Chapter 931: War Turns Around

  Chapter 912 – War Turn

The fall of the airship unit happened in full view of everyone, hundreds of thousands of people saw it with their own eyes, and the news naturally traveled quickly.

In fact there is no need to pass it on, Admiral Udino’s command is not far from the front line, the battle on the ground has a cover and cannot be seen from the command, but the air battle that takes place in the sky can be witnessed.

Personally witnessed, the fall of the airship unit, Admiral Udino whole person has no spirit.

In order to build this airship unit, the French military has spent a great deal of money, the army’s nearly one-tenth of the yearly military expenses are smashed in this.

Now just in front of hundreds of thousands of people to perform once under the meteor shower, a magnificent curtain call, Admiral Udino simply do not know how to explain to the country.

Of course, the loss here is not all the French airship units, but the result of the air battle has proved to the world that the sky no longer belongs to the airships.

“Admiral, it’s meal time.”

The guard’s voice rang out, pulling Udino back from his daze.

“No need, I’m not hungry right now.”

“Pass the word down that a military meeting will be held this evening, and that all officers above the rank of colonel in the command are to attend, except for those left on necessary duty.”

The airship unit was finished, but the war would continue. From now on, the sky would not belong to France, and Udino knew exactly what that meant.

Forget about carrying out strategic bombing, they could not even scout the enemy for basic intelligence, and from now on the only thing the French army would be able to do was get bombed.

……

The weather is gradually darkening, the afterglow of the setting sun spread to the earth, reflecting the broken arms and limbs on the ground, a ready-made horror movie set.

At this moment, the atmosphere in the French camp is particularly strange, the horn has been blown, but very few soldiers returned.

It was not unheard of for such a gruesome battle to take place in the past. However, according to the usual practice, this time should be the climax of the fraudulent resurrection, but today is an exception, very few soldiers from the ground to get up.

Colonel Fook Hee, who had just taken over as commander of the 9th Division, already had a bad feeling in his heart, and immediately ordered, “Shout to the Austrians across the street that we’re going to send men to collect the corpses.

By the way, send someone to tell which temperamental guys, if they don’t come back, they don’t have to come back. The Supervisors make a record for me, and I’ll turn around and drill these guys.”

Realizing the problem, Bok Hee couldn’t imagine all those guys being dead either. After all, ex-convictions mattered, and after seeing the great art of playing dead, the French army’s top brass was no longer sensitive to casualty figures.

It was important to realize that the officers and men of the 9th Division who were now back in camp were only half of the total strength.

During the attack, half of the troops were knocked out in one day, if this kind of thing really happened, he, the newly appointed division commander, was also at the end of his days.

Bok Hee only thought that it was the temper of his men, after all, the 9th division has had a bad year lately, and the division commander was killed before the battle even started.

The promised attack under the cover of the airship unit, the result is that everyone witnessed the French ace of the army pouncing on the street, the role of the cover did not play, but the bombing is no less.

After all, finished only the French airships, the allied airships, naval guns, or can play normally, this heart gap is still very blowing.

“Yes, Colonel!”

After saying that, the messenger hurriedly ran out.

Collecting corpses on the battlefield was also a tradition in Europe now, no matter how much they fought during the day, when it came to collecting corpses, people wouldn’t stop it.

After all, there are many corpses on the battlefield, if not handled as soon as possible, it will easily cause a plague, which is something that both sides are unwilling to see.

In some cases, the corpse collecting teams of the two belligerent countries would meet and greet each other, however, each of them would take away the remains of their own fallen soldiers and officers to return.

Today is a typical offensive and defensive battle, most of the Austrian army stayed in the trenches, the first encounter with the machine gun fire network, the French army did not know how to deal with, just rushed forward, the result is naturally tragic.

The end result was that the French army was littered with corpses and the Austrian army had very few casualties.

Even if they were killed in battle, they died in their own positions and had already been disposed of. So now the only ones in action were the French corpse collecting brigades.

The corpse collecting operation had only begun a short time ago when a young officer ran over, “Colonel, something big has happened.”

Colonel Fuxi frowned and said with great displeasure, “What’s the fuss, could it be that the soldiers on the front line have mutinied?”

The sound of artillery fire has stopped, surely it can’t be the Austrian army launching a counter-attack, then the biggest thing would be a mutiny of the soldiers.

This was nothing new, that is, it rarely happened in French-dominated units like the 9th Division.

If the Italian divisions were to be tasked with this kind of main attack with heavy casualties, there is a more than ninety percent chance that they would be in a mutiny.

The Italian soldiers’ emotional instability was also a major constraint on the French army’s ability to fight, and without these foot-draggers, the Luxembourg line would have been torn apart long ago.

This problem has long been recognized by the French army. Unfortunately, there was no way out, the limited human resources of France, had to conscript Italian soldiers.

“Colonel, see for yourself! I can guarantee that the situation is a hundred, a thousand times worse ……”

Apparently, the young officer realized that the news he had brought was so shocking that it was hard to believe, and simply left Colonel Forsythe to see for himself.

