Chapter 202: First Contact With the Enemy

Chapter 202: First Contact With the Enemy



Bruno often had a grim sense of humor, and that humor manifested itself as the opening shots were exchanged between the "punitive expedition" consisting of the 1.8 million men belonging to the Army Group dispatched into Serbia and the Serbian Army defending against their onslaught.

Bruno stood among his soldiers, or more specifically the command staff in the rear echelon, as he gazed upon the explosions detonating with each passing second. The sound of machine gun fire echoed along with artillery, and the screams of the wounded created a symphony of death.Nôv(el)B\\jnn

All the while, Bruno smoked another cigarette and spoke his thoughts on it all.

"I was curious if history would remember me as the man who made such great preparations for this moment, only to be the first to fall in battle by a stray bullet... Truly ironic, wouldn't it be?"

Erich chuckled at Bruno's remarks, finding the man's grim sense of humor aligned with his own. In preparation for this war, he had resigned from his position as the Director of the Kaiser's reformed secret police and re-enlisted. Granted his old commission, the man now served as Bruno's personal adjutant.

Meanwhile, Heinrich, who continued to serve as a colonel, was also nearby to witness Bruno's poor attempt at a joke about his own mortality. He shook his head and sighed, speaking with an almost exhausted tone in his voice.

"Sometimes I wonder if all the wars you've fought have done something to your brain... You really should see a doctor about that sooner or later..."

Bruno simply shrugged his shoulders, a silent dismissal of his friend's concern. Watching an artillery shell explode in the distance, he pointed to it as he exhaled a large plume of smoke from his lungs, seemingly indifferent to the life lost in that moment as he commented on the scale of artillery.

"I see the 210s are being used to greater effect than I initially thought they would. How much do you want to bet the enemy army capitulates by the end of the day?"

The First Battle of the War began at the Serbian border between the German 8th Army and the Serbian 2nd and 3rd Armies. Wanting to seize Belgrade and knock the Serbians out of the war by the year's end, Bruno made a bold advance into the region, while the other Imperial armies sent to the campaign did so from various other entry points at the borders they shared with Serbia.

There was just one thing he wasn't expecting: German technological superiority. Whether it was sniper rifles, long-range artillery, mobile mortars, or close air support aircraft, every time the French tried to set up their field guns, the men operating them would be hit by some form of hostile force.

The Germans had an uncanny ability to instantly detect French forces trying to set up heavy weaponry and take them out within moments of being spotted. This was, of course, due to the significant investments in wireless communications Bruno had made in preparation for the

war.

When scouts in armored cars could advance into enemy lines undetected and report to the artillery where the enemy was setting up their mortars and howitzers, it didn't take much more than a single, precise bombardment to take care of the problem before it manifested

itself.

And that was currently the role German armored cars played. Given sloped rolled homogeneous armor, a 20mm auto-cannon as a primary weapon, a max speed of 90 km/h on roads, along with both camouflage paint and netting, these motorized reconnaissance units would require a direct hit from an artillery piece to be damaged by the French forces.

But the French would have to spot them first, and that was assuming the French artillery could hit the German armored scouts before they could off-road out of the area of impact. In other words, Germany had the ability to completely deter any French attack with significant enough destructive power to damage their fortifications before it even began.

And it was driving Leon absolutely mad, as the man stared into the distance while shouting commands at his troops, trying his best not to lose his cool and insult them.

"Then attack the enemy fortifications with your machine guns! I don't give a damn about the casualties; if we do not break through here, then there will be serious consequences for us all. Do you understand me?!"

The result of this poorly planned attack, which lacked both heavy firepower and machine guns in support of the advance, would result in perhaps one of the most significant numbers of casualties in a single battle that the world had ever seen up until this point.

That is, of course, if you don't include the battle that Bruno was currently fighting against the Serbians at the exact same time that Leon commanded his forces to march to their deaths...