Germany does not seek survival

As the population grew, the width of the Po River at its mouth became narrower and narrower. There was even a road through the Chioggia Peninsula on the north bank of the Po River that only required wading on foot to reach Mesola on the south bank of the Po River.

The Austrian army has been fully deployed on the north bank of the Po River. Artillery bombardment continues and the river is filled with smoke. Anyone can imagine that the Austrian army is about to launch an offensive to cross the river. The Chioggia Peninsula and Mesola are naturally regarded by the Italian army as the most important gaps in the defense line, and elite troops are deployed to guard them.

Both Britain and France have sent troops to support Italy. An Irish division of the British army arrived in Mesola this morning by an express train.

The soldiers of this division are all English immigrants from Northern Ireland. The local people are tough and warlike, and they often have friction with the Irish. They have also performed very tenaciously on the Western Front before.

A British company commander with the rank of captain was commanding his troops at the train station. Rows of British soldiers were in good order. They were indeed an elite force. Although they came from afar, they were quickly adapting to the local situation in Italy.

Austrian artillery shells rained down like heavy rain. The sound of Austrian artillery could be heard in the train station in Mesola. The British company commander frowned and spoke to an Italian reporter beside him in broken French:

"Mr. Mussolini, where exactly have the Allied forces reached? You Italians should tell the truth and not hide it from your allies."

Mussolini had a bald head. After the Italian army was defeated in the Po River last year, Mussolini returned to the front line with injuries. Because he wrote reports criticizing the Italian government's response measures, he became famous overnight and became a famous journalist.

This time, seeing the opportunity, Mussolini rushed to the front again. He had a hunch that this time the Allied attack would be different from last year.

Mussolini also spoke some French, so the British company commander and the Italian reporter communicated in French.

"Captain Alexander, don't worry. The battle line is so close. If you don't believe it, just wait until you get to the hill and use a telescope to see for yourself."

Mussolini was very excited: "We have solid intelligence that the Allied forces participating in the river crossing offensive are only Austrians, not Germans. The enemy's attack direction is scattered and their forces are not concentrated. As long as we hold our composure, we will definitely win the final victory!"

The British company commander was named Harold Alexander.

Captain Alexander was still skeptical about the Italian army's combat effectiveness, but he had a good impression of the Italian gendarmerie.

The Italian military police in the rear looked a bit like the hussars of the last century, wearing black cloaks and looking very majestic. D'Annunzio was an officer in the gendarmerie. D'Annunzio led the gendarmerie to fire their guns into the air and quickly maintained discipline in the train station.

Then, in cooperation with the British troops, they sent carloads of weapons and ammunition to the front line in an orderly manner.

All of these weapons were purchased with loans from the United States.

D'Annunzio also knew that the allies in the Entente looked down on Italy. This could not be considered a prejudice, because the precedents since the unification of Italy had not been good.

The great promise of a unified Italy of the 1860s remained unfulfilled, the country's economic growth was slow, and its few brief forays into diplomacy had ended in embarrassment, if not disgrace, such as the defeat by the Ethiopians at Adwa in 1896 and the heavy loss at the hands of the Turks in 1910.

During the war, Italy was the poorest of the great powers and had to borrow money to fight the war. Its wartime inflation level was second only to Russia.

On the front line of the war with the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Italian army was poorly equipped and poorly commanded. So far, the death toll has exceeded 600,000, and the total losses are in the millions, but the results achieved are minimal.

It is not surprising that others look down on the Italian army, but D'Annunzio feels that after last year's disastrous defeat, Italy did not collapse. Instead, the people united and showed a cohesion that had never been seen before.

There was a fire burning in D'Annunzio's heart. He always felt that he had realized a truth from the unity of the Italian people at the end of last year.

"Italy's way out lies in unity. All classes and all groups must unite. Only with the unity of all people can Italy get everything we want!"

"A good life, security, and of course—Fiume and Dalmatia!"

