Starting with the smashing of Dunkirk

Chapter 211 The Five Dogs Alliance Kills Only Three
December 31, 1915, 7 p.m.

The last 20-plus Allied troops of Tekielda, after mutiny and killing Commander-in-Chief Ian Hamilton, finally surrendered to the Demacian army, along with an Italian general.

To avoid an accidental clash, the Italian general first informed Lelouch of his intention to surrender via a telegram in plain text.

Only then did they send men carrying white flags across the standoff zone between the two armies, trudging through the cratered ground riddled with artillery fire, to the Demanian command post.

"General Luigi Capello, Commander-in-Chief of the Italian Expeditionary Force and Acting Commander-in-Chief of the United Expeditionary Force, surrenders on behalf of the Expeditionary Force to the esteemed General Demania," General Luigi Capello stated respectfully.

In fact, just four months ago he was only a lieutenant general, but because of his good performance in the Gallipoli campaign, which broke through the Ottoman defenses that the Britannians could not break through on several occasions, while the other troops and generals in Italy performed too poorly, he was promoted to general on the spot.

If Demacian colleagues heard about this, they would be green with envy—just because they are in a weak country, just because their colleagues perform worse and are only promoted because of the contrast with their peers, or simply because their peers are always wiped out and make room for them, those who don't perform too badly can often get promoted.

In a military power like Demacia, even the worst peers don't stand out much, making promotion incredibly difficult.

“Lelouch Ritter von Hunt, Chief of Staff of the 6th Demanian Army and Commander of the 'Greater Demania' Panzer Training Division, on behalf of the German 6th Army and the Austrian 3rd Army, accepts your surrender.”

Lelouch gave a brief statement and had the military photographer take a few pictures, which was considered the end of the procedure.

However, Lelouch didn't have time to build such a large prisoner-of-war camp to accommodate so many prisoners, so he let the prisoners continue to live in his own camp.

The Demacian army simply ceased fire and stopped bombarding them, giving them two weeks to hand over all their weapons. Only after verification were they truly taken over, fed, and given jobs.

This buffer period can save a lot of trouble. Firstly, the remaining troops in the encirclement will definitely have enough military rations for two weeks. Letting them go to work after two weeks will also avoid the need to transport the rations again.

At the same time, due to the large number of wounded and sick soldiers, a large-scale epidemic has broken out in the Allied forces. Lelouch does not want these people to bring the disease to the attackers, nor does he want to give them sulfonamide drugs on a large scale to treat their wounds and infections.

Let them stay for two weeks. Their wounded and disabled soldiers will naturally die from lack of medical care and medicine. The existing corpses should be burned and the ashes buried as soon as possible to cut off the source of infection. Those who have been infected but are still dormant will be exposed by then.

Only after sanitation conditions improve will Lelouch take in those who are truly safe and useful.

Ultimately, according to actual statistics, of the 430,000 troops in the Tekielda encirclement, 80,000 died on the first day of the breakout attempt, and another 63,000 perished on the last day. Adding up all the losses during the breakout attempt, a total of 180,000 died.

So when Luigi Capello decided to surrender, there were only 25 men left in the encirclement, tens of thousands of whom were wounded or sick.

Lelouch ordered them to isolate and burn the wounded on their own, and by the time they finally passed the safety inspection and were accepted on January 15, there were only 190,000 people left. Another 60,000 died from worsening injuries or infection, or were infected by the plague.

Meanwhile, the Burgh army outside Hunter Weston's encirclement lost all of its 40,000 men in an attempt to rescue its allies, plus the 13,000 men of the Burgh 8th Army, for a total loss of 53,000.

General Edmund Allenby's troops, recalled from Greece, suffered 4.5 casualties while rescuing friendly forces.

The combined losses from these three parts brought the total number of troops lost by the Burkina Faso coalition to 52.8. Adding the more than 5 naval officers and sailors and civilian boatmen, the total number of casualties reached 53.3.

Of the army of more than 65, only 13 escaped, and 53 were wiped out, including a total of 34 deaths (including wounded and disabled soldiers and those who died from plague), and 19 survivors who were captured.

Before Lelouch arrived, the Gallipoli Campaign had been going on for three and a half months, from August to December. The total casualties and deaths from disease in the first three and a half months amounted to about 200,000, and the navy also lost tens of thousands of men.

Ultimately, including the entire Ottoman-Greek war that lasted four and a half months from mid-August to the end of December, the Allied forces deployed a total of 960,000 troops (including 300,000 Italians), of which 210,000 returned, resulting in a loss of 750,000.
Of these, the Bretonnian home army deployed a total of 25 troops, of which 14 escaped and 11 were killed or wounded.

