Making a Fortune from War, Keep Up the Good Work and Carry On

When Lelouch’s soldiers charged into the small town of Bailleul, almost all of them were mounted on warhorses, sweeping through like the wind.

They had originally been reorganized from the direct cavalry reconnaissance company of the 12th Division, boasting a very solid foundation in horsemanship.

Early yesterday morning, after ambushing and annihilating the British 2nd Cavalry Division and heavily crippling the 3rd Cavalry Division, more than half of the horses had been destroyed by machine-gun fire, leaving them fit for little more than butchering and dividing up the horsemeat. Nevertheless, a small half of riderless horses had been captured alive.

At least five thousand British cavalrymen had been killed outright, leaving an abundance of fine horses—more than enough to mount the men of the two assault battalions.

Though Bailleul was small and most of its buildings were in ruins, once Lelouch led his detachment into the town, he quickly discovered a remarkably bountiful harvest!

Following the railway line into town, the company had not gone far before they saw a chaotic stack of supplies piled near the station platform—cargo unloaded from the very train Model had blown up on its return trip yesterday. Because the tactical situation had shifted so rapidly, the enemy had fled before even having time to move the goods into storage.

As for the warehouses not far from the station, a few of them appeared to have been set on fire by the retreating British troops.

Upon seeing this, Lelouch immediately ordered his men to put out the fire. The fire hydrants at the railway station had fortunately not been sabotaged; a hundred or so assault troops rushed about, frantically connecting hoses and spraying wildly until the flames were finally extinguished.

It seemed the morale of the British troops who set the fires must have been terribly low, as they had fled the moment the blaze was lit.

Had Lelouch not arrived on horseback—had they failed to capture enough mounts and been forced to march on foot—everything would likely have been burned to ashes.

With the fire extinguished, Lelouch hurriedly took a rough inventory of the spoils.

The ammunition inside the warehouses had not been set on fire. The British had presumably lacked the nerve, fearing the unstable explosive power when destroying munitions in a rush might end up killing themselves.

Lelouch had captured at least ten million rounds of 7.7mm ammunition, alongside nearly 200,000 artillery shells—though the vast majority were two-pounders, meaning 40mm caliber.

Shells above 70mm numbered fewer than 50,000, and those of 105mm and above amounted to a mere 10,000-odd.

Since most of this ammunition was incompatible with German-standard weaponry, it would have to be turned over. Perhaps in the future, as more enemy weapons were captured, an enemy-equipment division could be formed.

Beyond ammunition, over half of the warehouse contents consisted of grain and canned cured meats.

There were also flannel blankets, wool-blend overcoats, domestically produced British whiskey, Indian black tea, and cigars, coffee, and chocolate shipped from the New World—all of which could be sold off for hard cash.

The only items that truly counted as vital military and strategic materials were a warehouse full of rubber tires.

In addition, a pile of artillery pieces had been left behind because there was no time to transport them, but the retreating British had shoved grenades down the barrels to ensure the tubes were thoroughly destroyed. Once captured by the German forces, they could only inspect the non-barrel components for any recycling value.

"Damn it, those British dogs live like kings. They control the navy after all, constantly shipping supplies from all over the world back to their mainland. Unlike the Empire, where we have to smuggle things in, and luxury goods haven't been able to get through for ages," Lelouch’s subordinates grumbled indignantly.

Just as Lelouch finished his rough inventory, Major von Bock arrived with Rommel, List, and the commanders of the other companies.

His trusted insider, Krozer, brought word at the first possible moment: "The battalion commanders are here! Sir, how should we report the situation here?"

***

Lelouch had no time for hesitation and decisively instructed, "Report it as war damage. The British set fires during their retreat; aside from the tinned rations and bottled whiskey, everything else was burned. Cover everything remaining with wet cloths and claim it was from the water used during firefighting.

"I'll discuss the specifics with the battalion commander myself. Seal all the warehouses at the railway station and tell them to seek their fortunes elsewhere—there are plenty of other places with grease in this town."

Lelouch had merely beaten them to the punch in seizing the fattest warehouse left behind by the retreating British. There were still other scraps to be had, but with his small force unable to occupy everything, he would leave the rest to his comrades-in-arms.

Their two assault battalions had been through hell and high water, fighting so fiercely that they had precipitated the total collapse of the enemy 3rd Corps.

Now that they had finally won a victory, what was wrong with taking a few spoils?

Bock, Rommel, and the others soon found him, and Lelouch proved quite generous: he distributed the whiskey among everyone, giving each soldier in the two assault battalions a bottle, along with a box of New World cigars (five to a box) and a share of the canned meat.

The soldiers of the two battalions certainly could not consume all that whiskey and canned meat, leaving the officers at various levels a surplus to carve up among themselves.

The grain, ammunition, and tires would all be reported upward as a token gesture to the higher-ups.

As for the coffee, black tea, chocolate, remaining cigars, flannel, woolen fabrics, and leather goods, Lelouch kept every last bit of it.

As for Major von Bock, the battalion commander, Lelouch promised him a slight cut of the share later on. After all, Bock was his superior and had an uncle who was the Chief of the General Staff; he could not afford to offend him.

Giving the others just this small taste for now was enough. Lelouch wasn't driven by mere greed; rather, he anticipated that once this campaign ended and he returned to the rear, he would inevitably need to find ways to maneuver further within the military-industrial sector.

