Chapter 229: Confusing the Enemy Without Trying

Chapter 229: Confusing the Enemy Without Trying



Bruno came to notice something as the German, Austro-Hungarian, and Russian armies came together. Something subtle had shifted in the timeline, and it was not exactly all that surprising. To a certain degree, the same rules which applied in his past life still were applicable to this timeline despite its changes.

What did this mean? Well, at a very small level, slight changes in uniforms were made due to the nature of the shift in alliances. For example, in Bruno's past life, there were, for the most part, two different steel helmet designs that came to dominate the battlefield during the Great War.

If one were aligned with the Central Powers, then the odds were that they adopted the M1916 Stahlhelm, originally created by the German Reich, as their answer to head trauma caused by artillery shrapnel.

Or at the very least, they fielded some form of locally produced variation of that design. This had been true for not only Austro-Hungary but also the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Bulgaria during Bruno's past life.

Whereas the Allied Powers, except for two exceptions, used the French Adrian Helmet more or less. This included Russia to a much smaller degree, as they were very late to the game to adopt a steel helmet as a result of Tsar Nicholas's aesthetic sensibilities.

The two exemptions to this general rule of thumb were Great Britain and their infamous Mk I Helmet. There were various nicknames given to this timeless flat brim design, such as the "Brodie Helmet" or the "Tommy Helmet" but at the end of the day it was the same thing.

The United States, curiously enough, was the only faction during the war of any partial significance which opted for the British Mk I design over the French M1915 Adrian Helmet. Which the American soldiers affectionately referred to their domestic copies of the Mk I as the "doughboy" helmet.Nôv(el)B\\jnn

Montenegro had remained neutral for the first month of the war. That is, until Bruno smashed half the Serbian Royal Army at the border, and obliterated their capital all within a single month. In retaliation, the small Balkan Kingdom had quickly declared war on the Imperial Powers.

The reality was that since the start of the war in July, Montenegro had been ferrying troops and supplies into their lands to support Serbia all under the guise of neutrality. The moment they declared war, however, Bruno was well prepared to counter them, and in doing so split his own forces to do so.

This wasn't exactly difficult, with Russian and Austro-Hungarian reinforcements. He was able to spare two whole field armies for the Montenegrin campaign, and in doing so, still have roughly one million men give or take to combat the Serbian Provisional Army.

Normally, it would be easy for a properly trained scout to spot the difference between German troops and those of their allies. The problem was that the Serbian Provisional Army was basically relying on men with minimal training, and whatever equipment they could scrounge together.

Thus, the idea that the 300,000 men who were using motorized transportation for their troops equipment and were the only German soldiers within the massive army advancing south into Serbia never even crossed their mind.

Instead, the roughly 700,000 men in similar uniforms but marching on foot, and carrying their equipment either on their own backs, or via horses and pack mules were also assumed to be German soldiers, resulting in an unintentional disruption of Serbian intelligence, and allied intelligence over all.

Either way, the Serbian Provisional Government was now in a state of internal panic, and was considering whether to throw in the towel altogether, or flee into Montenegro and Albania to continue the war via a combined guerilla campaign.

Especially now that Greece had announced its entry into the war, and would be attacking Serbia from the south, while "Germany" attacked from the north. It was truly a very bad situation to be in.

But in all reality, the current situation was much better for the Serbians than they thought, considering that the German soldiers and artillery composed of only a minority of those headed their way.