Chapter 154
Chapter 154
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 154
Chapter Title: Border Battle (4)
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“Yawn~”
While most of the French army was preoccupied with the invasion of Belgium.
The fortress city of Longwy, located on the France-Luxembourg border in the Lorraine region, remained peaceful without a single gunshot, as if the flames of war were someone else's problem.
“Hard to believe we're in the middle of a war right now.”
“Their main force is all heading to Belgium. Even if those Bosch bastards can't kick their old habits and smash through Luxembourg to attack Lorraine here, it'll just be a sideshow at best?”
And even if the Germans did come, there was no real sense of crisis.
This border region of Lorraine had been fortified for war long ago.
Though most of the French troops had gone to Belgium, leaving only a skeleton garrison here, the fortresses were solid, and every key point was bristling with defensive positions and trenches lined with machine guns.
“All we have to do is stretch out and watch if the Germans come or not. If they don't show, great. If they do, we just give 'em a taste of the machine guns.”
No matter how renowned the Germans were as a mighty army, they were still flesh-and-blood humans.
Even if they attacked, they'd just get shredded by the hail of bullets and hightail it out of there.
Vroooom—
“Huh?”
The French soldiers were chuckling to themselves, imagining the stupid Germans screaming and fleeing in panic.
That's when a pitch-black shadow flashed over their heads.
Every single one of the French troops tilted their heads up to gaze at the sky.
“It's an airplane.”
Someone gawked in wonder, mouth agape with a drawn-out “Heee—”.
And it wasn't just one.
Like a flock of migratory birds, colorful planes flew in formation, cutting stylishly across the sky toward some destination.
“Looks like German planes. Wonder where they're headed?”
“Who knows? Maybe they've got nothing better to do, so they're sightseeing over French soil?”
Even with enemy planes overhead, the French showed no alarm—just fascination and oohs and aahs.
It was still possible in this lingering era of Belle Époque romance.
Airplanes were more spectacle than threat to the average soldier back then.
Most of the generals thought the same, which was the problem.
In any case, the French troops watched the German planes glide by with sparkling eyes, making no move to attack. Some even waved cheerfully at them.
Wave wave—
In response, a few German planes waggled their wings left and right, greeting the French back.
“Whoa, that plane's waving at me!”
“Germans sure know how to be polite.”
“They're always so uptight about that stuff. Explains the trouble with their women too.”
“Hahaha!”
The French burst into easy laughter, tossing out carefree remarks.
Of course, if their comrades getting pummeled by bullets and rockets from the Yasta 1 in Belgium right now saw this, they'd scream, “Hey, you idiots! Grab your weapons, now!!” like madmen.
Unfortunately, those men were far away in Belgium, and to the border troops, the war was still just distant news.
But that border peace was about to end.
Boom—
“Huh? Did you hear something just now?”
“Nah, didn't hear a thing.”
“No, listen close. There was definitely a 'boom' or something...”
KABOOM!!
A massive explosion rocked the air, and the price of complacency rained down on the French soldiers' heads.
Soon, thunderous roars from beyond the border shook the earth as shells arced through the sky like the sulfurous fire from the Bible, slamming into the French fortresses.
“Wh-what the hell?! Shit?!”
“Artillery fire!”
Boom! Kaboom! Boom! Boom!
Steel shells poured relentlessly onto the heads of the French soldiers, who had grown soft in the sudden peace.
Mercilessly, ruthlessly, as if to say there would be no mercy for them.
“What's going on?!”
As French troops rolled on the ground or were crushed to death under collapsing buildings, the garrison commander rushed out of a building, hastily buckling his belt.
A half-dressed woman screaming and fleeing behind him suggested he'd been enjoying some steamy time of his own while the soldiers gawked at German planes and swapped dumb jokes.
Not that it mattered to the soldiers right now.
“Colonel, it's shelling!”
“I can see that. Germans? Of course it's the damn Germans.”
Even he knew it was a stupid question.
The colonel slapped his own cheeks hard a couple times to snap out of it, then barked orders to the panicked troops amid the ongoing barrage.
“Contact HQ immediately. Germans have launched an assault and are pounding our fortress mercilessly...”
“C-Colonel!”
With every minute and second counting, the colonel scowled as a soldier interrupted him.
But the moment he saw the soldier's pale face pointing toward the border, his hand was already raising binoculars.
Something was wrong.
“What the hell is that...”
And soon, the colonel fell speechless, his voice trembling.
Germans were advancing from beyond the border.
But the numbers... the numbers were too vast.
Hadn't General Joffre said that any German push toward Alsace-Lorraine would just be a sideshow to support the Belgium invasion, with at most tens of thousands of troops?
Yet even at a rough glance, the Germans flooding the border numbered at least hundreds of thousands.
“Th-this isn't any sideshow.”
Thinking back, it had been off from the start.
There was no way they'd drag out their entire artillery corps just for a feint and unleash a massive barrage across the whole border.
“We got played...!”
The German main force hadn't gone to Belgium.
Belgium was just bait to lure in allied troops.
The real strike was here, at the Lorraine border.
“C-communications... signal corps—!”
“Y-yes, sir! Colonel!”
