Youjo Senki - Volume 13 - Chapter 6

[chapter] VI Mutiny

JANUARY 14, UNIFIED YEAR 1928, THE EAST

The focus of the Federation’s strategic offensive Rising Dawn was to end their association with the Imperial Army once and for all. According to General Kutuz, the lead planner of the attack, “if the Imperials are expecting the usual party, they will instead party alone in their graves. We stand solemnly united.”

In coordinating Rising Dawn, the Federation Army prized themselves on this being an organization-wide effort. The phrase Victory Through Unity—which was very compatible with Communism—was not only ideologically appealing, but it also closely reflected the practical necessity of unity for the Federation Army.

“General Zettour has a habit of meandering deviously, striking from an unexpected angle, or even on occasion, completely upsetting a situation through repeated tactical superiority. In that case, our only option is to overwhelm him with organizational strength that is too great to be overturned.”

In other words, General Kutuz had concluded that if the Imperials were going to play cheap tricks, then the Federation should take the classic approach and simply crush them with a grand military force.

Before laughing and calling such an approach mundane, one should know that the essence lay in its thoroughness. According to General Kutuz, “the Federation chooses where to fight. The Federation chooses how to fight. The Federation chooses when to fight. We, and only we, decide.”

The Federation Army carried everything off remarkably. Resolving to fully seize initiative for themselves on the battlefield and then, after setting the table, faithfully following the party’s wishes in regards to strategic objectives.

And the Communist Party, rightly, had only one order. To end the war in a single strike. Both the Federation and the party were aware of the cost extolled by this too-long war.

Hence why they brought Rising Dawn in hopes of resolution.

As atheists, they did not pray to God. But they were willing to do all that was humanly possible. Careful, repeated preparation was their catechism. One might laugh at a military that resorted to sheer numbers, but those who laughed would soon learn the justification for this instrument of violence.

In reality, God was always on the side with more battalions.

Upon seeing the full picture that was Rising Dawn, specialists uniformly expressed one opinion: It was tremendous. General Kutuz, too, expressed this point eloquently.

“If General Zettour is as intelligent as he is rumored to be,” he muttered, shrugging like any ordinary graybeard and speaking in the level voice of a tired old man, a voice that revealed his simple nature, “then even he should be able to understand what is happening. And the moment he understands, he will only despair.”

They were going to strike head-on with a massive army.

Generally Kutuz, and the others present, understood what that meant. The moment that Moskva Stavka of Supreme High Command gave the order to begin the attack, General Kutuz spoke softly. The large crowd of people around him nodded softly but emphatically.

“In the end, we will prove that the Empire is a problem that can be solved through blood and steel.”

It was a small murmur that reverberated like a roar on the world.

The attack commenced with a battery of heavy artillery, followed by numerous rockets. So it begun: a full-depth preemptive attack against the Empire.

It was artillery that were the gods, artillery that were the true lords and masters. And properly, artillery that would turn the world on its head.

Artillery cleaned up, and infantry trampled through. So long as these basics were established, there was not a defensive line on Earth that could not be broken. This was war’s unsparing lesson. The ways of the lord are simple.

And Operation Rising Dawn was faithful to simplicity. A model elevated to the point of sublimity.

One.

Utilize air superiority to adjust the attack range of infantry, extending the range to include not just the first line of enemy defensive positions but second and third lines of resistance as well, completely bombarding all enemy facilities, installations, and infrastructure in the area with firepower.

Two.

Launch units with greater strength, mobility, and sustainability than infantry in several waves, extending offensive limits to completely cover enemy positions. In other words, carry out breakthroughs using mechanized units.

The Federation’s model was slavishly dedicated to these two simple elements.

Was it an attempt to simply crush the enemy without a plan?

Absolutely not.

An all-encompassing torrent of violence. A revelation of military knowledge thoroughly dedicated to the overall scheme. Full and total utilization of the cruel modern instruments of violence. The devil was in the details, and such an operation was truly the epitome of the military rationality available to warmongers.

General Kutuz and the Federation Communist Party, an organization of no particular military genius, were going to utilize what they had amassed to teach the world a lesson. To impose their will. To forge ahead and, with a vortex of firepower, tear apart the enemy’s defenses, their troops, their reserve positions, their communication lines, any and every last method of opposition at their disposal. Tear them up fully by the roots.