After the United States entered the war, US President Wilson put forward the Fourteen Points, the most important of which was the principle of national self-determination.

According to the principle of national self-determination, the ownership of the Allied lands after the war should be decided by the local people themselves through voting. However, in the port of Fiume and the Dalmatia region that the Italians wanted, the Italian population did not have an absolute majority.

If the Allies really wanted to implement US President Wilson's Fourteen Points, Italy would risk sacrificing millions of lives and not being able to obtain the port of Fiume and Dalmatia after the war.

At this time, the British were afraid that Italy would withdraw from the war, so they privately and in non-written form assured Italy that they would fulfill their obligations after the war.

But the British credit?

At least D'Annunzio felt it was unreliable.

It began to rain. D'Annunzio pulled up the hood of his gendarme's cloak and looked across at the Austrian army surging towards the Po River under the cover of puffs of smoke. He clenched his hands:

"As long as Italy is united, it will overcome the difficulties. If anyone or any country prevents Italy from taking Fiume, we must take action ourselves and seize Fiume!"

D'Annunzio had this confidence. During the collapse of the Italian army at the end of last year, he led the gendarmerie to kill people everywhere, offending many people, but also establishing a high prestige. On the front line, the name D'Annunzio was much more famous than Mussolini.

"We will win, Italy will win everything, a complete victory..."

D'Annunzio murmured to himself.

At this time, in the heavy rain, the Austro-Hungarian infantry launched an attack from the Chioggia Peninsula. There were cries of killing and rumbling of artillery, and hundreds of thousands of people soon fought together again.

Captain Alexander of the British Expeditionary Force also quickly led his troops to the front line. In a church near Mesola, Captain Alexander led the British soldiers to brave the Austrian artillery fire and quickly set up the Lewis machine gun. They placed the muzzle of the machine gun on the firing port of a small fort built with sandbags and were ready for battle.

Suddenly someone shouted, "Look, the Austrians!"

Some figures could be vaguely seen wading through the smoke and rushing over. Mussolini, a reporter who had followed the British troops to the front, vaguely realized that these people were not wearing the helmets and uniforms they were familiar with.

"Kill these bastards!"

I don't know who shouted first, then six Lewis machine guns started firing, a figure moved towards the defense line, was shot, fell down and disappeared; then another figure came... over and over again.

If this could be considered an attack, it would be ridiculous. Even Mussolini borrowed a rifle from the British army. He placed the rifle on the piled sandbags and fired indiscriminately, apparently killing or wounding several Austrian soldiers.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire's river crossing offensive was simply a disaster. The long war had weakened the Austro-Hungarian national strength. The army's equipment, ammunition, food and other supplies all relied on the spoils of last year's victory on the Po River. The weapons and equipment were aging, and the ammunition was seriously insufficient. Compared with the US aid received by the Italian army, the difference was even greater.

In addition, also because of the great victory on the Po River last year, a group of children of powerful Viennese nobles rushed to Conrad's army to gild themselves.

Under Faust's training, the Austrian 11th Army, which had barely taken on the appearance of a proper unit, began to degenerate again. The grassroots civilian officers and sergeants lacked confidence in the prospects of the war and had low morale. Not long after the battle began, an extremely serious wave of desertions reappeared, and a large number of civilian officers also deserted.

When the Austrian army was in such a state, Marshal Conrad still dispersed his troops. He adopted the strategy of dividing the troops and attacking in different directions, so that the troops in each attack direction were not enough to form a decisive breakthrough.

Not only did the Austrian army lack sufficient strength to achieve a breakthrough in the main direction, but it was also unable to effectively respond to the Italian counterattack due to insufficient manpower.

The heavy rain continued for three whole days. The rainstorm destroyed a large number of pontoon bridges on the Po River. All factors were unfavorable to the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It would be unfair for Italy to lose again!

After only five or six days of fighting, the Italian army inflicted heavy losses on the Austrian troops crossing the river in various battlefields, including Mesola. The Austro-Hungarian Empire gained nothing except tens of thousands of casualties on both sides of the Po River.

