An Army of Justice (1)
"A great victory! A magnificent victory, sir! We have disabled a total of six British battleships! Three have sunk, and three are heavily damaged!"
"Hahaha! Deploy more submarines! Make sure those British bastards can't salvage a single one of their sunken ships!"
Victory seemed to be right before the eyes of the Russian Black Army. It had been barely ten years since Russia's invincible Baltic Fleet was utterly crushed by the Japanese, who had been backed by the British. Since then, many in Russia had been quietly grinding their teeth in resentment against Great Britain. Today, they had finally repaid that humiliation.
Six battleships! They had wiped out a staggering ten percent of the Royal Navy's total strength in one fell swoop! Furthermore, thanks to France's valiant efforts on the Western Front, even Poland's security was guaranteed. No matter how brilliant Shtal, Stalin, and Hitler were as commanders, and no matter how much that insect Trotsky scurried about in Poland, it was barely an itch now.
"Hahaha. I would love to see the faces of those White Army traitors who did nothing but cling to Britain's coattails!"
By utterly smashing the pride of the British Empire—their navy—the Russian Black Army had completely seized the upper hand in public support. Now, even the legendary White Army general, Aleksei Brusilov, would be powerless to stop them. After all, General Nikolai Yudenich, another brilliant commander formerly of the White Army, had also joined the Black Army!
But...
"Wait, what? The British Navy is pushing forward with more battleships! One British battleship destroyed!"
"Yahoo!"
"Another British battleship sunk!"
"..."
"Yet another British battleship has been heavily damaged."
"Something... something is strange. For now, tell the forces in Poland not to act rashly!"
Have those madmen abandoned the Indian Ocean, the Atlantic, and the Pacific?! Where on earth were they getting them? The British kept dragging swarms of battleships out of nowhere, relentlessly throwing them into the Baltic Sea. Again and again...
They used their naval guns to endlessly sweep away the coastal artillery batteries off Tallinn. They didn't care if their battleships were shattered! Even after suffering a staggering two hundred thousand casualties, they stubbornly succeeded in landing two hundred thousand fresh, intact troops onto Tallinn. Of course, their supply lines were atrocious. But as terrible as their supplies were, the distance to St. Petersburg was equally short.
"...Commander-in-Chief Ungern-Sternberg! What are your orders?"
They had destroyed nine British battleships, but a successful landing was an entirely different beast. Chaos erupted within the Russian Black Army.
"Shall we entrust the defense against the landing to General Nikolai Yudenich?"
After a brief moment of contemplation, Ungern-Sternberg shook his head. He could not bring himself to trust Nikolai Yudenich, who had only just joined the Black Army.
"I will lead the National Revolutionary Cavalry myself."
"Then what of General Yudenich...?"
"Send him to Poland to deal with Shtal, Trotsky, and Mackensen! Since he claims to be such a patriot, he should at least be able to defend Poland."
"What on earth are they doing now?!"
The Russian Black Army, which had seemed determined never to let go of Warsaw even if St. Petersburg fell, suddenly began pulling its front lines back. They looked like a German army whose home base was being ransacked. Soon, I realized what had happened.
"What...? That lunatic Churchill actually managed to pull off a successful landing in Tallinn?"
How? Honestly, I had no idea anymore. But regardless, an opportunity was an opportunity. If Great Britain had truly succeeded in dropping a massive force barely a hundred kilometers away from St. Petersburg, then eastern Russia was practically up for grabs. We just had to crush the remaining scattered forces of the Russian Black Army, sweep past Poland, and charge straight into Belarus!
The first place to finish off was Warsaw. With the Black Army practically gone, Warsaw was as good as empty. We marched in slowly to occupy the city.
"Representative Shtal, shall we proceed slowly as we did last time?"
At Hitler's question, I shook my head. We had already gone through two major urban battles in Paris and Belgrade. Compared to the Serbian National Revolutionary Army or the French Army, the remnants of the Russian Black Army left in Warsaw were a mere handful. An urban battle of this scale was nothing...
"No. Let's march straight through Warsaw with our entire force and split the city from north to south. We will sever and dismantle the Russian Black Army's lines. General Mackensen, what do you think?"
"Yes, that seems like an excellent plan. Our German forces will lead the main assault."
"Then we shall launch the general offensive tomorrow at noon."