Steel showed no mercy. Leaving no room for cheap tricks, they were going to blanket the enemy in shells across every inch of a massive 100 kilometer-long front, ruthlessly pulverizing the opposition in an artillery duel.

Naturally, throwing so much firepower at the wall required an exponential number of muzzles. Getting everything in place had been daunting, and just preparing in advance had been a kind of hell. But once in place, the hammer of god was theirs to bring to bear on the battlefield.

Before the gods of steel, man, who was but weak flesh, could only beg for mercy.

A moment of crisis.

And yet…

…or perhaps, because of this…

When facing crises, organizations tended to behave in adherence to their organizational culture. The Empire’s eastern army was no exception. As soon as they heard the words Federation counterattack, they began to act reflexively. They needed to stick to what was tried-and-true—greet the enemy’s attack at their strongpoints and wait for their striking task force to counter.

They didn’t even need to wait to be ordered to do so from above. The judgment was made from shared understanding among those on the ground that such steps would see them through, and commanders at each level acted based on this assumption.

Previously, this had been correct. And so now should have been no different. A simple thing, but in this moment, the deep-seated illness that was the imperial battle doctrine began to show its fangs.

After all, the Imperial Army had thoroughly trained its officers, when under identical conditions, to make approximately identical decisions.

Even in the middle of total war, where low- and mid-level officers had a tendency to grow scarce, the army spared no efforts in maintaining this standard for at least superior officers.

They were all of one style of thinking—dedicated to enabling interior-line operations. If they were going to make enemies of everyone around them and still have some chance of winning, they needed to capitalize on interior lines, with officers behaving proactively and working in mutual cooperation without the control of High Command, so as not to miss even the slightest chance. Thus, the image of victory that had been drilled into these officers’ heads since their academy days was one of delaying defense followed by decisive support from a main force.

You could take the boy out of the academy, but you couldn’t take the academy out of the boy.

The coordinated instinct of each to hunker down separately and wait for a suitable counterattack was both fundamental and a curse. We cannot pull back. This was the major instinctive premise behind all their thinking.

Of course, tactical withdrawal to lure the enemy out was possible. That was always an option. In fact, flexibly adjusting one’s defense by exchanging place and time was considered basic. There was nothing strange to Imperial Army officers about the idea of buying time in exchange for position.

However, simply put, they had made a collective mistake.

The Empire, the Imperial Army, had raised its officers to make interior lines the axis of their strategy. But to them, the line they were to hold was not hundreds of kilometers in depth. As a result, while withdrawal could be freely chosen on the tactical dimension, the thought of considering it never even crossed their minds on the strategic dimension.

Their only thought was to identify and crush the main point of attack. But during the Federation’s Rising Dawn, everything was the main attack.

The Imperial officers didn’t know that yet. Enduring fierce shelling in their own separate positions, the thinking of each unit, ignorant as they were, was simple and based on past experience.

The area under our control must be the enemy’s main point of attack. That means we have to hold. While we hold firm in our strongpoint, friendly forces are likely mounting a counterattack.

They could not begin to imagine that the region next to them, and the next, all the regions, everywhere, were under fire.

After all, even in the far-flung trench fighting of the Rhine front, there was still a main axis of attack for Command to identify and thus prove its worth. They all made assumptions about what was happening based on what they knew. The heavy pummeling, meanwhile, was causing outages and confusion in communication, making it even more difficult to grasp the situation.

As a result, they all misunderstood what was happening.

“This point is that the army must solidify around and protect the strongpoint. If we just stand our ground, reinforcements will come, and the battle will be won!”

Imperial officers adhered to their own slavish style of thinking. It was what they had to rely on in times of crisis. And doing so was what had carried them thus far.

For those officers who had experienced victory after victory under General Zettour, they were even confident. Each unit across the entire theater decided separately to stand firm and protect their own position until either the enemy infantry, who were sure to come, were repelled or a reaction force mounted a counterattack.

In other words, they committed firmly to holding their position. They may have been surrounded, but there was no cause to worry. Friendly forces would come to clear a path.

In short, they believed they already knew what to expect from the front. Using their discretion on the ground, they all made the same choice. Their choice, to hold their ground, was brave. That none of them could even consider the fact that the whole front was under fire and that most of the field army was tied down, however, was a tragedy.