Now, the Austro-Hungarian offensive ended in a disastrous defeat, exposing its own weakness and the true combat effectiveness of the Austrian army without the assistance of the German army. The initiative fell into the hands of the Italians again.

"Trentino, South Tyrol, Trieste, Gorizia, Istria and Dalmatia! Italy wants a complete victory!"

D'Annunzio sang this slogan in the army, and Mussolini immediately wrote an article in the Italian newspaper Popular, titled "The Last Holy Unity of Italy", which quickly became popular throughout the country and was in great demand.

Beneath the tide, the Italians were ready to cross the Po River and avenge last year's defeat.

Chapter 131 Mannerheim

In mid-July 1918, the land of Eastern Europe was still ravaged by chaos. Across millions of square kilometers of land, regimes of all sizes rose and fell one after another, being established today and overthrown tomorrow. At the local level, workers in towns and cities who supported the Soviets would seize control of the cities for a while, but would be driven out by the White Army the next.

Famine continued to spread in the countryside. The Cossacks, village militia, Soviet Red Army, White Army... various forces had been engaged in a bloody and cruel civil war for several months in order to compete for food.

Lieutenant Colonel Manstein landed in Finland on a warship captured from Russia. As soon as he entered the Finnish capital of Helsinki, he saw a row of gallows on the street with more than a dozen corpses hanging from the wooden frames, probably all of them revolutionaries in the Finnish Red Army.

"The smell of blood in Helsinki is a bit strong."

Manstein couldn't help but cover his mouth and nose, but Major General Goltz, the commander of the German expeditionary force next to him, was no longer surprised.

Major General Goltz said casually, "What's the big deal? Tens of thousands of people dying in a single day on the battlefield is just a common occurrence. Haven't you seen it?"

Manstein coughed. "Ahem, a battlefield is a battlefield. Helsinki is the capital of Finland. Killing so many people in a capital city..."

Goltz pointed to the Helsinki harbor and said, "Don't make a fuss. The recent executions of communists are already a small number. At the height of the civil war, thousands of bodies sank into the harbor every day."

The relationship between Finland and Tsarist Russia was very delicate. Theoretically, Finland was not part of Russia's territory, but only the Tsar's personal territory. Because the Tsar also served as the Grand Duke of the Grand Duchy of Finland, Finland and Russia were under the rule of the same monarch.

After the fall of the Tsar, the Finnish Parliament passed a resolution on its own, "Since the power of Monarch Nicholas II no longer exists, the Finnish Parliament hereby resolves to implement the following provisions: Only the Finnish Parliament has the right to formulate, approve and promulgate all Finnish laws...", which actually declared independence.

Then, with Lenin's victory in Moscow, a civil war broke out in Finland between the Red Army and the White Army. The leader of the Finnish White Army, Baron Mannerheim, received strong support from Germany, but the Finnish Red Army could not get Lenin's support.

Because at that time, Petrograd was still under the control of the German army and Finland was completely isolated, the White Army commanded by Baron Mannerheim won the civil war without any effort.

What followed was a great purge of white terror.

Major General Goltz listed them all to Manstein. "How many people did Baron Mannerheim execute in Helsinki? There are no statistics, but my personal guess, based on my impression, is around 7,000 to 8,000."

Before Manstein could even react with astonishment, Major General Goltz continued, "We still hold tens of thousands of prisoners. You know how Eastern Europeans are. Their prisoner camps are like pig sties. Being locked up there is like being sentenced to death."

Before Lenin persuaded the Soviet Union to sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the Finnish White Army under the leadership of Baron Mannerheim quickly seized the entire East Karelia Peninsula with the help of the German Expeditionary Force.

Only the Russian port of Murmansk on the East Karelian Peninsula was occupied by a British fleet. Baron Mannerheim did not want to offend the British, so the Finnish White Army only surrounded Murmansk and did not launch any further attacks.

