Imperial Elite

Chapter 132 Bloodbath in Rhineland
Although he received news that the vanguard had defeated the Teutonic forces, Joe was still unable to relax.

The core problem remains that Joe has too few troops. Although the distance to Rhineland is much closer than last time, it is still quite a distance from Bohemia to Rhineland.

Even with fighter jets carrying external fuel tanks, refueling transport planes from inside the cabin during flight is still an extreme range for them.

Now, besides hoping that the vanguard could hold out until the rest of the troops arrived, Joe also harbored a sliver of hope for Bunitania and Gaul.

Now that they have defeated the Teutonic vanguard, if even one man remains in Paris or London, any move they make at this point could bring the Teutons to a halt.

The Teutons are not yet fully armed; they are not ready for a full-scale war.

As long as there is one man in Paris and one man in London.

Before London and Paris could react, Joe could only wait for the air force to be ready to take off again and send the second batch of troops to the Rhineland.

I've already sent the people out and taken on the responsibilities I was supposed to. Now it's time for you to make your choice.

Meanwhile, in Germania, when the vanguard that had crossed the Rhine was defeated by Wagner, the head of state in the Prime Minister's office fell silent for a moment.

Before issuing the attack order, he inquired about the situation in Rhineland.

The troops that entered the Rhineland reported back that Wagner's numbers were few, only a fraction of theirs.

This is also why the head of state dared to issue the order.

But now that Wagner's forces, outnumbered, had routed the vanguard that had crossed the Rhine, the Führer realized a serious problem.

That is, although Buntania and Gaul are unlikely to react, what should they do if they cannot defeat Wagner's forces?
This fear was like a cold hand reaching out from the leader's stomach, slid down his esophagus, and choked him.

Although he considered the worst-case scenario, the leader remained remarkably calm.

Looking at the map before him, the leader gestured on it and said to the other high-ranking officials of the empire, "Don't panic. As long as the follow-up troops launch an attack, everything will be fine."

While the head of state was comforting other high-ranking government officials, in other parts of Germania, royalists, composed of former military officers and nobles, also gathered together.

As the most traditional group, the Teutons whose ancestors once crossed the border with Frederick, the royalists never liked the Führer. Although they had cooperated with him in the past, it was to get rid of that detestable, unpopular republic.

The royalists, however, did not want to get their hands dirty, so they needed a glove, a clown, to do the job for them.

What they didn't expect was that this clown would be able to achieve this level of success.

Before they could react, he had already purged almost all the opposition in the government, and even ruthlessly purged his "loyal" brown-shirt thugs in order to curry favor with the armed forces.

Now, there are almost only two paths to overthrowing this head of state: a coup or a civil war.

Both a coup and a civil war would harm this already wounded and fragile country.

Therefore, the royalists had no choice but to continue to endure.

Until the leader decided to undertake this military adventure.

Before the operation began, the Führer assured that their troops would not be hindered in any way, and that he would withdraw his troops immediately should Bonitania and Gaul send out their forces.

But now, he has ordered his troops to fight Wagner in the Rhineland, to battle Old Joe.

This completely violates the leader's original promise. This is not a military adventure; it is the prelude to war!

When they heard the news, the royalist members felt their blood run cold.

The Führer’s recklessness has brought them to the brink of war and destruction. In the past, they thought they could tolerate the Führer’s minor whims in order to restore the Teutonic Order, but now they feel they must do something.

The chance to revive the Teutonic tradition is only once. If the Führer cannot seize it, then let us do it!
At the same time in Paris, panic and anger permeated the Élysée Palace.

The Gallic commander-in-chief was furiously waving his fists in the map room.

"That madman from Bonitania! What is he trying to do? He started a war on our doorstep without even notifying us!"

Although Wagner's actions were entirely based on the Treaty of Versailles, this sudden attack without any prior notice caught the Gauls completely off guard.

They are now facing a dilemma: should they get involved?

Intervening would be tantamount to declaring war on the Teutons and paying the price for Joe's solo actions.

If we do not intervene, it will be a political and moral disaster if Jo's troops are annihilated by the Teutons right under the noses of the Gauls in the Rhineland.

The public won't care that this action was a sudden one without any warning from Joe; they will only notice that the hero who protected Paris years ago was betrayed by the government when he tried to defend peace once again. This media storm will cause the government to collapse completely.

In the current climate where a battle between the left and right is on the verge of erupting, this could very well become the trigger for riots.

Whether to send troops to provide support or remain inactive, no one had the courage to make that decision. Looking at the map before him, the Gallic commander-in-chief could only order the border troops to enter a state of maximum combat readiness so that they could respond to the situation in the Rhineland at any time.

