rome" will likely recognize that in ancient Rome, there was a kingdom called "Pontus" or "Pontus" in northern Asia Minor. It was later conquered by Pompey, Caesar's political rival, and became a province of the Roman Empire.

As its name suggests, the "Ponto Avenue" was an ancient trade route connecting the Thrace region to the Ponto region.

Now that Lelouch has brought his army to this region and observed the surrounding terrain, he has decided to take advantage of the not-so-high eroded hills of Strandia, combined with the dense local forests and the ancient Ponto Road that can barely traverse the forest, to do something big.

"The terrain here is quite similar to that of Luxembourg and the Sedan Mountains on the western front. The mountains aren't particularly difficult to traverse, merely eroding hills. However, the forests are exceptionally dense, making it ideal for concealing troops and making cover during marches. Furthermore, several ancient trade routes ensure passage through the hilly and forested areas..."

After Lelouch finished surveying the terrain, the image of Manstein's yellow plan on Earth immediately popped into his head.

And later, during the Ardennes Offensive, a certain commander planned to have tanks cross the Ardennes and head straight for the port of Antwerp.

At that time, just like now, they are so similar.

Once he had a clear idea, he began to formulate a detailed battle plan: to break through the Strandja Mountains, cut all the way to the Marmara coast, and cut off all the Burgh forces besieging Istanbul (Note: see the diagram below).
As the chief of staff of the army group, Lelouch certainly couldn't do everything himself.

He himself was only responsible for grasping the big picture and delegating the small details to the main strategies, while many details had to be handled covertly by ordinary staff officers below him.

Everyone worked very hard over the past few days and produced a detailed plan that was similar in principle to the later operational plan of breaking through the Ardennes and advancing directly to Dunkirk on the Western Front.

It was simply a matter of replacing the Ardennes Mountains with the Strandja Mountains, the North Sea with the Sea of ​​Marmara, and Dunkirk, the final point of encirclement that cut to the coast, with Tekierda, an important Ottoman city on the Sea of ​​Marmara.

The other details of the plan were also well done, including that the artillery units would provide rapid and urgent fire support, and that the light infantry units, which were relatively good at mountain warfare, would take the lead to complete the initial uphill attack along the northern foothills of the Strandja Mountains.

Once the infantry achieves a breakthrough and breaks through the initial enemy mountain defense line, they can then advance rapidly into the Tekilda Plain area bordering the Sea of ​​Marmara, serving as the vanguard of the entire reinforcement force, all the way to the coast.

Meanwhile, several Demanian army commanders who came with Lelouch to reinforce the Bulgarian-Austrian border, and Lieutenant General Kusmanek, commander of the Oreo Army Group, also supported Lelouch's plan after a brief military meeting with him.

Although Lelouch was only a brigadier general, far lower in rank than the lieutenant generals, as the army group's chief of staff, many of his operational plans could still be submitted to the army group commander, Duke Rupprecht, for approval before being implemented by the respective corps commanders.

Before this trip, Duke Rupprecht himself was unable to leave, as he needed to oversee the overall situation in Kiev and complete the final encirclement and annihilation of the Southwestern Front of Russia. He thus granted Lelouch the temporary authority to act expediently.

Before the troops set off, Duke Rupprecht privately met with the several army commanders who were being transferred south and instructed them one by one that if Chief of Staff Lelouch had any contingency plans when they arrived in Bulgaria and the Ottoman theater, they should just carry them out directly, as if I had already approved them.

Unless there is a particularly urgent situation or a clear disagreement between the two parties, remote radio consultations should be conducted to minimize long-distance communication and reduce the risk of leaks.

Now, the army commanders all felt that Chief of Staff Lelouch's plan was fine and not too risky, so there was no need to make a fuss about it with the commander.

……

To ensure the surprise of the operation and to ensure that the troops would not escape before the raid, Lelouch did a lot of groundwork; it was not as simple as just making a battle plan.

How could the troops arrive in advance at the relatively hidden dense forest area on the northern slope of the Strandja Mountains and then hide themselves so that they would not be immediately discovered by the Britannians?
The army involved in the war numbered over 20, and so many people went south in batches, with the last batch and the first batch separated by as much as ten days.

