Codegease: Air and Land Warfare 1946

Page 274

"Mom, didn't Dad tell us that the war is over...?"

Chapter 388, Section 493: I am no longer a "knight".

Elizabeth and Marshal Sofia naturally parted on bad terms again.

"I don't understand why Your Highness can remain optimistic about such an outcome? The US military destroyed four of our airships in the air and sea off Denmark and Sweden, and of the six that barely returned, four needed to be docked. Adding the previous losses, that's double digits!"

It was only at this moment that Her Highness the Princess realized who her nemesis was—not a stubborn and impulsive brute, nor a sarcastic lackey, nor a mastermind like Schneizel, but a conservative who was impossible to persuade and dared not act on.

Although Duke Rabinowitz had complained to her about the heavy damage to the ships over the past two months and knew that it was not the right time to confront the US and British navies head-on, he said that as long as he had time to repair the ships, he would immediately launch an attack if ordered to attack Northern Union ships again.

She returned with a headache and fever, just as General Trossa's private letter from the Swedish front was placed on her desk—she couldn't persuade the general, no matter how much she described the benefits of "as long as the airships attack, the ground casualty ratio can be reduced", Marshal Sofia would always say, "Aren't the airship crew members human?"

"Father, what if the Soviets launch a few more Skyships? Will she even be willing to attack Poland? What should we do..."

“Poland? Don’t worry, sister, there are plenty of people who are taking the East seriously.” Elizabeth was slumped in her chair, staring at the ceiling, when she heard Kelly’s voice, but the voice and tone were unusually calm, as if it were not the same person at all.

“My sister Nunnally wrote to me. She told me that Schneizel sent Luciano, the tenth Knight of the Round Table, to assist Marshal Manslitt’s plans in the east. He will arrive tomorrow with his Valkyrie squad. Also, it seems that Suzaku Kururugi is also interested in getting involved.”

"I'm telling you, you..." Hearing his brother's unusually calm and composed words, he got goosebumps. Before he could even turn his head to look at him, a thunderous "Gah!" followed.

A plump, white Call duck, looking like a radish, is sitting on Kelly's head.

"How...how could you let this thing get on your head?!"

"Hey, don't move!" Kelly's familiar trumpet-like voice and flailing arms returned as he lifted the duck's belly off its head. "You scared Alpha!"

"Stay where you are and get down to business." Elizabeth tossed the duck onto the table. "I want to hear your thoughts. Suzaku is coming to District 45 with Lancelot and that Lloyd guy. Which front should we assign them to?"

"They can go wherever they want. Suzaku is completely unnecessary here, and so is Luciano!"

Seeing Kelly spewing spittle from his mouth in a fit of anger, the older sister instinctively put the duck back on his head.

"Huh? Where was I?" The younger brother suddenly stopped gesturing and coughed.

"Right now, the conflict between the Germans and the people of Area 11 is very serious. At such a critical moment, I believe Suzaku would not be so foolish as to abandon Nunnally and come here alone to risk his life. So I guess there are only two factors: either Suzaku wants to come to Area 45 to change his mindset, or he wants to learn about the customs and culture of Area 45. Judging from this, Suzaku will definitely not stay here for long."

"Going to the southern front to deal with the seemingly endless battle against the American forces might not be effective. Going to Northern Europe, although Lancelot has hadron cannons that can help us take down tough opponents, it can only quench our thirst temporarily. Besides, doing so would cause Marshal Sofia and the Sky Fleet's enthusiasm to plummet. So, let him hitch a ride on Poland's coattails in a while. Maybe that can also annoy that Manslitt guy."

“In that case…” Elizabeth slowly got up. Kelly thought she was going to give him some explanation, but to his surprise, his sister suddenly reached out her arm and lifted the little duck off his head with one hand.

"When I gave it to Kelly to play with, I never thought it would be useful like this!"

……

Today, there is an inexplicable harmony in Berlin outside the Reichstag building.

The city's streets and houses have been renovated to be even better than Berlin originally was. During the day, there is a bustling flow of ordinary people's cars and pedestrians, and at night, there are colorful streetlights along the streets—coincidentally, when the Black Knights marched all the way to the concession last year, the city was also brightly lit.