And so, the Revolutionary Guard, along with the German and Austro-Hungarian allied forces, lifted the siege, concentrated their entire strength, and advanced into Warsaw. The aircraft of the Hungarian Revolutionary Guard dominated the skies over Warsaw. These were ace pilots tempered on the Serbian front. By now, they had progressed to the point where they could weave through heavily defended areas, harass enemy troops, and execute direct low-altitude strafing runs.
"A-Aaargh! The Hungarian planes are...!"
"They're just made of paper anyway! Aim the mortars at the sky! Or spray them with machine guns! Even a graze will bring those planes down!"
However, the proficiency of the Revolutionary Guard's Aerial Guerrilla Unit was on a completely different level compared to the German air force.
"...Is this really the standard of the Eastern Front?"
"Even if the main force of the Black Army isn't here, they're worse than the Serbians!"
"Hahaha, you idiots! Shoot if you can!"
The Aerial Guerrilla Unit performed all sorts of aerobatic maneuvers, effortlessly dodging every anti-aircraft attempt from the ground. When they opened fire with their machine guns down the wide central avenue, the morale of the Russian forces plummeted in an instant.
"They've brought proper anti-aircraft guns!"
"Their equipment is certainly better than the Serbians'. Retreat! Fall back!"
By now, the Hungarian Aerial Guerrilla Unit could perform the role of 'light cavalry' in the literal sense, not just as a metaphor. Much like Mongolian horse archers, they were experts at unleashing a volley of fire and swiftly retreating.
Once the Aerial Guerrilla Unit had chipped away at the Russian Black Army, it was time for the German army and Stalin's Revolutionary Guard to step in.
"Take cover as you advance!"
"Once you're in range, just spray them with submachine guns!"
"The rifle company will provide cover! Get as close as possible!"
No army could stand against these elite infantrymen. Alongside the already formidable German army stood the Bosnian Agricultural Cooperative Revolutionary Guard, whose capabilities had risen to the level of special forces.
While the German troops acted as the vanguard, closing the distance with close-quarters weaponry, the Bosnian Revolutionary Guard supported them with heavy weapons handling that bordered on the artistic.
"No matter how agile the Germans are, we have the advantage in range! Catch your breath, aim carefully, and fire! We can defeat them!"
Boom! No sooner had the Russian Black Army non-commissioned officer finished shouting his command than a mortar shell slammed directly into his squad. Mortar shells and grenades rained down from the sky like a torrential downpour! The Bosnian Revolutionary Guard's utilization of mortars and grenade launchers was flawless.
Their primary tactic was a variation of the Mongolian swarm tactic. They would move rapidly on horses and bicycles, unleash a devastating concentration of firepower, and quickly slip away. Their understanding of how to concentrate overwhelming firepower from a distance in a single moment had reached absolute mastery.
Once the Russian Black Army crumbled under the immense weight of the infantry's heavy weapons fire, the Germans would charge, armed with close-quarters weapons like submachine guns and shotguns. To split Warsaw from north to south and dismantle the enemy, a single day—just one day—was more than enough.
"Now it is General Hutier's turn to step up. Please clean up the remaining Russian Black Army forces."
"Understood, sir!"
"And Manstein, Guderian, Model! You three are the rising stars I personally requested from the Kaiser. I am assigning you a highly critical mission, so please show me what you can do."
"Yes, sir!"
The three fledgling officers stood face-to-face with Shtal alongside the German generals. Having performed exceptionally well on the Italian front, they had quickly risen from second and first lieutenants to captains. Considering their age, their promotion was nothing short of unprecedented.
With the Russian Black Army shattered and their communications severed, the combat capability of individual companies, platoons, and squads became the deciding factor. Hutier and the three promising young officers unleashed devastating combat efficiency, sweeping away every last remnant of the Black Army. To occupy a defenseless Warsaw, a total of three days was all it took.
"Ah, ah..."
"Has the Russian army finally left?"
"Did we... survive?"
"And what are we supposed to do now that we're alive?"
"..."
Despite our efforts to capture Warsaw, the Polish citizens did not welcome their liberators. It wasn't that they viewed Shtal's Revolutionary Guard as just another set of invaders.
Poland had been ruled by foreign powers for centuries. In hindsight, Napoleon and Tsar Nicholas II had been absolute saints. No matter who ruled them, anyone was better than the Russian Black Army. They were simply too exhausted to welcome anyone.