How did the first troops hide themselves and evade enemy aerial reconnaissance during those ten days?

These issues all need to be addressed.

If this issue is not resolved, although it is still possible to win this battle, the results will not be significant, and a large number of enemies will be able to escape successfully.

Faced with these problems, the other corps commanders of the German 6th Army, and their staff officers who did not hold seniority, did not initially have any suitable solutions.

Fortunately, as a transmigrator, Lelouch had far more war history and intrigue material in his mind than others. He quickly came up with a wicked plan.
First, we need to instruct the Demanian National Railways to maintain the normal operation of the Southeast European railways as much as possible and not to adjust the daily railway timetables in Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria due to the addition of military trains.

Furthermore, efforts should be made to make publicly available information such as railway timetables more vulnerable to being stolen by enemy spies or agents.

Lelouch's actions were clearly inspired by some details from the events leading up to Operation Barbarossa in the Earth dimension.

There were many reasons why Stalin ultimately failed to guard against Barbarossa in the history of the Earth plane, but one of them was that he underestimated the Demacians' ability to manage railway timetables.

Stalin believed that if the Demanians were to actually move millions of troops and supplies eastward, they would inevitably have to disrupt the railway timetable to make way for these extra trains.

But the Demacians managed to "ensure that no trains ran without interruption or delay, even with 150 million extra railcars added," to the point that even Stalin's spies didn't notice the drastic change in the enemy's railway operations. Lelouch was doing the same thing today; he preferred that the reinforcements' southward advance be slower and more discreet, allowing his allies on the southern front to grit their teeth and hold on for a few more days. He wanted to ensure the reinforcements' southward advance was sufficiently discreet.

Even if the enemy anticipates his southward advance, we can at least hope that the enemy misjudges the specific timing. We can mislead the enemy into thinking that he will not fully advance south and prepare for a counterattack until after Christmas or even New Year's Day.

Lelouch mobilized more than 20 troops, along with supporting equipment and supplies, to march south. The journey covered 1100 kilometers, and not a single train on the original timetable was delayed.

Of course, this wasn't Lelouch's doing; he was just the one making the request. He made a phone call to his former superior, Lieutenant General Karl Lyudpot (who was Duke Rupprecht's younger brother), who had recently become the second-in-command at the National Railway Company.

Lieutenant General Karl Lyudpot also attached great importance to Lelouch's needs, personally instructing all levels of management to fully cooperate. The remaining work was completed by the management and frontline staff of the National Railway Company.

In short, Demagne's characteristic punctuality helped him complete this task.

……

Lelouch's second tactic to lull the enemy into a false sense of security and conceal himself was to have the 6th Army's combat reconnaissance aircraft units operate more frequently, patrolling the skies over the Strandja Mountains to intercept and kill Bulgarian reconnaissance aircraft that entered southern Bulgaria.

The main ridge of the Strandja Mountains is now in the hands of the Bujörk army. It is precisely because they control this mountain range that they think they can defend it from a strategic position, which is why they are so careless and dare to commit a large number of their main forces to the siege of Istanbul.

Otherwise, if the main ridge of this mountain range were in the hands of the Bulgarians or the Ottomans, even if General Hamilton, the commander of the Bulgarian army, had ten times the courage, he would not have dared to launch such a top-heavy and unbalanced all-out attack on Istanbul.

After the Britannians gained control of the main ridge of the Strandja Mountains, they also frequently sent reconnaissance aircraft northward to monitor military movements within the Bulgarian-controlled area.

However, their main focus of vigilance is on the plains in the western section of the former Bulgarian-Austrian border region, which is not reached by the Strandja Mountains, in the area where the three countries of Bulgaria, Austria, and Greece meet.

The Burkina Faso reconnaissance agencies did not cover the dense forests northeast of the Strandja Mountains very well. After the Demanian army intensified its fighter patrols and interception missions, Burkina Faso reconnaissance planes were repeatedly shot down. In order to reduce losses and shrink the scope of their reconnaissance area, they limited their aerial reconnaissance to the western section of the border.

