Re: Blood and Iron

The invasion of Luxembourg, and its surrounding areas, had resulted in relatively minor gains. However, complete and total disaster had been averted in the process.

Charles de Gaulle, for saving the one million allied men who damn near walked into one of the worst traps in modern military history, had been awarded not only with a promotion to the French equivalent of Brigadier General but also had been given several decorations for the act.

Even so, the man could not help but gaze upon the piles and piles of bodies which the Allied high command had thrown at the problem. The German lines in Elsass-Lothringen had held firm. Every attempt to gain a minor amount of ground had been thoroughly rebuffed and cost a significant amount of lives in the process.

But southern Belgium was a fortress that was slowly being chipped away at by the Allied forces. With Luxembourg held by the Allies, they could bring reinforcements into the region to attack critical areas from a variety of angles.

It also wasn't nearly as fortified as German territory had been. After all, the Germans had built defenses on the fly within Belgium, whereas they had ten years to prepare within Elsass-Lothringen. Even so, the price of a mile gained in Belgium was steep, so much so that Charles de Gaulle thought it was not remotely worth the expense.

Currently, the spring showers were falling upon the fields outside of a Belgian village, near the southern border of the nation. Charles could hear the repeated pings resulting from the droplets glancing off of his steel helmet.

It was an innocuous sound, but when one was already in a pitiful mood, it was also the only thing they could focus on. A cigarette lie within the man's mouth as he took a long drag while gazing upon the freshest crop of bodies to be returned from the front lines.

The Germans had dug into the village. And had propped themselves up with flak guns and anti-tank guns alongside their far more effective machine guns. Every attempt the allies had made to break through with their Mk II tanks had resulted in abject failure.

But worse yet, was the fact that the Germans had begun ambushing them with small unit tactics. The soldiers of the German Army, more specifically their elite jaeger light infantry would move behind enemy lines with machine guns, lightweight mortars, automatic rifles, and worse yet, mobile anti-tank rifles.

The GrB 39 anti-tank rifle had proven exceptional in regards to inflicting casualties upon Allied troops. A single anti-tank grenade launched from its firing adapter was more than enough to disable a Mk II Tank, and the automatic weapons employed by the rest of the German squad members would wipe out the crews desperately trying to eject from the devastated vehicles.

Even armored columns proved susceptible to the tactics used by the German Jaegers. And because of this, Charles had begun to suspect that the Germans were not only employing advanced weaponry against the allied armies, but they were also using significantly more developed communications technology.

There was no other way to describe how the Germans constantly knew where they were and how best to hit them. Every engagement the Allies had with the enemy, they were effectively known in advance, and blown out of the water by the German Army.

This was quickly proving to be a disastrous military campaign of the most epic proportions, and Charles de Gaulle could only admit, that the man who had made such extensive preparations knew warfare at a level so advanced he could actively predict how future conflicts would be fought.

The rapid advance of the German 8th army in the Balkans, and Italy proved this to be true. Thus, as the French General stood in the rain, gazing upon his dead forces, he had to admit. France was truly being bested by a military mastermind.

As a general, Charles knew the reality of the war and its casualty statistics. Or at least as best as the Allies could account for them. The public might suspect things were not going the way they wished, but if this information got out, the war would be over in a fortnight.

Thus it was a tightly guarded secret that the Central Powers had inflicted ten times the casualties on the Allied forces than they had sustained thus far. And if one were only counting those between Germany and France, the ratio was easily 25:1.

Though Charles could never admit it aloud, the man who had devised the defensive strategy currently being employed by the German Army had a single purpose when he made it. To bleed France dry of its manpower and resources.

This was a conflict designed to make France lose so many men, and to spend so much money on the war, that they would not be able to wage another against Germany for the foreseeable future. And only Charles appeared to have understood this fact.

If it were not for the fact that the German leadership seemed to be in competition with one another to see who could gain the most glory, then Luxembourg would have never been retaken by the allies, and a million men would currently lie dead at its border.

If he dared to utter this fact to his superiors, Charles would be castigated for spreading defeatist sentiment. Something that had in recent months become among the most severe crimes one could commit within the ranks of the French Army.

But as the war continued to wage, and France's men continued to die by the masses, Charles would only further hold the republic and its civilian leadership responsible for the vicious losses they had sustained during the Great War.

A sentiment that, if left unchecked could forever change the result of the timeline. But that was a matter Bruno would have to deal with in time, as his current focus was set on forcing an end to the war in Italy.

Something that he would now have the means to do as his allies finally caught up to his initial advance.