Perhaps it was the innate indifference of ordinary people towards war? Or perhaps, under the protection of the expeditionary force, they still equated the war between the two worlds, after all, many soldiers' families had already settled here, and they would occasionally see their soldiers' relatives passing by their door.

That's why, in the fierce battles 360 kilometers away in Nuremberg and the Øresund Strait, no one could hear the commotion from the trenches and positions while sipping tea or coffee—it was an illusion! Only veterans who fought in the 45th district would call it an illusion!

"When you drive out of the city of Berlin and truly step into the 15 square kilometers of European land occupied by Britannia, even just in the suburbs of Berlin, you can appreciate a lot of scenery: fields dried up by the smoke of war, withered branches slowly sprouting new buds, and cemeteries scattered around the villages and towns."

"Yes, the cemetery of the soldiers of District 45, but more importantly, the cemetery of the soldiers of Britannia—the memorial tablets of five or six hundred thousand soldiers. But when they are transformed from a vast, landscape-covered landscape into an extremely scattered collection, hidden and distributed in various villages and towns not inhabited by the citizens of the Empire, and placed alongside the graves of the people of District 45, they are like a cup of coffee that has been diluted countless times, no longer able to taste the bitterness of life and death."

“‘I seemed to see scattered graves along the way, but I didn’t shed tears until I stopped in front of my husband’s tombstone—because those who sacrificed their lives must have been just like my husband, among hundreds or thousands of heroes.’... What do you think of my writing like this?”

"Your princess will definitely only allow you to send this last message."

The Knights Agincourt are still resting today. Angelina took some time to visit Mrs. Zeppelin, who had been invited to point out Berlin landmarks to Elizabeth and her companions. The two met at a street vendor selling cold drinks.

During this period of free time, she wrote down many of her observations and experiences among ordinary people, influenced by her father, who was a skilled writer.

"Why do you say that? Oh, judging others by your own standards, right?" Angelie seemed to understand something. "So, if all the 'Britanians' in what I wrote were replaced with 'Germans' or 'Greater Germans,' it wouldn't have been published in Berlin five years ago?"

“The officer you mentioned earlier already knows that there’s a general in the US Army named Patton, that’s him,” Mrs. Zeppelin pointed out in her statement. “I think you need to take notes of the story I’m about to tell, and then tell it to your princess.”

"This is something I overheard from an American last year. Three years ago, when Patton was in Italy, he slapped an American soldier in a field hospital because the latter had some psychological or physiological issues that prevented him from adapting to the battlefield. Then Patton, who was in the spotlight, was sidelined from the public eye and didn't return to the battlefield for almost a year."

"Then, should our Princess also be careful of the reporters following her?" Angelie shrugged.

“No, no, no, that’s not the point.” Mrs. Zeppelin gave a wry smile. “Let me ask you something. Do you know that in your Area 11, there’s a group called the Aryan Special Forces? If that soldier who caused Patton’s bad reputation in America were wearing a German uniform, those guys in the Special Forces would happily use the guns their Führer sent them to publicly desecrate his corpse.”

"Oh, Her Highness punishes irresponsible officers severely, but she probably won't use the same tactics she uses on the Japanese on her own people." Yes, as a Britannian, Angelina still chose to call the terrified soldiers on the battlefield her own people. "Even so, you certainly didn't wait until the eve of Berlin's fall to realize you'd already lost the war, did you?"

“At least I didn’t… tsk.” The lady glanced into the distance, then turned back and frowned. “Before spring of 1943 even arrived, that guy on the stage gave a speech and made the whole country mourn for three days because we lost the battle, in Stalingrad. It started from that day.”

"Mourning? Three days?" Recalling the scene of whipping the coward's corpse, and considering the implications of these two words when applied to Germans, Angelie sensed something. "What kind of battle did you lose to the Soviets? I know Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Murmansk, but what about Stalingrad?"

Just as they were about to delve into this issue with Mrs. Zeppelin, a car horn suddenly blared from the intersection behind them.

"What happened?" Angelie stood up and stopped the military vehicle that was speeding by and almost crashed into the vendors' stall.

"Something terrible has happened. We just received a report that His Excellency the Knight of the Tenth Round Table has gotten into a fight with several soldiers."

……

Let's rewind a few minutes to the time of the incident. A green space covered with grass and trees, surrounded by houses built along the street, is a common architectural layout in European cities. This is one of several rehabilitation centers for wounded soldiers in Berlin.