At the same time, Jean-Pierre, who was on vacation in Paris at the time, was sent to the border. If something really happened, it would be better for the defense contractor to handle it than for the Gallic government to do so.

At this moment, no one wanted Joe to win more than the people in the Élysée Palace, so that they wouldn't have to make any further statements about it.

Outside the Élysée Palace, crowds thronged the Champs-Élysées to the gramophones in cafes, waiting for news from the Rhineland.

Meanwhile, in London's Parliament, after the initial shock, Parliament immediately questioned James about Joe's solo departure, trying to determine whether James was an accomplice of Joe.

From Buckingham Palace to Downing Street, everyone is using every means possible to try to contact Joe and get him to calm down and stop escalating the situation.

Meanwhile, like Paris, London is also unsure how to react to Wagner's renewed solo journey.

This is the most serious constitutional crisis for the coalition government of the Conservative and Labour parties.

Joe's actions amounted to openly hijacking the Bonitania government, leaving them in the same predicament as the Gauls.

Acknowledging the action?

This was tantamount to Bunitania declaring war on the Teutons.

Denying the action?

It would be tantamount to abandoning national heroes, and the government would collapse immediately.

The last time they fell out with Joe, it created a Best Party in Congress, and they couldn't imagine what would happen if something similar happened again.

Amidst the numerous thoughts and debates, no one asked what kind of support Old Joe needed. In the minds of the Britannians, Joe was the invincible war god of Britannia, and his subordinate Wagner was a low-end, unfinished version of a space knight.

Twenty years ago, Joe could kick down the Teutonics' gate; twenty years later, can Joe still not kick down the Teutonics' gate?

The only thing to do now is to calm Old Joe down and make sure he doesn't go too far, otherwise it will cause a diplomatic disaster.

In the Near East, the Luscan military government almost immediately ordered its troops on the contact line to launch an offensive against the People's Revolutionary Alliance, or at least to conduct a powerful reconnaissance mission, to keep the Alliance's attention firmly focused on the East.

We must not give them time to react in the west, and at the same time demonstrate to the Teutons through our actions the unbreakable alliance between us.

Meanwhile, the gates of the Kremlin were tightly closed, and all the top leaders of the People's Revolutionary Union were present, awaiting news from the West.

Although everyone believed that capitalism would eventually destroy itself, no one expected that this moment might come so soon.

The military has begun preparations, and if things spiral out of control, the People's Revolutionary Alliance will fire a salute to celebrate the birth of that new world.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the ocean, people on the east coast of Citizens had just gotten out of bed to start their new day. However, as they sat at the dining table reading the newspaper, news came from the radio that the Teutons had torn up the Treaty of Versailles and entered the Rhineland demilitarized zone, while Old Joe's Wagner had already airdropped into the Rhineland and was fighting the Teutons.

Time seemed to freeze across the entire East Coast. Everyone with a radio stood frozen like statues, listening to the news coming from it, unable to believe that it had actually happened.

It was only at this point that many people remembered that, in addition to being a film director, Joe was also the number one villain in Bonitania, the most dangerous man in the Old World, and the guardian of Paris.

Meanwhile, in the rising sun in the east, the navy and army raised their glasses together for the first time, both in hope that their western friend would defeat the enemy of the empire, and to celebrate that after this event, Bonitania must focus more on the west, leaving them with more room to maneuver in the east.

At this moment, the eyes of the world are focused on Rhineland, waiting to see if Old Joe, the most dangerous man in the Old World, and the undefeated legend of Britannia, can maintain his military myth this time.

At 2:40 p.m., the first batch of Teutonic troops who came to provide support gathered up the defeated remnants.

They launched an attack on the Wagner paratroopers who had already completed their defenses.

Then these motorized troops, arriving in light armor and trucks, ran headlong into a steel plate.

The Wagner Paratroopers' fierce firepower made the veteran officers in the reinforcements, who had experienced World War I, feel as if they had returned to Verdun and the Somme.

Half an hour later, the battle ended.

The National Defense Forces withdrew from the battlefield after leaving behind a trail of corpses.

However, this was not the end of the battle, although the armored forces that had just received orders to begin mobilization were still on their way.

However, the air force units that had taken off urgently had already arrived at the battlefield.

Although the Teutonic Air Force began research on ground attack aircraft three years ago, only prototypes of these aircraft are currently being tested at bases in Bavaria and the Caucasus.

Therefore, the only fighter units that have just been equipped with new monoplanes have arrived on the battlefield.

After ground troops launched smoke grenades and air force guides directed the flight squadrons.

