Chapter 677: Ruthless.
Chapter 662 – Toughness
The sound of artillery fire, the Koveli offensive and defense began, the Prussian army in charge of the command of this battle is the commander of the twenty-second division, Major General Luke, rising in the last Prussian-Russian war in the army of the rising star.
Luke, an ordinary Junker landowner, was able to become a general by his will, plus a little bit of luck.
Originally he thought his will was strong enough, no matter how brutal the battle, could not shake his heart.
At this moment, Major General Luke realized that he was wrong, his heart was in turmoil. Luke sighed inwardly, “It turns out that he is also an ordinary person.”
The Russians did not hide in the fortress bunkers, at the same time the Prussian army launched a charge, the Russian army also launched a counter-charge, and a bitter white-knuckle battle broke out.
Shouts and screams echoed across the battlefield. Luke saw with his own eyes that a Prussian soldier was stabbed through the stomach by the enemy with a bayonet, and while letting out a scream, he also clutched the enemy’s gun body, just to create an opportunity for his comrade.
Once upon a time, he was one of them. It was only because he was a bit luckier and got lucky with his battle success that he was able to level the playing field all the way to the back.
Thinking back to the comrades who enlisted together back then, that one familiar face, in the end most of them fell on the battlefield.
To a certain extent, Luke was able to go all the way to the top, but also built on the background of the heavy losses of the Prussian army in the last war.
During the war years, the army spoke in terms of performance, and the influence of origin was minimized.
With a large number of lower and middle class officers killed in action and in time for a major expansion of the army, the lucky ones like Luke, who had a war record, naturally stood out.
Looking at the increasing number of casualties, Luke gradually calmed down, he found that the situation is a little wrong, the Russian army seems to be deliberately luring them to attack.
As night falls, the battle temporarily stops, leaving only wreckage all over the ground.
Inside the command center, the more Luke thought, the more wrong, the Russians seem to be intentionally and they fight consumption.
Suppressing the doubt in his heart, Luke asked, “Have the casualties been counted?”
Chief of Staff Pasqualino sighed and said, “The statistics are out, 526 soldiers were wounded and 248 were killed in the daytime battle, two battalions were lost.”
Division Commander Luke stood up, took two steps and said, “Another two battalions, from the start of the battle until now, our 22nd division alone has close to three thousand casualties. If this is the case for the entire battlefield, then I’m afraid this war is unprecedented.”
Chief of Staff Pasqualino: “This is something that can’t be helped, war is always brutal. The supplemental regiment sent to us by headquarters has already departed and will arrive in two days at most.”
The Prussian Army has also established a perfect wartime replenishment mechanism, and it usually does not happen that a troop has fought its way out of the war and has not even been replenished yet.
Under normal circumstances, when a troop suffers casualties to a certain extent, it will be replaced and go to the rear to recuperate and replenish its strength.
Of course, this rear is also relative and still remains at the front line. When needed, it was still ready to go to war.
After hesitating for a few moments of effort, Luke added: ”Forget it, it’s not our turn to worry about these issues. Just report our current situation as it is!
Tell the General Command that we need heavy artillery. Without enough heavy firepower, there is no way we can guarantee that we will capture the enemy’s fortress within the allotted time.”
It couldn’t be helped that the Prussian army was unlucky. The train transporting artillery and ammunition was sneak attacked by Russian airships halfway across the country and suffered heavy losses.
Heavy artillery units were a scarce resource in any country, and the Pupo Federation had only a few heavy artillery regiments in total, and having lost a regiment before even going into battle, there was naturally no way to replenish them within a few days.
Chief of Staff Pasqualino shook his head, ”I’m afraid this won’t be easy, don’t get your hopes up. There are only so many heavy artillery units in the country, they are all sent to the front now, and the new heavy artillery regiments are still being formed.
According to the news coming from inside, Krupp has already sent technicians forward to repair them, and it will take at least a month before the damaged artillery can be repaired.
Ideally, in about four weeks, we’ll be able to get heavy fire support.”
Luke frowned, “Can we get the headquarters to coordinate and move the heavy artillery units around the attack to use them first.
Covelli is a military stronghold, if we take this place, we’ll take the Warren region, so why waste our energy on a small place like Kamen and Novovoronsk!”
Chief of Staff Pasqualino: “This is the strategy laid out by the General Staff, a multi-point assault is a great victory as long as there is a breakthrough in any one place.”
Luke waved his hand, “Don’t explain, old buddy. I know what’s going on, it’s nothing more than headquarters not being sure we can take Corvelli.
Really, if we look at the overall strategy, Koveri is not that important, Brest is the focus.”
“It’s best if you understand!” Chief of Staff Pasqualino replied calmly
Luke: “Well, let’s put those questions aside for now. Have you noticed that something is wrong with the Russians, they don’t seem to be putting out their full strength and are deliberately luring us into attacking.