"Uh... aren't we the liberating army? Why is the whole city so depressed?"
"Well, whatever. Let's hold a victory parade for ourselves—*urk!*"
"Can't you read the room?"
"If you don't know what happened in Warsaw, you're ignorant. If you do know and you're still acting like this, you don't deserve to be in the Revolutionary Guard."
The atrocities committed by the Russian Black Army were already infamous, but seeing the aftermath in person rather than reading about it in a newspaper was a completely different experience. I clicked my tongue as I read the urgent investigation report submitted by the Revolutionary Guard.
"This is... It's like a prophecy from the Book of Revelation has come to pass. Are we sure the Polish citizens aren't exaggerating?"
It was said that Ungern-Sternberg had set up a competition between the National Revolutionary Cavalry and the Cossack Cavalry. Every Polish citizen they killed would be counted as a military merit! Of course, to have a competition, they needed a concrete metric. And what method did Ungern-Sternberg choose?
"On the first day the Black Army entered Warsaw, a decapitation contest between the Cossacks and the National Revolutionary Party went on for about twelve hours. It is said that half of all the massacres committed by the Russian forces occurred on this single day."
"A decapitation contest?"
"Yes, sir. We even have a photograph of the award ceremony held the next day at Wilanów Palace."
The commander of the National Revolutionary Cavalry, who had won a gold medal for decapitating fifteen percent of Warsaw's population, and Ungern-Sternberg, who was presenting him with the medal, were both smiling brightly in the photo. Compared to this, Fuhrer Apis was a saint. No matter the reason, nationalist massacres are utterly unforgivable acts. But at least Apis's massacres had a nominal 'reason'—the victims were ostensibly anti-nationalists who had betrayed the Serbian people. But the Russian Black Army?
I thought they did it to create an atmosphere of terror... but that wasn't even it.
They had hunted down and killed Polish citizens purely for amusement, as if it were a sport. The decapitation contest was merely the massacre of the first day.
"Military exercises that involved 'hunting down' refugees fleeing Warsaw. Urban combat training where they herded Warsaw citizens into a square, handed them clubs, and fought them... *Ugh, blurgh!*"
I felt a wave of nausea wash over me as I looked at the photographic evidence the Russian Black Army had so kindly left behind. They were surreal photos of severed heads piled high like mountains. On top of that, under the pretext of urban combat training, they had herded citizens into one place and slaughtered them with bright smiles on their faces. The contents of the photographs... I will speak of them no further.
"Send these photos to the home country immediately. These photographs are far more important than the city of Warsaw itself!"
"Then..."
"Yes. They must be published in the press without any censorship."
A throbbing headache began to bloom behind my temples. Ungern-Sternberg and the National Revolutionary Party, who had orchestrated all of this, could no longer be allowed to exist.
"Then... will we be advancing east now?"
"Yes. We must. I hear General Nikolai Yudenich is waiting for us."
"Then what shall we do with Warsaw?"
Originally, I had planned to bypass Warsaw and quickly push eastward. But now that I knew what had transpired here, I couldn't do that. We needed to leave some forces behind to establish a military government and conduct a thorough investigation into the Russian Black Army's war crimes.
While the Revolutionary Guard—especially the Hungarian Revolutionary Guard—possessed elite armored tractor units and an air wing, their infantry was still second-rate. However, they had a different specialty: civil affairs and administrative work.
Even Stalin's elite Bosnian Agricultural Cooperative Revolutionary Guard was just as adept at civil affairs as the Hungarians. After all, their primary strategy revolved around guerrilla warfare and establishing liberated zones.
"I would like either Hitler or Stalin to remain behind... but leaving either of them here is a difficult choice."
Nikolai Yudenich was renowned as a brilliant commander. Although the Crusaders had Hutier and Mackensen, it felt risky to leave troops and generals behind when we needed to ensure a decisive victory.
"What to do..."
Just then.
"Representative Shtal! A resistance force of fifty thousand, along with their leader, has come to find us!"
"What? Who is... Ah, wait. Prepare to receive our guest immediately. He is an old comrade-in-arms of mine."
Trotsky, who had been conducting revolutionary activities in Poland, had arrived. I could leave Hitler and the Hungarian Revolutionary Guard behind and take Trotsky with me.