The newly arrived fighter jets began airstrikes against Wagner's paratroopers.

Although these fighter jets could only strafe the ground with machine guns and cannons, the attack still caused considerable losses to the paratroopers.

Forty minutes later, the air raid ended.

As the Teutonic air force left the battlefield, a portion of the Teutonic follow-up forces, including more infantry such as artillery, arrived at the battlefield.

Now that the artillery had arrived on the battlefield, the Teutonic commander at the front, after inquiring about the situation on the other side from the retreating Teutonic troops, did not hesitate at all.

He immediately ordered the artillery to begin firing.

After the artillery was deployed, it opened fire on the Wagner position.

The violent explosions swept across Wagner's position. Faced with the Teutonic bombardment, Wagner's paratroopers could only huddle in foxholes, just like those unfortunate men who had crouched in trenches twenty years earlier, praying that the next shell would not land in their own foxholes.

Unlike twenty years ago, this time, in addition to praying to the Holy Father, the Holy Son, and the Holy Spirit, some people were also praying to the God-Emperor.

The heavy bombardment stopped after half an hour, partly because the infantry were ready to begin their attack.

The main reason is that the artillery units that were urgently dispatched have run out of ammunition and are now waiting for the logistics units to send more ammunition.

So after the artillery preparations, the Teutonic infantry launched another attack.

The Teutonic front commander was relatively optimistic about the attack.

As a paratrooper unit, they naturally wouldn't carry barbed wire.

For veteran officers whose memories of trench warfare are deeply ingrained, the absence of barbed wire made breaching the defenses half as difficult.

This attack is definitely going to be successful! Infantry! Charge!

Under the cover of machine guns, the Teutonic infantry began their attack, supported by armored vehicles.

Although Wagner's paratroopers did not carry barbed wire, they did carry rocket launchers.

The combination of armored vehicles and infantry still failed to break through Wagner's defenses, but the well-trained Wagner paratroopers still suffered heavy losses under the attack of the Teutonic troops with overwhelming numerical superiority, even though they had carried an excessive amount of ammunition when they set off.

However, after three rounds of fighting, Wagner's junior officers began to order the troops to conserve ammunition and started collecting ammunition and supplies from the bodies of fallen soldiers.

They even collected Teutonic weapons and ammunition to prevent a ceasefire due to lack of ammunition during the battle.

Meanwhile, the Teutonic air force continued to launch air raids against them, putting the paratroopers' defenses in grave danger.

Meanwhile, under heavy losses and immense pressure, although the arrival of the planned second wave of troops was still some time away, Wagner's commander could only resort to contacting Old Joe via radio. "The enemy offensive is fierce, we can't hold on much longer! Sir! We need reinforcements!"

Looking at the radio in his hand, Joe glanced at the flight formations outside the control tower that had completed their preparations, as well as the follow-up troops who were preparing to board.

Finally, Joe turned to look at his communications officer.

His old friend, who had been with him for many years, silently shook his head. Neither London nor Paris reacted at this moment, as if they were fighting for two imagined countries.

Joe knew that his operation had failed. Even though Wagner had reached the Rhineland and driven the Teutons back, he would still not receive support. London and Paris would not send troops to respond, nor would they even say anything. They had already made their choice.

As for relying on Wagner's airborne troops to hold the Rhineland region?
Wagner now only has one regiment capable of carrying out airborne missions, even before the Teutons expanded their army, they had a force of 70,000 men.

Wagner alone could not hold the Rhineland; it was a battle destined to fail.

If the collapse of the old world is inevitable, then at least for now, Joe wants to bring his good lads home.

Picking up the radio receiver, Joe suppressed his anger and spoke to the vanguard troops who were engaged in a bloody battle in the Rhineland.

"Hold on, kids! Reinforcements are coming soon. I'm coming to take you home!"

"Roger that, sir! We'll hold out here until the very last moment!"

"I don't need you to hold out until the very last moment! I need you to live! Be alert! Reinforcements are on their way!"

Joe put down the radio, stood up from his chair, and spoke to the commander of the second batch of paratroopers waiting behind him.

"Prepare a set of equipment for me, and I'll go with you."

"Sir?"

Joe looked at his subordinate, whose tone was now as cold as a dead man.

"I'm the one who sent them on this adventure, so I'm going to pick them up and bring them home. Get me some gear, and I'll be going with you this time!"

The commander glanced at Old Joe, said nothing more, saluted Old Joe, and then jogged away from the control tower.

Soon, the commander returned to the control tower with a set of standard paratrooper equipment, including an assault rifle and ammunition hangers.