Of the remaining 60, the Italians lost 27, with 6 escaping. The Canaanites lost 10, the ANZACs lost 20, and the Indians lost 7.

Apart from the Britannians and Italians who managed to escape back, the Canaanites, ANZACs, and Indian legions were all completely wiped out; not a single survivor returned.

This also shows how little the Bretonnians regarded the colonial troops as human beings. Whenever danger arose, they would send their own troops first, leaving the colonial cannon fodder to die or cover the rear.

After this battle, the ANZACs were completely crippled.

These two lackeys didn't have many people to begin with. In 1915, the two countries together had less than 6 million people. Since the start of the war, they have killed a total of 600 people for their colonial master, accounting for 34% of the national population and 11.5% of the male population.

这俩货20~40岁男性人口一共是117万人，死了34万占到该年龄段男人的30%。

With the war resulting in such annihilation, even the best dogs were unwilling to fight for their masters, and voices of refusal to serve the overlord's army arose in both regions. Subsequently, throughout the entire World War, the Five Dogs Alliance was reduced to only three dogs.

……

Lelouch was a very busy man, and he did not have time to stay in Istanbul until all the prisoners had been received and settled.

He only spent a few days planning and confirming that the enemy had handed over their main weapons before ordering his troops to rest and regroup on the spot, awaiting further orders.

He himself took the train back to the north, along with his armored division, hoping to expand their gains in the Kievan Rus' plains.

At the same time, he also needed to rush to Kiev to meet with Marshal Rupprecht, firstly to report on his work, and secondly to learn about the details of the final battle results within the Kiev encirclement. He also needed to accept the Duke's rewards.

He set off by train on January 5 and arrived in Kyiv on the 7th. Because it was already late, he rested for a night before paying his respects to the Duke early the next morning.

Duke Rupprecht was delighted to see him return and showed him several of the latest battle reports. These reports were not yet public or formally concluded, so they remained classified. The Duke planned to submit them after he had reviewed them.

Lelouch then took a quick look.

Ultimately, within the encirclement of Kyiv, a staggering 102 million Russa troops chose to surrender!
Before they were surrounded, there were at least 130 million people in the circle.

Therefore, the final results were roughly as follows: the entire Southwestern Area Army had a total remaining strength of 157 million men (including various reserve recruits) before the start of the campaign in November.

Of the 24 who fled from Kharkiv, Poltava, Kyiv and other places before the encirclement was completed, 133 million were besieged. Later, a total of 31 died in battle, from wounds and disease, and 102 million were captured.

整个西南方面军一共5个集团军，其中第13和第9方面军逃出去小半个集团军，第7集逃出去不到1个军。全部突围人员加起来，不足1个满编集团军规模。

Therefore, it was equivalent to nearly annihilating the entire army group, which is equivalent to a little over 4 army groups.

Furthermore, the aforementioned results only begin in November, after the Demanian tank forces were deployed into the battle. They do not include the results achieved in September, when the Demanian army had just begun to be equipped with armored vehicles, during its initial advance from the Crimean Peninsula south of Kievan Rus' towards Zaporizhzhia, Dnipro, and Donbas.

From September to early November, in the steppes south of the Dnieper River, in the Donbas region, Lusa's army suffered a total of 650,000 casualties.

After the Southwestern Front surrendered on December 25, in the last few days of 1915, the Demanian army continued to attack the entire Belgorod region, the southern half of Kursk, the southwestern corner of Voronezh, and other places, annihilating tens of thousands of enemy troops. There was not much fighting in this area, mainly fighting against the troops that had broken out and escaped to the area, and the main focus was on territorial expansion.

Adding both phases together, from the beginning of September to the end of December, the total number of casualties suffered by the Luzar army was 133 million plus 650,000, plus tens of thousands more in Belgorod and Kursk, bringing the total number of soldiers killed to a staggering 203 million!

In other words, the entire German 6th Army, most of the German 10th Army, the Austrian 3rd Army responsible for supporting them, the Austrian 5th Army responsible for filling in the gaps, plus the Ottoman troops in the Gallipoli sector.

These armies, throughout the second half of 1915 in the southeastern theater of war, achieved the annihilation of 203 million Russa troops and 75 Bouyini troops, totaling 278 million Allied troops.

