empress ch48

In the early stages of the war.

The Kingdom of Poland had its entire territory trampled by the Empire as the price for its betrayal. Naturally, countless Polish soldiers, civilians, and intellectuals fled to the Tsardom of Rus’, seeking refuge from the Empire’s guns.

And they were enraged. They were furious at the sight of their homeland being torn apart by those Empire bastards as if they were dividing a cake.

“We are the true legitimate government of Poland!”

Soon, the Poles who had fled into the Tsardom of Rus’ united their anger and created an organization called the Polish Provisional Government.

‘Hmm… this is troublesome…’

From the perspective of the Tsardom of Rus’, this was quite problematic. The reason being, they had been planning to swallow the Kingdom of Poland whole after the war.

But soon, they changed their petty minds.

They had been hit with two strong punches by the Imperial Army in East Prussia and Bessarabia, suffering a momentary K.O.

Soon, the Tsardom of Rus’ realized. What awaited them at the end of this war was not a glorious victory and expanded territory, but whether they could survive or face death. Only one of the two.

In the end, the Tsardom of Rus’ began to support the Polish Provisional Government operating within its territory.

“Let’s fight for the true independence of Poland!”

Their morale was sky-high, and with the support of the Tsardom of Rus’ added to it, it was truly like a tiger gaining wings.

These Polish independence fighters were utilized as elite troops on important fronts such as Galicia.

Yes. ‘Galicia’ and the like.

“Niech żyje Polska (Long live Poland)!!!”

Numerous Polish soldiers rushed out of the trenches. The machine guns of the Kingdom of Hungary’s army began to spew fire at those Polish soldiers.

“Kuh-heok!”

“Agh!”

Numerous Polish soldiers were hit by bullets and fell.

Currently, it was virtually impossible for the Polish army to replenish its new recruits. Every single person was precious.

“Everyone! Take cover! Take cover!”

The Polish army’s Major, Józef Haller von Hallenburg, shouted at his subordinates. Of course, most of his subordinates had already hidden behind blackened logs, rotting corpses, and shell craters before even hearing his words.

‘We need to break through here…’

The Kingdom of Hungary’s army was relentlessly firing its machine guns. If he raised his head, the future of his head exploding was right before his eyes.

Józef took out a grenade from his waist. It was a grenade he had previously captured from the Imperial Army by chance.

Receiving such a high-performance grenade was like plucking a star from the sky, so he had been trying to conserve it… but it seemed like now. It was time to use it.

Ping. He pulled the pin on the grenade. And counted numbers in his head. 1 second, 2 seconds, 3 seconds. Now.

The grenade, released from his hand, drew an arc and entered the Kingdom of Hungary’s army’s machine gun emplacement.

He saw the face of the Hungarian bastard, momentarily wearing a dumbfounded expression. That bastard’s face was soon filled with fear.

“Ma-!”

Bang. Before he could utter his last words, the grenade exploded. And patter. For a brief moment, red rain fell from the sky.

“Hoo… fucking hell… scissors?”

“Here you are.”

Józef accepted the scissors handed to him by his subordinate.

Barbed wire was as dangerous to charging infantry as machine guns. Because it fundamentally blocked the act of moving forward.

Just barbed wire, it’s not that bad, is it? If so, try jumping into the barbed wire with your bare body while piercing through a hail of bullets. Then you will soon realize, just like them.

Just how fucking awful barbed wire is.

Snip.

The scissors cut the barbed wire. Snip. The scissors cut the next barbed wire as well. And snip. When the scissors cut the last barbed wire. A ‘hole’ was created in the Kingdom of Hungary’s trenches.

“Charge! Charge!”

The Polish independence fighters poured into the hole with various weapons such as entrenching tools, clubs, daggers, and pistols.

“Die! You lackeys of the Empire! Die!”

And inside the trench line, savagery unfolded once again. Soldiers on both sides began to fight with weapons in order to survive.

They stabbed each other’s bellies with daggers, smashed each other’s heads with clubs, and hacked each other’s bodies with entrenching tools.

“R, run away!”

And in the end, it was the Polish independence fighters who emerged victorious.