Meanwhile, Old Joe was shaking hands with the Commander-in-Chief of the Bohemian Air Force.

"You've worked so hard this time, and you're even protecting us."

"This is our duty, and both the nation and I personally will always be grateful for everything Wagner did in the Far East."

"Thank you."

"I wish you all the best. All three escort squadrons are ready. As long as one of my lads is still breathing, you will arrive in the Rhineland safely."

After nodding to his old buddy, Joe put on his ammunition pouch, took off his NATO general's cap, put on his paratrooper helmet, picked up his rifle, and nodded to the commander of the second wave of airborne troops.

“Let’s go, let’s go and take those lads home.”

Just as Joe walked out of the control tower with his rifle and headed toward a transport plane on the runway.

A car with the Bruneian flag on its front sped into the airport and drove straight in front of Old Joe, screeching to a halt that left two black skid marks on the runway.

Before the car had even come to a complete stop, a man in a suit with impeccably styled hair jumped out and ran towards Joe.

Old Joe, carrying a rifle, recognized the man in front of him as the Bonitania ambassador to Bohemia.

“I’ve finally found you! General Joe! I have orders from London! You must cease operations immediately…”

Before the panting ambassador could finish speaking, Joe, carrying a rifle, punched him in the face, knocking him to the ground.

Then Joe gave the ambassador a cold look.

“I have fulfilled my duty, I have upheld my principles, and now no one can stop me from bringing those fine lads home. As for London…”

After snorting, Old Joe turned and spat on the ground before walking toward the transport plane.

The other Wagner members followed Joe toward the transport planes that were waiting to take off.

As Joe boarded the transport plane, the fleet's engines roared to life, and the plane began to taxi on the ground.

As the massive formation of aircraft began to take off, the Ambassador of Bonitania, clutching his swollen face, got up from the ground, ignoring the fact that he seemed to have lost a few teeth.

The ambassador from Bonitania rushed into the control tower, grabbed someone at random, and asked where the phone was.

After receiving the answer, the ambassador, ignoring the strange looks he was getting from the people in the control tower, picked up the phone and dialed the consulate's number.

"Immediately notify London! Old Joe has refused the order! He's setting off personally!"

Moments later, news arrived in London that Old Joe was personally leading the team.

The already chaotic London was now as if someone had thrown a string of firecrackers into a toilet that was already overflowing with people.

Although theoretically speaking, as long as Wagner arrived, it made no political difference whether Joe was there or not.

However, after Joe actually set off, the London side began to realize that the situation seemed to be somewhat different from what they had expected.

If things go smoothly, Joe won't need to personally lead the team to Rhineland.

Moreover, judging from the development of the Rhineland campaign, Joe's Wagner was still keeping the Teutons at bay on the east bank of the Rhine, so he had no reason to take action personally at this time.

Could it be that... his target isn't Rhineland, but Germania?!
As soon as this idea emerged, London's top brass immediately fell into chaos.

If Wagner's appearance in the Rhineland could be attributed to the constraints of the Treaty of Versailles, as Wagner, as an enforcer of the treaty, had the right and obligation to appear in the Rhineland to halt the Teutons' advance.

However, if Wagner had appeared in Teutonic territory outside the Rhineland, the nature of the matter would have been entirely different.

This is no longer about maintaining the Versailles system; it is armed aggression and an act of war.

Then a problem that had been troubling London ever since Wagner's arrival in the Rhineland was once again presented to them.

Now, Old Joe, the Empire's sharpest sword, has once again moved without orders. What should the Empire do?
London was once again thrown into chaos, with no one daring to make a judgment or a decision on the matter.

Even though some senators, including James and Winston, suggested that the Empire should immediately deploy troops to respond to Joe's actions, it would always be easier to deal with any problems after the victory.

However, Joe's past illustrious reputation has caused concern among many members of Congress, given his influence within the military.

What if troops are sent out, and those troops, under Joe's call, are not content with just driving the Teutons out of the Rhineland, but instead march into Germania?
Don't say it's impossible; he already did it once during the last major war!

Stop Joe's actions... If they could have stopped them, things wouldn't have turned out this way.

Just as London was thrown into chaos again by the news that Joe had personally gone to the Rhineland, an armored battalion and a motorized infantry battalion of the 1st Armored Division of the Wehrmacht, which had been urgently mobilized, finally arrived at the battlefield.

Just as most experienced officers in the IDF had experienced that devastating war, the commander of this armored force had also experienced it.

Even when Old Joe broke through the defenses from the north and sped toward Germania, he once watched from the roadside as Buntanian tanks roared past him.

There were people on the tank yelling at him to move aside; they didn't have time to capture him.