A captain in ordinary military uniform was supporting another man whose arm was wrapped in bandages. The man was using the IV drip pole as a crutch with his left hand, while his right arm was given to the captain.

As they reached a corner, they were suddenly bumped by another group of people, and the injured person almost fell.

"This is an injured person, please be careful."

The accompanying captain instinctively shouted something – given the greater casualties compared to previous wars, under such high pressure and cruel conditions, if a medical worker were to yell such a thing at a general who wasn't looking where he was going, the latter would certainly turn around and apologize without any airs of official rank.

In this moment of carelessness, they didn't notice the faces and ended up in trouble—worse than being scolded, a gleaming throwing knife grazed between their foreheads and embedded itself in the wall.

"What was that talking just now? Huh?!"

Not just the two of them, but all the medical staff and wounded on the green field turned to look. Before them stood none other than the Tenth Knight, Luciano, and the entire Valkyrie squad—why were they here?

“I just came to discuss some personal matters with the person in charge of this place. I didn’t have any other plans.” Luciano turned around, clutching several throwing knives hidden under his cloak. “What’s it about him, One-Eyed?”

"The bullet damaged his pelvis, sir." The captain, who was helping the wounded man, adjusted the eye patch over his right eye. "I... I just had a tired eye."

“But he can’t walk on his own anymore, do you know why? Because the battlefield is a place of killing, and you have a greater talent for not being killed than him, so why do you, who has more power over life and death, pity him?” Luciano’s lips curled up, and he ordered one of the Valkyrie squad members to push the captain onto an open field. “What’s your name?”

“Me? Zelil, Griffin Zelil.” The one-eyed captain looked around at the growing crowd and was a little at a loss.

"Hmm, if I told you now that you've been chosen as the duel opponent by a genius killer, what would be your correct answer?"

Upon hearing this, Griffin turned to go back, but was pushed back by the Valkyr players who were marking the field, who also tossed him a sword.

"I have only one condition!" he said, pointing to the wounded man he had just helped up, "Put the IV back in for him!"

“That’s ridiculously wrong.” He looked at him with disgust. “If it were Suzaku Kururugi, he would take off his gloves and ‘duel you on the spot.’ If it were Lord Bismarck, the First Knight, he would give him a stern reprimand and then get on Galahad to get down to business.”

"Why can they become Knights of the Round Table, while you're stuck here struggling? Before I came, someone told me that the 45th District Expeditionary Force were all incredibly capable killers. Is that all there is to it?" Luciano couldn't help but laugh out loud. "Hey, the Expeditionary Force's dignity is right in front of you, don't you even have the guts to pick it up?"

Only then did Griffin reluctantly bend down to pick it up. Swords were truly fascinating things to the Britannians. Wealthy households invariably had such decorations hanging on their walls, and for soldiers, besides duels, they were often companions for new recruits practicing swordsmanship—not surprising at all, since soldiers in the East Asian Federation also practiced boxing every day to strengthen their bodies.

“You should know about gladiators, right?” Luciano stared into Griffin’s eyes, raising one of his throwing knives, tip pointing downwards. “When the VIP in the arena gives a thumbs-down, it means the performance was subpar, and the losing gladiator has to die in front of everyone. I’ll give you three minutes to fight me. If I’m satisfied, I’ll give you a thumbs-up; otherwise…”

"I understand. In other words, you just want to see blood, sir."

Griffin's next move astonished everyone present: after drawing his sword, he gripped the blade tightly with his left hand, drawing a long, crimson line of blood from the hilt to the tip. Then, he reversed his grip on the hilt, tossed the blood-stained sword in front of Luciano, and strode away. "You've won, vampire lord. This is what you deserve."

……

Not long after he ran out of the crowd, he bumped into another relatively short figure in blue.

"Why are you here?" Angelie blocked his way. When she saw the figure among the audience, she almost didn't recognize him because he wasn't wearing the Knights' uniform.

“The wounded patients entrusted to me are here, and I am on a mission.” Griffin’s reply was cold and completely different from the person he used to be.

"I mean, why did you leave the Knights of Agincourt?!" Angelie exploded, punching Griffin in his uniform, which was indistinguishable from that of an ordinary soldier. "Do you know that Ypel also..."