However, in the south, the Finnish army continued to occupy Russian territory until Lenin signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, at which time the Finnish army stopped advancing and Germany agreed to return Petrograd to the Soviet Union. As for the territories already occupied by Finland, they would all be designated as part of the Republic of Finland.

Major General Goltz took another telegram and handed it to Manstein: "Bad news, very terrible news. A few days ago, the Bolsheviks executed Tsar Nicholas II."

Manstein was stunned: "Regicide? Lenin committed regicide!"

Major General Goltz nodded. "It's said that the left wing of the Socialist Revolutionary Party organized a riot. The rebels approached the place where the Bolsheviks were imprisoned. They were worried that the Tsar would be abducted by the rebels, so they took preemptive action and executed the Tsar."

The left wing of the Russian Socialist Revolutionary Party initially participated in Lenin's new government, but they were extremely opposed to Lenin signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, believing that this was a treasonous act. Therefore, after the treaty was signed, the left wing of the Socialist Revolutionary Party turned to the counter-revolutionary camp and began to unite with the White Army to oppose Lenin.

The civil war in the heart of Russia was growing in scale. Major General Goltz could not name all the forces in the civil war at once because they were too diverse and chaotic. There were dozens of rebel kings and princes of all sizes.

In addition to Lenin's Soviet government, the left, center and right factions of the Social Revolutionary Party all tried to organize separatist armed forces locally. The White Army was also divided into republicans, monarchists, Cossacks, and various small ethnic groups and new countries that gained independence from the collapse of Tsarist Russia. It can be said that many heroes emerged.

After the Moscow Uprising, the Tsar and his family were first placed in a mansion in Yekaterinburg. The Ural Regional Soviet strongly demanded the execution of the Tsar, but Trotsky insisted on trying Nicholas II in front of the proletarian masses.

The trial was scheduled to take place at the end of July. According to the arrangement of Lenin's deputy Trotsky, it would be a historic and landmark people's trial.

Unexpectedly, the plan was eventually changed. In addition to the rebellion of the left wing of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, many officers of aristocratic origin tried to rescue the Tsar. The situation was very dangerous. If the Tsar fell into the hands of the reactionaries, he might be used by the enemy and cause greater disaster.

Lenin had no choice but to order the immediate execution of the Romanov royal family members and the destruction of their bodies to prevent the White Army from using their bodies to incite counter-revolution.

The entire Tsar's family was executed, and their bodies were transported to a nearby abandoned mine, burned, and their ashes buried in the swamp.

Manstein was extremely shocked when he heard the news. The look of astonishment and panic on his face made Major General Goltz feel a little puzzled. After all, it was 1918, not 1718. The murder of the Tsar and his family would certainly make the German conservatives feel grieving, but it shouldn't touch them so deeply, right?

Manstein's heart was in turmoil. He recalled the conversation he had with Faust before leaving.

Regicide? Regicide!

The Tsar’s crown has fallen first, who will fall next?

Obviously, the responsibility for defeat must be borne by the monarch. "To bear the disgrace of the country is to be the master of the country; to bear the misfortune of the country is to be the king of the world." Europeans also understand this truth. "If you want to wear the crown, you must bear its weight!"

If Germany was defeated, the Hohenzollern dynasty would also have to bear the responsibility and the crown would inevitably be shattered.

Manstein's face gradually became gloomy. If the Hohenzollern crown was destined to be shattered, what would be his mission?

The seed that Faust planted in Manstein's heart sprouted and grew stronger. Manstein only felt that his shoulders were so heavy, and a sense of historical mission was only on himself.

To save the Hohenzollern dynasty, the monarch must be sacrificed; to prevent Germany from sliding into the abyss of socialist revolution, the Hohenzollern must be sacrificed.

Manstein had made up his mind. When he raised his head again, his gloomy expression startled even Major General Goltz.

"Major General Goltz, take me to see Baron Mannerheim."