Now it's his turn to command the tank force.

Looking at the burning armored vehicles and the corpses scattered on the battlefield, everything from twenty years ago seemed to reappear before my eyes.

The faces that had become somewhat blurred in his memory became clear again, but this time the cold armor of the tank prevented the old officer from lingering in his memories for too long.

Looking at the burning battlefield and the air force fighter jets constantly whistling through the air as they launched their dives.

The old officer waved his hand and shouted the words he had wanted to say for a long time: "Panzer vorwrts!"

As the old officer waved his arm, the Teutonic war behemoths began to roll into the battlefield amidst the roar of engines and the scraping of metal.

Wagner's paratroopers, who had just survived the air raid, had also spotted the Teutonic armored forces preparing to launch an attack on the opposite bank of the river.

Although those square boxes looked imposing and majestic, they did not intimidate Wagner's paratroopers.

After all, in the recruit training camp, they received psychological training to overcome their fear, crouching in the trenches waiting for tanks firing blank rounds to drive past the trenches above them.

After being equipped with rocket launchers and a series of strange recoilless rifles, the paratroopers' perception of tanks became that they were nothing more than mobile fortifications that could be destroyed, even if they were somewhat troublesome, and that they were not fundamentally different from things like machine gun emplacements in trenches.

The problem was solved by approaching with a rocket launcher, finding the right angle, and firing a single shot.

Even though they have suffered heavy losses, even though they are now close to running out of ammunition and food.

But when the commander announced that the reinforcements had set off and that Old Joe would personally come to pick them up and take them home.

The remaining paratroopers were still in high spirits. No one doubted that Old Joe had lied to them. Old Joe said he would come and take them home, so Old Joe would definitely take a transport plane with his other good brothers and bring them out of here.

All they need to do now is the simplest thing: don't die before Old Joe arrives.

As the Teutonic tanks drew closer, the paratroopers, who had been unable to use their recoilless rifles due to the Teutonic artillery fire, now aimed them from their bunkers.

Those rocket launcher operators who needed to fire at close range to destroy tanks were also in their bunkers, completing their final prayers.

As the Teutonic tanks drove fully into the range of recoilless rifles and anti-tank teams' rocket launchers.

The Wagner paratroopers, who had been suppressed by the tanks' firepower all the way as they advanced, launched a counterattack.

As a rocket hit the lead tank, it slowly came to a stop after traveling a short distance. Then, as the hatch opened, several crew members, their bodies ablaze, climbed out of the vehicle.

Before they could even fully exit the vehicle, a hail of bullets left them forever trapped on the tank.

As the recoilless rifle crews opened fire, the armored units, realizing that Wagner still had the ability to retaliate, also began to return fire.

At the same time, as the Teutonic tanks began to fire short bursts, the anti-tank soldiers at the forefront of the position suddenly poked their heads out from their bunkers, holding rocket launchers.

Under the cover of fire from other soldiers, he used his rocket launcher to attack the Teutonic tanks.

However, with the cover of the tanks, the Teutonic infantry also approached very close to the paratrooper defense line. After a round of grenade throwing, the Teutonic infantry launched an attack.

Beyond the fierce battlefield, journalists who valued news above their own lives braved the hail of bullets from both sides and the Teutonic artillery fire to capture the scenes of the battle.

Some quick-thinking individuals even went and bought cameras after the first round of combat.

Although the reporters who were using cameras suddenly switched to video cameras, and the footage they shot was quite shaky, they still managed to capture the video footage of the conflict.

As night approached, although Wagner's paratroopers continued to hold their positions tenaciously, their casualties were already quite severe, judging from the intensity of their counterattacks.

They even abandoned part of their positions and began to retreat.

After the failure of the first armored assault, the Teutons quickly concentrated more armored forces on the opposite bank of the river, and their engineering units began to prepare to build pontoon bridges under the cover of artillery.

It seems that this unexpected battle will end before nightfall.

Just as the reporters were marveling at how they had caught up with this big news, the roar of airplane engines filled the sky.

After witnessing repeated air raids by the Teutonic Air Force all afternoon, the reporters, upon hearing such a loud engine roar, initially thought that the Teutonic Air Force was about to launch another large-scale air raid.

But this time the situation was not quite what they had expected. With the roar of engines, some planes they had never seen before appeared in the sky and began to attack the Teutonic fighters that were attacking the Wagner paratroopers.

Meanwhile, those massive transport planes began landing on the lawns and roads near the battlefield.

All of these planes were painted with Wagner's insignia. After half a day of fighting, Wagner's reinforcements finally arrived on the battlefield.

(End of this chapter)