“You told me to get out, Lieutenant, you fired me.” The captain stared into her eyes. “Ipel? Did you come here to test me by having me recite the names of every single member of the Knights Order who has died since the Battle of Hamburg?”

"Where were you when Ipel was killed, and when we nearly died at the hands of the American army?!"

"You told me to go back to the unit, Lieutenant. As the squad leader, you didn't tell me to go back." Griffin interrupted her directly. "Frankly, is it only today that you remembered me? Remembered a guy who's short-staffed?"

"Don't you have any self-awareness and want to come back on your own?"

"You told me to get lost, and I did. Then, without even saying it, you told me to come back? Thank you, it turns out the term 'preconceived notion' is indeed true."

"So? You just changed your clothes and left, and put on this leather jacket?!"

Angelie threw a punch in anger, but Griffin caught it.

"What do you mean, Lieutenant? What do you mean by 'this leather'? Are you saying that ordinary soldiers like me, dressed like me, are of lower status than you? Tell me honestly, if the vampires hadn't caused such a ruckus at the rehabilitation center today, you wouldn't have come to visit the wounded soldiers, would you? You'd only care about whether Shishian can get out of bed, whether Ipel's compensation will be swallowed up, and whether Lilizia's belongings have been returned, wouldn't you?"

"Are you trying to change the subject?"

"Let me ask you one more time: from the time we withdrew from Hamburg until Ipper's death, did any of you, or even the entire Knights, remember me?" Griffin, trembling, gripped Angelie's wrist, a tear unexpectedly falling. "I am ultimately just one of the thousands of expeditionary soldiers. I was simply looking for a place where I could still be there. I couldn't bring Lily and Ipper back to everyone, but at least I could let more people stay with their friends..."

……

Griffin ultimately left Angelie behind, went to the rehabilitation center, and then went to an ordinary military camp. This was one of the units under Marshal Manslitt's command, which was about to launch an attack on Poland.

"Hey Captain! How's our commander doing? Hey, what happened to your hand?"

"Haha, the nurse accidentally broke the bottle while changing your officer's medication, and I was helping to pick up the glass." Griffin smiled gently. "He's recovering very well, and he should be able to run again next week."

"You've worked so hard these past two months as our instructor, guiding us through the training." The soldiers huddled together, beaming. "The day after tomorrow, we're going to cross the Oder River and take care of the Soviets and Poles."

"That's good, just be careful." The captain seemed both relieved and worried. "Oh, and remember not to bring lances or MVS swords. These things that are meant to improve your mech piloting skills are useless in ground combat."

"It's no use?"

"You've always wanted to ask how the Soviets came up with their tank designations... The second KMF tank of the expeditionary force's vanguard was completely destroyed when it was rammed by a Soviet 'Bison' during a cavalry charge."

Chapter 389, Section 494: Bloodshed in Poland

Görlitz is an ordinary small town located on the banks of the Neisse River, which is on the upper reaches of the Oder River. 140 kilometers to its east is the metropolis of Wrocław.

Returning to the early morning of September 1, 1939, both cities shared another characteristic: in front of the town hall square, flags bearing the name of Germany were flying—the same was true in Königsberg, on a more distant Baltic coast.

Before the sun had even risen, the sound of warships' cannons rang out outside Danzig harbor. The Southern and Northern Army Groups, stationed in Wrocław and East Prussia respectively, pounced on Polish soil like hungry wolves. Following closely behind, trucks carrying the blood of the invasion machine drove onto the bridgehead of Görlitz—thus, the term "World War II" was officially etched into the long scroll of human history.

Six years of war have passed, and everything has changed. The fields and towns along the Oder and Neisse rivers are devastated, and the two rivers have become the natural dividing line between the new borders of Germany and Poland.

Today is July 19, 1946. Just two weeks ago, on this day of the Fatherland's Independence Day, the U.S. forces in Nuremberg surrendered, and Königsberg was renamed Kaliningrad.

The Britannian Empire, as visitors from outer space, finally decided to take the initiative once again. "Of course I understand that viewing prisoner-of-war camps like visiting a zoo's cages of ferocious beasts is a flawed way of thinking, but are the Soviets really as terrible as they say?"