From the perspective of the commander of the Bu military air force, there was clearly a gap in the plains that could be attacked, so why would anyone go through the trouble of crossing mountains and dense forests to attack?

Since the reconnaissance aircraft have been reduced to a shortage by the Demacians, it is only natural to concentrate forces and prioritize the protection of important areas.

Moreover, by concentrating reconnaissance fighters, even if they encounter enemy interception, they will at least have a fighting chance and can try to protect themselves. If they are too scattered and each is caught while carrying out a mission alone, then they will be doomed.

All these factors led the Burmese army to severely underestimate the size of the Demacian reinforcements.

They also anticipated that the Dmanians would definitely move south after completely eliminating the enemy within the encirclement of Kiev.

But I feel that things won't be that quick; it might take at least five or six days, or at most ten days.

While attacking Istanbul, the Burkina Faso army also strengthened its defenses on the northern front, but since its total forces were insufficient, the defense had to be prioritized.

The border area between the three countries of Bulgaria, Italy, and Austria is mainly plains, making it the easiest place to break through. Naturally, more than 80% of the northern defense forces were concentrated there.

In the dense forest region of the Stranja Mountains, the defensive forces only account for 20% of the total defensive forces, and can only play a monitoring role for the time being.

……

The port of Burgas in Bulgaria, December 23.

Inside the city, at the temporary command post of the German 6th Army, a detailed map showing the positions of both enemy and friendly forces was laid out in front of Lelouch.

Lelouch personally took the pointer and explained the final enemy and friendly situation to Rommel, the deputy division commander who would be in charge of the armored assault mission, Commander Kusmanek, and several other corps commanders:

"Are all units ready? If there are no problems, tomorrow night will be the time for the general offensive! We have already ascertained the approximate troop deployment of the enemy."

Since landing on the Gallipoli Peninsula in August, the enemy has deployed a total of more than 90 troops to the Ottoman-Greek theater, including more than 20 soldiers from Burkina Faso, 30 Italian troops, 20 ANZAC troops, 8 Kanna soldiers, and 15 Indian troops (including Sikh and Gurkha soldiers).
The previous three months of bloody fighting had already resulted in more than 20 permanent casualties, and in the recent two weeks of fierce fighting, they should have lost another 5 to 6 on various fronts.

The remaining total troop strength should be between 650,000 and 680,000. Of these, over 100,000 are drawn to the Greek front by Model. The total troop strength in the Bulgarian-Austrian region is estimated to be between 520,000 and 550,000.

Of these, approximately 40 are currently engaged in a major offensive towards Istanbul, launching a relentless and all-out attack regardless of the cost. Another 12 to 15 are deployed for the northern defenses or as a general reserve force.

At least 10 troops are deployed on the northern front in the western section of the plains where Bulgaria, Austria, and Greece meet. Over the past two weeks, they have dug a very deep trench network in that plain, almost matching the density of the defensive fortifications on the western front. Clearly, they had anticipated our possible southward attack and were therefore taking such a strong stance.

However, in the eastern section of the defensive line, in the dense forests of the Strandia Mountains, including near the famous Pontus Road and other mountain passes since ancient Rome, their defenses were very lax, with only a maximum of 20,000 to 30,000 or 40,000 troops spread out to monitor the front line.

而我军如今已经集结了德第6集团军的3个军、奥第3集团军的2个军，总计5个军13个步兵师，外加3个骑兵师、1个装甲师，总兵力27万人。

If the operation is sudden enough, breaking through the enemy's northern defenses should be easy. And if we can break through and cut the enemy in two, then even if their 40 troops attacking Istanbul immediately turn back to attack us, it won't be a problem!

I believe that after transitioning to a defensive posture, our 27 troops can absolutely block the breakout attempt of over 40 enemy soldiers! Even with hundreds of thousands of enemy troops providing support from behind. Everyone must have confidence; tomorrow night we will launch the general offensive as planned!

(End of this chapter)