Without money, he could never bring his visions to fruition, let alone expand production. In the hands of a time-traveler like him, the exact same sum of money could yield at least several times the value it would in anyone else's.

Once he made a modest name for himself in the military-industrial world down the road, he could pull out a portion to give back to his comrades-in-arms, providing extra pensions and allowances to the fallen and wounded—a virtuous cycle of sorts.

Major von Bock vaguely suspected that Lelouch had fiddled slightly with the numbers, but he couldn't be bothered to quibble over such details.

After pocketing half a railcar’s worth of liquor, Major von Bock assured him that he could handle all the relationships higher up. He even offered Lelouch a piece of advice:

Don't report those rubber tires directly to the division or army headquarters; instead, report them to the logistics transport department, including the military's railway dispatching office. That was the only way to secure enough extra railcars slipped into the trains unnoticed, helping everyone transport their goods back home.

Lelouch grasped the point instantly, promptly striking all rubber products from the reporting list, leaving Major von Bock to handle them, and slightly touching up the description of fire damage in the report.

That very day, several supply trains arrived in the rear, two of which had an extra five railcars attached, secretly hauling away Lelouch's belongings to a designated location in the rear.

***

Having captured the town of Bailleul and taken over an entire corps' worth of abandoned enemy supplies, the German forces had effectively replenished their blood, greatly bolstering their confidence in executing subsequent operational objectives.

Even so, an alternation of tension and relaxation was always necessary. The assault battalions had fought through successive bloody battles and were utterly exhausted.

With the town secured, frontline combat duties had to be handed over to other friendly units. The soldiers of the assault battalions occupied the finest inns the town had to offer, eating their fill and sleeping soundly for two whole days.

***

Fortunately, the depth of the British defensive fortifications had never been particularly formidable; with Bailleul breached so swiftly, the enemy had been unable to reconstruct or reinforce their rear positions in time.

Thus, the open terrain stretching from Bailleul to the next important stronghold of Steinfeld was breached, occupied, and digested by conventional German troops in the span of just two days.

By the morning of December 24th, the German vanguard had pushed forward to a position about two kilometers southeast of the city of Steinfeld, covering nearly ten kilometers in two days.

They were blocked only within the final two kilometers before entering the city by freshly constructed defensive lines hastily erected by the British. Theoretically, the German forces might have pushed even faster, but after all, it was already December 24th. Most Westerners held traditions surrounding Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and soldiers on both sides found it difficult to muster much enthusiasm for fighting.

In Earth's history, during the Christmas Eve of the war's first year, both sides had observed a tacit truce. But in this world, with the Battle of Ypres at its most intense, a complete temporary ceasefire was clearly out of the question.

Such a Christmas Eve truce would likely be confined to the combat lines between German and French forces in the south. From this, it seemed the hatred between Germany and Britain was faintly showing signs of surpassing the hatred between Germany and France.

During these same two days, the opposing British forces had also made numerous adjustments to their defensive deployments and were by no means sitting ducks.

As early as the night Bailleul was lost, the highest echelons of the British Expeditionary Force knew that relying solely on the troops at hand would be insufficient to plug the line.

Therefore, the commander-in-chief of the Expeditionary Force, Field Marshal John French, personally wired London for reinforcements: "The front line is in critical danger! Requesting the immediate transfer of the 7th and 8th Lahore Divisions, currently undergoing emergency training in Dover, to the front lines!"

Less than two hours after Field Marshal French's plea for reinforcements, a reply arrived from London, penned personally by the Secretary of State for War, Lord Kitchener.

Kitchener was the towering figure of the British Army, holding the rank of field marshal as well as an earldom. In his reply, he stated that those ragtag crowds from South Asia possessed abysmal training levels far below previous expectations, rendering them utterly unfit for combat.

Yet Field Marshal French remained indomitable: "The front lines are in extreme peril now! The 3rd Corps was utterly battered after a mere two days of fighting, and the Cavalry Corps has suffered over fifty percent casualties! I urgently need every breathing, moving soul to plug the gap! The quality of the soldiers is irrelevant!"

Facing such intense phrasing from French, Lord Kitchener ultimately approved the release. Consequently, 24,000 reinforcements set sail from Dover, arriving in Dunkirk the following day before being transferred by train to Steinfeld.

Thus, when the German forces struck outside the city of Steinfeld, the enemies they faced consisted primarily of the following formations: the Canadian 1st and 2nd Divisions, and the 7th and 8th Lahore Divisions from South Asia.

On the German side, the 6th and 12th Bavarian Divisions, which had spearheaded the attack on Bailleul, were far too exhausted and had sustained considerable casualties from continuous combat, necessitating a rotation into reserve for rest. Consequently, the 6th Army brought up the oldest and most venerable 2nd Bavarian Corps—the 2nd and 3rd Divisions—to shoulder the frontline offensive tasks, keeping the other four divisions in reserve.

At this railway choke point of Steinfeld, it appeared the German forces had only two divisions on the front line facing the defensive works of four British divisions. Yet everyone up and down the German ranks was full of confidence, knowing that these colonial troops were in a completely different league from the British regular home army.

Meanwhile, the main elite forces of the British—the 1st and 2nd Corps—were being pinned down by friendly units of the German 4th Army around the Ypres salient and along the coastal sector, leaving them equally unable to break away and reinforce Steinfeld.

Such was the exact situation Lelouch, Major von Bock, Major Rommel, and the others faced as they completed their rest and prepared to re-enter the fray.