Marshal Manslitt and his 1.7 million fresh troops spent more than a month settling on German soil, during which time they received instruction from countless veterans. Finally, they were able to realize the day the Marshal had "boasted."

Thousands of KMFs and tanks roared through the sky, advancing along the pontoon bridges and road bridges over the Neisse River, and along this narrow front stretching 80 kilometers from north to south, into the land that had been renamed Poland, launching an attack towards Wrocław, where the German army had set out years before.

Facing the land that had long been ravaged by artillery fire, countless officers and soldiers of the Expeditionary Force, both spirited and slightly uneasy, rushed here, eager to confront the enemy bearing the name of the Soviet Union with a restless spirit.

But reality played a cruel joke on them. The first thing to attack them was not the artillery fire that had terrified the entire city's defenders the previous year, nor the Red Star aircraft that were causing havoc overhead, but rather the hidden dangers that had narrowly escaped the blast by hiding in the mud during the artillery preparations.

The reason why the Soviet troops encountered no resistance after penetrating nearly 10 kilometers into Poland was written in the Soviet command's plan: the land the Britannians crossed was riddled with hundreds of thousands of landmines of all kinds.

The expeditionary force was well-prepared, drawing on their experience fighting the Soviet troops stationed on Rügen Island during their initial landing there. However, the sheer density and extent of the minefields were truly astonishing.

While artillery preparation opened up some routes through the minefields, it was clear that assault guns or infantry fighting vehicles equipped with mine-clearing devices were still necessary for preparedness. Even so, as the vanguard of 1.7 million troops, nearly 200,000 officers and soldiers inevitably suffered from accidental triggering of mines or from escaping mines.

Exhausted, the group waded through minefield after minefield, and it seemed they could already see the hammer and sickle flags, representing Soviet garrisons, fluttering over distant villages. But if they had appeared in a group and hadn't dispersed or taken cover in time, they might have suffered some artillery fire before even seeing the Soviet tanks that had long existed only in photographs and videos—that's what's called waiting in comfort for the enemy to tire themselves out.

Only before all this happened did the sky become unusually hot. When the armed transport planes, accompanied by their aviation KMFs, arrived over the rear of the Soviet and Polish forces, nearly a thousand Yak and Lavokin fighters were already on high alert, as if they had been waiting for this day for a long time.

However, just as the Soviet army inevitably missed a few aircraft and flew over Wrocław, Il-2 and Il-10 attack aircraft, escorted by fighter jets, flew over the floating bridges of the Neisse River and dropped rockets and bombs on the troops under the air-to-air fire of both banks, catching the officers and soldiers off guard.

There was no way around it; this was an inevitable scene for these "newbies" who hadn't yet been deeply immersed in the main battlefield of District 45—when Soviet warplanes swooped down on the bridge and opened fire, half of the officers and soldiers who jumped into the river to escape couldn't find their guns when they surfaced.

"Let those trucks drive away. What if the Soviets follow us here again?"

I wonder how many people were impressed by Colonel Jones, who had just appeared alongside Field Marshal Manslitt that day. Today, during the river crossing, the Field Marshal did not order him to stay by his side. The colonel's first task was not to go through the minefield to fight on the front line, but to guide traffic and defend against air attacks on the river crossing point.

Of course, now there is another way to survive: to retrieve the soldiers who fell into the water and were swept away.

"Hounds that hear gunshots for the first time must be scared..." That's how he comforted the rescued people who had fallen into the water and those around them, including himself.

On one hand, he had to guide the attacking troops and logistics transport teams across the border to the east, and on the other hand, he had to leave room for the wounded who were withdrawn to be sent back to the outskirts of Berlin for treatment without any obstacles. Through the conversations of those people he had overheard, he heard all sorts of complaints about the Soviet minefields.

"We were held up by minefields and then bombarded by air raids and artillery fire, like being 'hit in a sack'"; "We tried to flank the enemy from the rear, but were blocked by even larger minefields"; "We were even able to engage the Soviets' rifles, but we had to stop and fight back while being suppressed by all kinds of anti-tank and anti-infantry fire."

After sorting through all the information, Jones called the marshal, only to be met with a furious response that nearly set his hair on fire.

"Do you even need to tell me that? How did you bunch of useless idiots assess the Soviet defenses back then?"