“The enemy! We’re under fire from the enemy!” “Everyone, to your posts!” “What is this?! We’re under concentrated fire! Is this the enemy’s main force?!” “Emergency alert from area thirty-two. Enemy artillery units across spectrum…” “Emergency alert. Enemy artillery across full spectrum in area twenty-three…” “Emergency alert for command. Enemy artillery units across the spectrum in area nineteen are…” “Local command, this is Aerial Field Base Command 11. Enemy aerial forces are…”

On that day, at that time, the communications officers at Imperial Army Eastern Command were inundated by a veritable deluge of reports. Once the officer in charge, pale and looking shaken, informed Command of the emergency, that a fierce attack was taking place, Eastern Command quickly realized what was happening.

The enemy was carrying out a full-scale attack—make no mistake about it.

However, Eastern Command had fallen into such chaos that even that attack had to take a back seat for now. After all, the commander himself had gone out on reconnaissance, and no one could reach him now.

“Has General Laudon died in one of the explosions?!” “General Laudon, please be alright…!” “What? The staff officers under General Laudon are under attack by the Federation Army?!” “All these reports are contradictory! Check carefully! Has anyone got in touch with his adjutant?!” “There’s no word!” “What were his guards doing?!” “Put the medic team on standby. We need to hurry and ascertain the situation…” “Get me the latest reports from the ground. Quickly!”

“Shit, shit, shit,” someone cursed amid the chaos. Despite the bedlam on the field, the chain of command itself was barely functioning.

Under these circumstances, any notion of immediately identifying the enemy’s “main point of attack” and launching an organized response was a distant dream.

Nevertheless, the staff officers whom General Laudon had left in charge in his absence were doing their best to respond, scraping together reports and analyzing the information…but it was all just too much.

“What is happening?! It’s like the whole front is receiving the brunt of the enemy’s attack!!”

“Impossible,” one senior staff officer shouted in confusion.

Selection and concentration.

Choosing one point to focus on in order to break through a defensive line. That was all the Empire knew of offensive operations. For them, this was a world first. Who would have ever imagined? To press not a point, but a whole front.

This was not the individual techniques that the Empire so excelled at, but a systematic pursuit of decisive victory. It was the epitome of combat arts based in organizational strength.

The Federation’s Rising Dawn offensive marked the world’s first deep-battle operation.

“Reserve artillery positions are under attack?! Impossible! Those are kilometers away from the front…” “The…the 7th Artillery Corps has gone silent!” “Emergency! Emergency! Enemy partisans with railway guns are…” “Emergency alert from the 4th Panzer Division!” “We’ve lost communications with the 31st Infantry Division Command!” “The 143rd Cavalry Division Command is under attack from enemy artillery…”

While the comms officers were still glancing at one another, trying to imagine what was happening and awestruck at these terrible events unfolding, fierce Federation artillery were busy saturating tens of kilometers of range across a front that was over a hundred kilometers long.

And in the end.

“What?! An alert! Enemy air units are fast approaching!!” “Partisan alert! Command, this is urgent! This is the 15th Field Command Center with an urgent request! Reinforcements! We need reinforcements!” “S…Second Light Armored Division Command is under attack!!”

Even positions far in the rear, reserves that were supposed to be safe, had come under attack. There was an overwhelming deluge of report after report. Reports of being harassed by artillery. Broken contact from the front lines. Extensive attacks on friendly air bases.

As a result, Eastern Command quickly realized the worst—that the enemy’s attack had come too soon—and once they realized, they attempted to respond using their proscribed defensive plan.

In some ways, they acted correctly. Yes, it was a full-scale attack, and a full-scale attack required a defensive plan. The Imperial Army prided itself on having often surpassed the Federation Army’s attacks.

Eastern Command were not fools.

After such concentrated shelling from artillery, it was obvious at a glance that the Federation Army was carrying out a large-scale attack. Meaning the enemy was going to advance with artillery support. Just like always.

Thus, their thinking, too, followed convention as always. To hold position, then counterattack.

It was a very reasonable response. Hence why no one within the Imperial Army had yet to realize that hunkering down in position according to their defensive plans was exactly what the Federation Army, and its strategists, wanted.

No one, that is, except Tanya von Degurechaff…