The Three Napoleons (IV)
"Citizens, do not fear! By order of Commander Joseph Joffre, the French First Army has arrived to liberate you from the German dictatorship!"
"We ask for your cooperation... Huh? What is that?!"
Until they entered the city center, the French infantry corps had not seen a single living soul, save for a few guerrilla skirmishers. Having let their guard down completely, they stepped into the heart of the city.
Every single boulevard running neatly from east to west was blocked by barricades. Of course, they were crude structures made of piled-up furniture that would blow away with a single cannon blast, but they served as excellent trenches nonetheless.
"The French are here! All units, open fire!"
Rat-tat-tat-tat! Muzzle flashes erupted from machine gun nests nestled behind the barricades.
"Aaargh!"
"Run! Fall back!"
"Bullets! There are bullets everywhere!"
Showered by machine gun fire in the fortified city, the French army retreated in a panic. However, the Armed Cooperative Alliance had already lured them deep into the city center by exploiting their complacency. Consequently, their retreat was anything but smooth.
Machine gun nests were perched atop every rooftop and high-rise building. Hidden gunners gleefully sprayed lead into the retreating French columns. And that was not all. Cooperative squads ambushed them from every single building they passed.
The greatest weakness of the Armed Cooperative Alliance was its lack of high-ranking officers and formal structure, which made high-level strategic maneuvers impossible. However, they had an abundance of junior officers and non-commissioned officers. These junior officers and NCOs lay in wait in every alleyway, firing shotguns at point-blank range.
"The French are retreating this way!"
"Block their path! Cooperative Members with submachine guns and shotguns, take the lead!"
Weapons were advancing by the day, becoming easier to handle while their lethality soared. The pinnacles of this technology were the MP-12 submachine gun and the SG-8 shotgun.
Even rifles required too much training! Submachine guns and shotguns, which guaranteed lethal results simply by pulling the trigger at close range, were the true weapons of the poor.
Under the onslaught of Armed Cooperative Alliance platoons springing from every direction, the French army suffered a crushing defeat on the very first day. It was, without exaggeration, an unprecedented debacle.
"We miscalculated. I don't know what trick the Germans pulled, but they've managed to fortify the city."
"What about bypassing it?"
"And leave those pests behind to harass us endlessly? Our supply lines would be cut in less than a week, and we'd all starve to death."
The First Army headquarters fell into deep contemplation. Urban warfare was no different from a siege. The textbook solution was to surround the city—which could not survive without external supplies—and starve it out.
But for the French, who had to liberate Alsace-Lorraine and cross the Rhine River in what felt like a race against the clock, this was an impossible luxury. They had already lost precious time due to the first day's disaster.
There was only one option left.
"We have no choice but to reduce Alsace-Lorraine to ashes with artillery before we advance! Those amateur soldiers are completely outmatched when it comes to artillery fire."
How long could barricades made of hastily piled furniture hold out? Just as snipers could only be countered by other snipers, the only response to artillery was counter-battery fire. And judging by the first day of battle, no matter how formidable the Cooperative's close-quarters firepower was, they had no artillery to speak of.
However, Auguste Dubail furrowed his brow.
"Are you out of your mind?"
"Sir?"
"We are a liberating army. These are poor citizens who have been waiting for us to free them from German oppression. And you want to slaughter them indiscriminately with artillery?"
"..."
France was still a republic. They could not simply disregard the lives of their citizens, and even if they did, how would they handle the political fallout? Traitorous Stahlists were already crawling all over southern France. Bombarding a French city into oblivion under these circumstances could trigger an uncontrollable backlash.
Of course, Auguste Dubail had absolutely no idea that the rapid fortification of the city had been achieved through the active cooperation of those very citizens.
And that was not the only problem.
"Furthermore, how much artillery do we actually have available right now?"
"Ah."
"Dismissed."
"Yes, sir."
They had left almost all their heavy artillery behind to maximize their marching speed! Of course, they had brought a few light pieces, which still put them in a better position than the virtually artillery-less Armed Cooperative Alliance. But using such a pitiful amount of artillery would do more harm than good.
"Our troops are elites who managed to keep up with our rapid march."
"Indeed, sir!"
"We will break through with a frontal assault. We will charge down the central boulevard with all our forces to split the city in two. Once we isolate and divide the Armed Cooperative Alliance, we will destroy them piecemeal."
In the end, only one solution remained for the French army: an indiscriminate charge, building a mountain of corpses with their élan vital. They had deployed nearly a hundred thousand troops to each city. At this scale, the sheer volume of piled-up bodies would provide ample cover against machine gun fire.
And so, the next day, an army of one hundred thousand assembled on the central boulevard.
"They're just amateurs who don't even know how to hold a rifle properly! Fire a volley, fix bayonets, and charge!"
"Waaaaaaah!"
After unleashing a volley from a distance, they charged with fixed bayonets, just as they had during the Napoleonic Wars. Over the past decade, Germany had developed a doctrine centered on squad- and platoon-level tactics to overcome unfavorable situations. France's military development, however, had taken a completely different path.
Mobilize troops faster and deploy massive armies swiftly. After all, wasn't war ultimately a numbers game? The Germans might hold the advantage in small-scale skirmishes, but if France could assess the battlefield quickly and move troops at the division and corps levels, they would win the war in the end. Consequently, their urban warfare tactics amounted to nothing more than bayonet charges.
In an instant, a staggering number of soldiers fell to the devastating combination of machine guns, shotguns, submachine guns, and grenades. Unfazed, the high command continued to push bayonet-wielding soldiers into the meat grinder, waiting for the corpses to pile high enough to form breastworks.
"Aaaargh! Stop pushing!"
"Just move forward, you idiot!"
"Are you insane?! If we go out there, we're dead!"