“Tell HQ and General Joffre right now. We're in a trap! The German main force isn't in Belgium—it's coming through Lorraine!”
“Got it!”
“Hah... hah... damn it...!”
The colonel clutched his head, breathing raggedly.
What now? What the hell could they do?
'Our troops need to hurry back from Belgium!'
Otherwise, the border—great France's sacred soil—would be trampled by Germans once more.
“Fire! Fire!”
Bang! Boom! Bang—!
“Load the shells, hurry!”
“Don't stop—keep pounding! Smash their defensive line to pieces, frog bastards!”
As the French reeled from the massive German assault at the border instead of Belgium, German artillery batteries fired nonstop to punch holes in the French lines, aiding their infantry's breakthrough.
Kaboom!
With a deafening roar, a 420mm super-heavy howitzer spat flames.
Big Bertha.
The queen of cannons, crafted by Krupp with blood, sweat, and tears just for this day, had arrived on the battlefield.
To breach the French border defenses, the Germans deployed Big Bertha along with masses of heavy and siege guns. Just like in original history when they demolished the Liège fortresses, these beasts now vomited shells at the French strongpoints, demanding submission.
Especially with aerial reconnaissance—practically a minimap cheat for this era—the German gunners zeroed in on the weakest spots in the French border line, hammering them relentlessly for hours.
“Green flare from the air squadron! We're clear to advance.”
“Good! Send in the Sturmtruppen. At last, the submachine guns of our dear Hans von Choi, the Marquis, will show their true worth!”
Under the commanders' orders, Sturmtruppen—stormtroopers clutching submachine guns—surged forward across the shattered French border defenses.
Hutier tactics.
This infamous German tactic, which battered Entente forces time and again despite unfavorable odds in original history's World War I, made its debut at the French border.
“Charge! For the glory of great Deutschland!”
“Long live the Kaiser—!!”
Roaring in unison, the stormtroopers leaped into the shell-torn French fortresses and trenches.
The surviving French soldiers instinctively raised their weapons amid the chaos, but the stormtroopers pulled their triggers first.
Rat-tat-tat-tat—! Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat—!!
And the German massacre began.
The submachine guns sprayed bullets mercilessly at the French troops, as if born for this moment alone. It didn't take long for their blue uniforms to stain as red as the pants they wore.
True to purpose, the stormtroopers “cleared” the trenches spotless. Soon, the ditches overflowed with strewn French corpses.
“Good work, stormtroopers. But no time to rest. Don't stand around gawking at the dead French like they did—move, move!”
“Jawohl!”
The stormtroopers replied energetically, faces flushed with victory and battle high.
The fight wasn't over.
No—it was only just beginning.
Kaboom—!!
“What the hell is that?! The German main force that went to Belgium is popping up in Lorraine?!”
“B-but every border unit is reporting the same thing!”
French Commander-in-Chief Joseph Joffre staggered, face paling as if he might faint.
Off in the distance, beyond the river, he swore he saw his late grandfather beckoning.
German main force attacking Lorraine?
Then what about the Germans in Belgium?
Joffre's mind spun in chaotic turmoil.
The report hitting his ears was beyond horrific—for him and France alike.
But his staff officer, Major Maurice Gamelin, sweated bullets yet pressed on with the grim facts.
“At least four field armies of Germans have appeared in Lorraine. Their artillery barrage has already breached much of the border line, including Longwy and Nancy. Sedan is in danger too.”
“...The Germans in Belgium were just bait—a feint.”
The real target was Alsace-Lorraine, where the French had first expected the Germans.
The Germans had turned their own predictions against them.
Using this damned fake Schlieffen Plan.
“The plan itself was a trap from the start. They leaked a fake on purpose to lure us into Belgium. And while we were distracted there, they waltzed right over our border!”
Not the kind of scheme from the German military's Junkers, in Joffre's view.
Those stiff-necked aristocrats weren't the type for high-level political deception.
Only one man would pull such a petty stunt.
That yellow-skinned Bismarck knockoff, Hans von Choi.
Grind—
“Contact Dubail and Castelnau immediately. Order them to rush some units to Sedan and the Ardennes.”
With Luxembourg opening the road to the Germans, they could bypass the Verdun line, cut through the Ardennes, and hit the French rear.
If that happened, a third of French forces could get encircled front and back—the worst-case scenario they had to prevent at all costs.
“At least the Ardennes has that forest.”
The Ardennes Woods had terrified even Julius Caesar's Roman legions conquering Gaul—a death trap for attackers.
Even the cocky Germans wouldn't break through easily.
'Of course, it'll weaken the Belgian front temporarily, but Castelnau and Dubail can hold.'
They hadn't taken Brussels as planned, nor secured Liège and Namur, thanks to unexpected Belgian resistance. But the French were already digging trenches in the occupied Belgian territory against the German push.
They could hold until reinforcements arrived to put out the fire.
“But what about Sedan?”
There was one more spot to defend.
“Germans are already advancing on Sedan. If it falls, the road to Paris opens.”
“Mobilization is nearly complete. We'll scrape together what we can and hold them off.”
If only to avoid repeating the folly of that fool Emperor Napoleon III, who didn't measure up to his uncle's heel.