而在1915年上半年的时候，他们在喀尔巴阡-戈尔利采等地的战役中（匈牙利战役），可是歼灭过协约军171万人的（露军77万、塞军78万、罗马尼亚军16万。罗马尼亚军后来弃暗投明了）
Therefore, adding the first and second halves of the year together, the total number of Allied troops killed on the Southeastern Front in 1915 was 450 million. Of these, 258 million died (including those who died from wounds and illness), and 192 million were captured (70 in the first half of the year, 102 million in Kiev, and 19 million in Gallipoli).

Such a great achievement, even if only a tiny fraction can be attributed to Lelouch, will certainly require a major overhaul of his promotion, title, and position.

After reading the battle report, Lelouch did not feel that anything needed to be adjusted, and suggested that Duke Rupprecht simply report the facts as they were.

Lelouch only had some opinions on the subsequent handling of spoils and the reporting of captured items, hoping that the Duke would be prudent and not hand over too much stuff, so this part could be put aside for now and the data could be processed later.

The Duke understood, knowing that Lelouch was acting for the country, not for himself, and to avoid misallocation of resources, he didn't say anything more.

After the telegram reporting the achievements was sent to Berlin, Emperor Wilhelm was overjoyed and immediately bestowed honors upon Duke Rupprecht, while the honors for the others would need to be calculated and discussed later.

Emperor Wilhelm ordered the General Staff to expedite the process of awarding Field Marshal Rupprecht the Grand Iron Cross!

In the first half of the year, the first marshal of the Empire to receive the Grand Iron Cross in this World War was Marshal Leopold, the second uncle of Duke Rupprecht.

Later in the latter half of the year, Field Marshal Mackensen achieved a series of great victories in the Baltic Sea, including the complete annihilation of the Russa Baltic Fleet and even the forced surrender of the Baltic Fleet's two most powerful capital ships, the flagship "Sevastopol" and Baltic Fleet Commander-in-Chief Admiral von Essen. Therefore, Mackensen became the second field marshal to win the Grand Cross of the Iron Cross during World War II.

Now that New Year's Day 1916 has passed, the first wave of the Grand Iron Cross awards for 1916 is finally about to begin.

Marshal Leopold and Marshal Mackensen, who were previously awarded the Grand Iron Cross in the Earth dimension, were among the five recipients. The other three recipients in the Earth dimension were the Emperor himself, Marshal Hindenburg, and Admiral Rodendorff. Generally, in later rounds of awards, to maintain balance, some consolation prizes would be given, including the one the Emperor gave to himself.

Therefore, given Lelouch's butterfly effect, the Emperor also felt the need to balance things out this time. Ultimately, out of a desire to smooth things over, the Emperor issued four Grand Iron Crosses at once: one for Marshal Rupprecht, one for the Emperor himself, one for Chief of the General Staff General Falkenhayn, and one for Marshal Hindenburg.

Marshal Rupprecht, as the top commander of the various battles on the Southwestern Front in the second half of the year, was undoubtedly the recipient of the Grand Iron Cross, ranking first in this round. After all, his second uncle, as the top person in charge of the Southeastern Front in the first half of the year, had already won it.

The remaining three were just incidental. The emperor felt he should also be included in this wave; otherwise, if the leaders of other states within the empire received the Great Iron Cross while the King of Prosen and Emperor of the empire did not, it would be difficult to justify his lack of prestige.

As for Chief of the General Staff Falkingham, in the Earth dimension, his great achievements on the Eastern Front came too late, and he himself had already made a mess at Verdun, so his merits and demerits canceled each other out before he could receive the Great Iron Cross. In this dimension, the Western Front had not yet reached Verdun, and before his merits on the Eastern Front were punished on the Western Front, Falkingham managed to get one.

Hindenburg, on the other hand, is a figure of factional balance. He was touted as a war hero by the Reich's propaganda department for too long at the beginning of the war, so it's somewhat unreasonable that he hasn't been given a chance to shine even in the third round. Although his performance on the Eastern Front this year was merely steady and methodical, that was because he wasn't allocated many resources. He didn't get any troop replenishment or new weapons; you can't make bricks without straw.

However, Hindenburg's chief of staff, General Rodendorff, was not so lucky. He was part of the third wave in the Earth dimension, but not in this dimension.

I guess I'll have to wait and compete with young people like Lelouch from now on.

When Rodendorff heard that he was not among the members of the Grand Iron Cross, he felt quite resentful and had the idea of ​​having a good competition with Lelouch.

In any case, the total number of Great Iron Crosses in this world so far has become 6 due to Lelouch's butterfly effect.

World wars could continue for a long time, and a new Great Iron Cross might even emerge in the future—who knows?

After dealing with Duke Rupprecht's Great Iron Cross, it was time for the Duke to bestow honors upon Lelouch.

(End of this chapter)