"Then what, you want to just stand here? If you stand still, you'll get trampled to death! Grab your rifle and run like hell!"
The French army threw in troops with such mindless brutality that those in the front ranks were nearly crushed to death by the sheer pressure of those behind them. Yet, no matter how many men they sacrificed to advance ten or a hundred meters, a mountain of obstacles still lay ahead.
"Molotov cocktails! They're throwing them from the buildings!"
"Germans are pouring out of the side alleys!"
"Return fire, damn it!"
"We can't! Bullets are raining down from both flanks!"
Through the second, third, and fourth days of battle, France continued to hurl troops forward mindlessly. Their casualties mounted exponentially, yet they managed to advance only a few hundred meters each day. Even during their retreats, the French suffered horrific losses.
"S-Stop! Don't shoot! We are fellow Frenchmen, why are you attacking us?!"
"Alsace-Lorraine is protected by the Cooperative! Get the hell out of here, you invaders!"
Only then did the French army realize the truth. How on earth were these Germans sustaining themselves? How had they managed to occupy every single building? The furniture used to build the barricades. The secret ambush spots known only to locals. The citizens who remained stubbornly hostile despite repeated pacification attempts. The glass bottles filled with gasoline and hunting shotguns appearing out of nowhere...
It was a clear miscalculation, born of French arrogance. Alsace-Lorraine was, after all, also Elsass-Lothringen. France had ruled the region for two hundred years, but it had also been part of the Holy Roman Empire for centuries. The internationalist, anti-nationalist nature of Stahlism actually resonated deeply in such gray areas. In other words, these people could identify as French, German, and Cooperative members all at once.
By the fifth day of battle, the French army had finally grasped the reality of the situation, and the artillery units that had lagged behind on the march finally arrived at the front.
"Unleash every shell we have! I don't care if the accuracy is slightly off. Rain fire down on the central boulevard!"
Artillery tactics had already been perfected during the Napoleonic Wars, and delivering relatively accurate fire was not difficult. However, they were bombarding a densely built city. It was impossible to target the central boulevard precisely while accounting for the height and position of every building.
But what they lacked in accuracy, they could make up for in sheer volume. Even as several of their own cannons burst from overheating, the French kept up the bombardment all day long.
"The west wind is strong. Send in the commandos to set it ablaze!"
To make matters worse, a fierce wind was blowing from west to east. The French sent cavalry riding through the city, setting fires indiscriminately. Between tens of thousands of artillery shells and the raging firestorm, it took only a single day to reduce the city to ashes.
"Now, charge! Secure the central boulevard! We will crush the traitors and march east!"
Thus, on the sixth day of battle, Strasbourg, the administrative hub of Alsace-Lorraine, and Mulhouse, the center of the textile industry, were reduced to ruins in an instant. Riding that momentum, the French army charged and seized the central boulevard.
The two cities suffered an average of two thousand casualties a day, but since the straggling rear units could easily replenish the ranks, a loss of ten thousand men was deemed negligible. They were about to march on Frankfurt and Berlin; ten thousand casualties was a bargain.
"The transport route is secure! We'll spend the next day sweeping up the remnants, and then we cross the Rhine!"
Perhaps the French army still underestimated the Armed Cooperative Alliance. A regular army would have realized the battle was lost, retreated, and lived to fight another day. The Armed Cooperative Alliance was a force that completely lacked the capacity to fight the French in open terrain. Yet, precisely because of this, they had no centralized 'core' to destroy.
On the flip side, no matter how badly they were beaten, they could continue fighting at the company and platoon levels. Furthermore, since they stood no chance in the open field, they had to make their stand in the streets. Even if the main boulevard cutting through the city was captured, completely severing communication and cooperation between their headquarters, the battle was far from over.
"The building is collapsing! Get out, now!"
"The French are gathering in the northern park."
"Leave them. Keep striking the central boulevard relentlessly! Hold them there at all costs so they can't advance east!"
Leon Trotsky had not slept more than two hours a day for over a week. He stared endlessly at his maps, directing and controlling forces at the company and platoon levels.
"The French are closing in on the command post!"
"Damn it. Broadcast that we are moving the headquarters to the west immediately!"
Artillery shells rained down on the command post without pause, and the French, somehow aware of its location, kept sending waves of troops toward it. Yet, Trotsky overcame it all with his superhuman military genius.
"Should we broadcast the relocation of the command post?"
"No, we don't have the manpower. Besides, the French are already engaged in a war of all against all. We only need to send orders to the key platoons. Just move the post first!"
I quickly boarded an armored car.
"Chief of Staff Trotsky! I will take the armored car and patrol the southern district of the city."
"Do so. We are moving out!"
Trotsky didn't even bother with a superficial 'take care of yourself.' After all, I was just a Political Commissar. In other words, I was nothing more than a walking totem. He probably thought that if I died, it would boost the soldiers' morale even more. Or maybe he thought it wouldn't matter if I fled east. Or perhaps he simply didn't have the luxury to care about me at all?
And so, I rode the armored car, quickly bypassing the main roads to head south. The French army seemed to have realized I was in this city as well. Consequently, I had become a walking target. But what could I do? Erich Ludendorff expected me to play the role of a 'Political Commissar,' so I had to do my best.
"S-Shtal is here!"
"Vice Chairman!"
"Everyone, first, I must inform you that the command post has relocated due to a French raid. I, too, am risking my life alongside you."
"Yes, sir! We understand!"
"France's true colors have finally been revealed. They style themselves as a liberating army, yet they are destroying your homes and workplaces. Under Stahlism, this city belongs entirely to you. Protect your city with your own hands."
Once I had finished boosting their morale, I quickly moved to another location to repeat the speech.
Ten days since the Battle of Alsace-Lorraine began. The French army had still not advanced a single step.