If they were firing at full power, our troops wouldn’t even be able to rush their positions, so why are they making such worthless sacrifices.”
Chief of Staff Pasqualino nodded thoughtfully and after a moment’s pause, “I’d like to see the casualty figures, they might explain this.”
Luke’s face changed, instantly snapping out of it. If the Russians were firing on all cylinders, the Prussians, who lacked heavy firepower, wouldn’t be able to rush near their position.
Seeing no hope of victory, the Prussian army naturally made meaningless sacrifices. If the Prussian army does not take the initiative to launch an attack, how will the Russian army come to the battle?
Most of the Russian troops stationed at Koveli were second-line troops; this was not the main battlefield chosen by the Russians, and the order given to them by the Tsarist government was to hold fast.
“Damn Russians, they’re playing with fire, aren’t they afraid that we’ll break through their positions. Realize that a battle like this is of no value to them at all.”
Chief of Staff Pasqualino didn’t answer, it didn’t matter what the Russians thought, anyway, as long as there was a slight chance of breaching Corvelli, they couldn’t stop.
……
The Russian command, Major General Yarden Ivanov, who was also looking at the casualty reports, was in a much better mood. Being on the defensive side was always going to be an advantage.
“Fick, your proposal is fantastic. Damn Prussian barbarians, they really fell for it. They’re actually whimsically trying to capture Koveli, they’re just dreaming!”
As a military observer sent by Austria, under normal circumstances, he could not participate in the command of the Russian army, but there were exceptions to everything.
After so many years of the Russian-Austrian alliance, the Vienna government had also cultivated a large number of pro-Austrian factions within Russia, and Major General Yarden Ivanov was one of them.
Fick and Yarden were in the same class and graduated together from the Austrian Army Academy, and it was because the two were on very good terms that Fick was sent here as an observer.
Also a student of the Austrian Army Academy, there was likewise a difference between a schoolboy and a schoolmaster.
Arden this kind of outsiders who came to gild the lily, the school requirements are naturally not so strict, as long as you get by.
Foreign monks good read scripture, out of the gold-plated Arden returned to Russia, naturally, is a step forward, just in time for the expansion of the army, in less than thirty years of age became a major general of the Russian army.
In contrast, Fick, a highly talented student, was still only a major. There was no way around it, the competition in the Austrian army was much fiercer.
After the reform of the military system, the Austrian army there is no more promotion by fire, unless it is a battlefield success, or you can only step by step slowly.
This is the royal family began to lead by example, Frederick Crown Prince served for several years, are still major, the following people, not to mention.
Looking at his classmates’ spiritedness, Major Fick is still very envious, there is no soldier who does not like to be a general.
Even if his birth was not bad, Fick could not guarantee that he would be able to become a general in his lifetime. Thousands of officers were born in Austria every year, but there wasn’t always one general’s.
That was the way it was in times of peace, even if you were excellent, it was hard to get a chance to perform. Unable to put yourself on display, how can you prove that you are better than others?
Fick rolled his eyes, “What’s there to be excited about, you know you’re on the defensive side, the exchange ratio you’re playing out right now is almost 1:1, it’s already humiliating alright!”
Arden was unimpressed, “No, it’s already pretty good. In the last Russo-Prussian War, the exchange ratio we played out with Prussia was almost over one to two overall.
To be able to take a slight advantage now, even with the help of the defense, is a great victory.
The population of the Russian Empire is more than twice that of the Pupo Confederation, and as long as this continues, the final victory will surely be ours.
Besides, this division in my hands are all second-tier troops put together in seven pieces, if they were replaced by the main force, I would have ordered a counter-attack long ago.”
Fick did not object, the Russian army’s fighting strength was still good. Even though the training was not as good as the Prussian army, and the organization was lacking, everything else was really excellent.
Especially in terms of toughness, the Russian army was one of the best in the world. Troops that are able to fight as long as they have mouths to feed are really rare.
After hesitating for a moment, Major Fick reminded, “Arden, are you sure you want to continue? If we follow the current method of fighting, even if we finish off the enemy, this division of yours will be depleted.”
Even though the suggestion was his, Fick didn’t like this kind of meaningless depletion. He wouldn’t have even come up with this bad idea if they hadn’t been told at home to find a way to make as much Russian bloodshed as possible.
Yarden smiled slightly, “War always requires sacrifices, so what’s the harm in taking a few casualties as long as we can achieve victory?”
Standing in a different position, the way of considering the problem is also different. Yarden was not a fool, naturally he could see that the suggestion made by Fick might be ill-intentioned, but he didn’t care.
In his opinion as long as he gained victory, sacrificing some gray livestock was not worth mentioning at all.
(End of chapter)