“Hoo… fuck…”

Józef felt as if a tightly stretched rubber band had snapped, and he washed his face with his hands.

He felt his face getting wet with sticky blood. It was somewhat unpleasant, but in his experience, there were few ways to wake up more easily than this.

“M, Major! Look there! Look there!!”

“What is it now…”

Józef asked back irritably and looked through his binoculars.

…And he saw it. The sight of another defensive line being formed beyond that. The sight of the Empire’s double-headed eagle fluttering above it

“Fucking hell.”

Snap. The tip of the bayonet broke.

“The Hungarian army has carried out a surprisingly successful defense.”

Well. To be honest… if they had failed to stop the enemies even after using elastic defense, a tactic that required enormous amounts of money and time, I would have been planning to dissect their brains.

If you have human intelligence, you can safely stop the enemy with elastic defense. In other words, failing to stop the enemy using elastic defense means you are not human.

If I dissected them and proved that they were not the same species as us, wouldn’t I be able to avoid the death penalty for the credit of making a great discovery about human evolution? I was briefly lost in such delusions… but it seemed they were human after all.

Seeing how wonderfully they broke the spearhead of the Tsardom of Rus’ army.

And if they hesitated even for a moment on the Eastern Front, only one fate would come to them.

A light hook using the cavalry. And the 8th and 12th Armies, which usually played this role, had unfortunately left for the Western and Italian Fronts.

There was only one hammer on the Eastern Front now.

“Mackensen’s 9th Army…”

These men, who had achieved results on the level of massacring boy scouts on the Yugoslavian Front, had been dispatched to the Eastern Front at my request.

Because the Romanian and Croatian armies were stationed in the former Yugoslavia, maintaining security, the 9th Army was able to operate freely.

‘Of course, the fact that they achieved results close to a massacre was also due to the fact that they actually committed a massacre…’

Anyway. Until now, the 9th Army had not proven itself by dealing with weak countries such as Yugoslavia.

Their elite status, that is.

‘It might not be bad to take a look this time.’

The hero of the Yugoslavian Front, the 9th Army’s performance.

“As expected! His Majesty the emperor is the reincarnation of Karl I!”

General Mackensen clenched the report in both hands and spoke with a face full of joy.

“Are you going on about fate again…”

His adjutant thought, holding his forehead. Of course, she is a capable monarch considering she suddenly inherited the throne. That much is true.

But seeing Mackensen next to him, bringing her all sorts of modifiers, such as the reincarnation of Karl I, or a genius sent by God…

Naturally, the thought ‘Is she really that good…?’ came to mind. Originally, if you praise someone too much, people tend to want to refute it. At least, that’s what he thought.

If he had encountered the sea of information of the 21st century, where anonymity is guaranteed, he would have had the potential to grow into a very good troublemaker.

Anyway, the reason why his superior was so excited was simple.

“To encircle and annihilate the enemies who have deeply penetrated into Galicia!”

In fact, he had been dissatisfied with his daily life on the Yugoslavian Front. Ridiculously easy breakthroughs, followed by ‘suppressing the militia’. And again, a ridiculously easy breakthrough, followed by ‘suppressing the militia’.

It was an endless repetition of the following process.

He was even happy that he was given the opportunity to fight a large-scale battle that he had been looking forward to in the Spring Offensive…

The result was only Romania’s participation and the meaningless deletion of the front line.

Mackensen was truly disappointed. Hadn’t the 9th Army failed to achieve anything even after the first year of the war had passed?

He wanted to achieve brilliant results like the 8th Army, which had magnificently encircled and annihilated the enemies in East Prussia, the 12th Army, which had carried out historical mobile warfare in Poland, the 6th Army, which was in charge of the main attack on Verdun, and the Burgundian Army, the dagger of northern France.

And now. The 9th Army had been given the opportunity to achieve the ‘brilliant results’ that Mackensen had so desired.

To encircle and annihilate the enemies who dared to recklessly stick their heads into the Galician direction.

“Our goal is simple! Just crush those who arrogantly started the offensive! Start the assault with the Hussar Division at the forefront!”

The gales caused by tens of thousands of warhorses began to blow.

The nightmare of Mongolia began to resurface.