“Hmph!”

After expressing his strong dissatisfaction, Colonel Fukuhi still walked out of the command headquarters.

At this point in time, it was already time that belonged to the corpse collection brigade and religious people, and security was still guaranteed.

Being at the front line in person, looking at the floating corpses all over the ground, and occasionally hearing the wailing of the wounded, Fukuhi’s entire body was confused.

All of them were dead, and even the ones that weren’t dead yet were about to die now.

With the medical conditions of these days, wounded on the battlefield for a few hours without receiving any treatment, the possibility of being able to salvage is close to zero.

With the single-digit number of medics in the 9th Division, they are too busy to bandage the lightly wounded who have been evacuated in front of them, and who cares about these guys in the back.

Scanning the entire field, Fook Hee returned to the command headquarters in a state of dismay. The problem is indeed a thousand times more serious than the mutiny, the entire 9th Division is ruined.

After seeing such a brutal scene, the surviving officers and soldiers have lost all their vigor.

If the enemy launched an attack now, perhaps with a simple charge, the 9th Division would collapse.

After a few moments of silence, the calm Colonel Bok Hee sighed and said helplessly, “Pass the order down, all officers don’t need to sleep tonight, all of them will go down to the troops to pacify the military, and be careful to prevent the occurrence of a battalion tsunami.”

It didn’t take much thought to realize that the camp of the 9th Division was not destined to be peaceful tonight.

If nothing happens, this elite French unit will not be able to go to war again for a long time to come.

……

Time passed by, and soon the casualty reports came out. In essence the counting was simple, Colonel Forsythe simply asked for a count of the living in the camp.

The rest were counted as killed in action, whether they were killed in action, missing, or captured.

There was no way, there were too many soldiers and officers killed in action, and many of them had their bodies separated. Within a short period of time, it was impossible to piece them together, let alone identify the dead.

In order for the fallen soldiers to receive their government pensions, Colonel Fook Hee could only be a bureaucrat once.

Looking at the shocking casualty figures, Fook Hee couldn’t believe his eyes, and around the fact that he was prepared, he was still stunned.

The 9th Division alone set a record of 4,367 wounded and 3,816 killed in the daytime attack.

Yes, this is since the beginning of the war, the French army in a single day the highest casualty record.

Behind the heavy casualties on their side, there were very few results achieved. Without even touching the enemy’s position, the 9th Division had lost half of its men, and Colonel Fuchschi didn’t know how to describe the day’s fighting.

Just when Colonel Fook Hee was having a headache over how to explain to his superiors, the guard’s voice once again rang out, “Colonel, orders have come from above for you to attend a military meeting in the evening.”

Colonel Bok Hee replied indifferently, “Got it, I’ll be right there! Pass down the order to double the number of sentries on duty tonight to guard against enemy sneak attacks.”

……

Admiral Udino’s command is not far from the 9th Division’s station, just a few kilometers away, and it only takes twenty to thirty minutes to go back and forth on horseback, which can be said to be quite convenient.

But at this moment, Colonel Fuxi wished that the distance could be longer so that he could face it later.

Colonel Bok Hee is not the only one who is suffering from the same problem, but all the troops who participated in the attack today are suffering from the same tragedy.

One small tragedy added up to one big tragedy. Admiral Udino, who was still shedding tears over the end of the airship unit, was directly stunned by the numbers in front of him.

“Guys, is today April Fool’s Day? This joke, it’s not funny at all.”

“Tell me it’s not true!”

……

After repeatedly confirming that he received an affirmative answer, Admiral Udino, whose blood was rising, directly fainted magnificently.

After a moment of military chaos, he was finally resuscitated. But for Udino personally, perhaps never waking up was the best ending.

Reality is too cruel, this fierce battle on the Rhine, is the original time and space Somme and the battle of the replica, and the French army acted as the role of the British army.

From today onwards, Udino will leave a thick ink in human wars, and the military textbooks of all countries in the world in the future will not be able to do without him as an antagonist.

Especially his “attack at all costs” order, but also in the history of his own shame on the column.

Butcher, executioner, fool, idiot …… all kinds of dirty words, will be the descendants pressed on his head.

Udino, who came to his senses, said bitterly, “Everyone sit down, today’s battle is my personal command error, and you have nothing to do with it, I will take responsibility.

I’m counting on you all for the next battle, all the frontline commanders go back to their troops to strengthen their alert, and strictly prevent the enemy from coming to sneak attack this night.

Fillet, you’re in charge of organizing the situation here and report to the marshal and the country respectively. Tell them that it was me who failed the Empire ……”

Today’s blow to Admiral Udino was too great, and now he was full of “self-blame”, not even bothering to shirk his responsibility.

Of course, at this point, Admiral Udino no matter how to shirk his responsibility, it is also difficult to resign from the blame.

After this battle, the invincibility of the French army, which had been built up with great difficulty, was lost at once. The idea of a quick battle and breaking the Rhine defense line in a short time has become a dream.

(End of chapter)