Manstein was very interested in a Finnish soldier named Carl Gustav Mannerheim, who was the chairman of the Military Council after Finland's independence and one of the best performing military leaders among Germany's several Eastern European satellite states.

Among these puppets supported by Germany, from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea, there is not a single useful person, they are all trash, all mediocre people who cannot even maintain the regime itself without the support of the German army.

Only Mannerheim performed well, and the Finnish army also received a lot of support from Germany. Germany provided the Finnish army with tens of thousands of rifles, hundreds of machine guns and 20 million rounds of ammunition. However, the Finnish army relied on its own soldiers to defeat the Red Army, rather than relying on direct attack from the German army.

When Major General Goltz landed in Helsinki with the expeditionary force, Mannerheim had already led the Finnish army to a decisive victory over the Red Army. The German expeditionary force played a more supportive role and did not take action personally.

According to Manstein and Faust's plan, after Germany's defeat, the Junkers would establish a Kingdom of Courland on the Baltic coast as a retreat for future Prussian officers.

The Kingdom of Courland and Finland are separated only by the narrow Gulf of Finland. If anything happens in the future, the two sides must form an offensive and defensive alliance to ensure the home of the German troops left behind on the Eastern Front.

If a revolution breaks out in Germany, the Junker Group can still use it as a base to launch a counterattack on Germany. Then, after Germany is defeated in the future, it will still be unclear who will dominate the new Germany.

Manstein then asked: "What happened to Petrograd after you handed it back to Lenin?"

Major General Goltz patted his forehead and said, "There are so many things going on here, it's hard to explain them all in one go."

Chapter 132: Song of Doomsday

Also in July 1918, the decisive battle on the Western Front was still at its climax, and Ludendorff had already prepared plans for a new offensive, which he had given a rather unremarkable code name: "Operation Road Construction."

The German army had recently advanced into the Champagne region, bulging out a large section of the front line; Ludendorff believed that the time had come to launch an offensive from here. Attacking this area could bring in a large number of prisoners and military supplies, and Ludendorff could not resist the temptation; at the same time, he also had the opportunity to chew on that hard bone - the Reims salient.

The plan was therefore to attack Reims in two directions on July 12. The western route was intended to cross the Marne River, extending the front to Château-Thierry; this move would threaten Paris and force France to request British assistance.

By early July, the army group led by Crown Prince Wilhelm had secretly entered the position, but the date of the attack was postponed to July 14.

Crown Prince Wilhelm's chief of staff was the renowned battle-breaker Müller on the Eastern Front. Müller personally commanded the German artillery, ensuring this bombardment would be as powerful as previous ones. Before the operation began, everything had to be done in secrecy. All reconnaissance, marches, and ammunition transports were to be conducted without making any noise.

Army Group Crown Prince Wilhelm went to great lengths to achieve this. The wheels of German vehicles were wrapped and a cordon was established.

At this time, the French Commander-in-Chief Foch had just returned to Paris from Italy. Last year, Italy was defeated in the Po River, and the Allies could only piece together a multinational force to support Italy. In order to unify the command, a prestigious person like Foch was sent to Italy to serve as the supreme commander to take care of the Italians' face.

As soon as the Italian front was stabilized, Foch rushed back to Paris. In his headquarters, there were two other soldiers wearing generals' uniforms. One was the French Verdun hero Pétain, and the other was Pershing, commander-in-chief of the American Expeditionary Force.

"Germany will soon attack the Reims area!"

In Foch's headquarters, the telephones were ringing constantly, making it so noisy that Pétain had to slam the table and shout loudly so that people could hear what he was saying clearly.

"Commander-in-Chief," Pétain declared, "the present situation is favorable for an attack from the forest east of Villers-Cotterêts against the German salient in Champagne."

Pershing was surprised. He had expected the French to prepare for defense. "Why not wait for the enemy to strike first? We have the advantage in numbers. Waiting for the enemy to strike first will give us the advantage."

Foch admitted that what Pershing said made sense, but he decided not to passively adjust the Allied actions based on the enemy's movements.