Severing the Main Artery of the Bu Army

December 24, 1914, 7:30 PM.

The heavy snowfall that had eased up over the past two days began to fall again softly by midday, gradually intensifying. The howling wind and swirling snow muffled most surrounding sounds, returning the earth and sky to a vast, blank expanse of white.

"If I hadn't been transmigrated into a time of war, experiencing such fantastic weather on Christmas Eve in my past life would have definitely led me into some romantic winter encounters..."

Lelouch looked at the stubborn, unmelting snow on his leather gloves. The mere thought that his first Christmas Eve after transmigration had to be spent inside a trench made his anger flare up. Tonight, he was determined to rack up a few more kills against those South Asians just to vent his frustration.

These leather gloves were items he had ordered back in Munich from a military tailoring company, along with his camouflage uniform and heavy-duty work boots. The bolt weight of the first batch of MP15 submachine guns had not yet been properly adjusted—it was intentionally kept heavier rather than lighter. Severe gas and smoke leakage occurred during breech ejection, meaning bare hands would easily get burned.

The craftsmanship of these gloves was exceptionally fine, and the material selection was superb. The leather was thin, light, and flexible to prevent the fingers from becoming too thick to reach into the trigger guard. Yet, the soldiers usually grumbled about them to some extent, always feeling that working without them was more dexterous.

However, with today's sudden heavy snowfall and plummeting temperatures, the advantage of wearing leather gloves instantly became apparent.

Every single one of these submachine gunners was in high spirits. Right before entering battle, they each downed a small shot of whiskey and lit a cigar, waiting only for the command from above to launch their assault.

Meanwhile, in the enemy trenches opposite, an untold number of soldiers hailing from the South Asian subtropical regions were shivering and trembling from the cold.

Even though the quartermasters had distributed padded cotton jackets, they were simply no match for such severe weather. Compounding the issue, not a single South Asian soldier possessed gloves, and some had even suffered from frostbitten fingers. Several South Asian soldiers in the biting cold had kept their fingers resting directly against the steel triggers of their rifles.

After leaving them there for too long, attempting to pull them away resulted in peeling off at least a layer of skin and flesh; those with worse luck would lose a joint of a finger entirely. It was the exact same outcome as licking a frozen iron railing with one's tongue in the Northeast during winter.

Once such instances multiplied, the soldiers no longer dared to hold their rifles while patrolling or standing guard. One by one, they simply tossed their guns into the corners and tucked both hands deep inside their sleeves.

Moreover, the Canadian soldiers and South Asian soldiers harbored mutual resentment and looked down upon one another. The former demanded that the latter shoulder more labor, while the latter felt bullied and exploited. The overall morale and administrative chaos within the colonial forces of the British Empire reached a staggering degree.

All the Canadians hid inside the urban area of St.enfords to stay warm, celebrate the holiday, and feast on Christmas Eve dinners. Meanwhile, the outer perimeter defense lines in the fields were entirely entrusted to the South Asian soldiers for patrol and defense.

Between 5:00 and 5:30 in the afternoon, the German forces conducted a fierce thirty-minute artillery preparation. True to routine, however, no ground assault followed the bombardment, leading the defenders to dismiss it as merely a superficial, routine shelling.

Not a single person bothered to repair the shattered defensive installations along the line, everyone figuring that even if they fixed them, they would just get blown to pieces again four hours later. It was better to wait until daylight tomorrow; besides, the enemy surely wouldn't actually attack.

...

"It's half-past seven. Execute the infiltration orders according to plan!"

As the time arrived, Major von Bock and Major von Rundstedt immediately issued their commands. Each assault battalion divided into two companies, dispersing by platoons to infiltrate forward in small groups.

The assault points chosen by the German forces were not directed straight ahead at St.enfords, but rather bypassed the western suburbs of the city as usual. They intended to make a sweeping semicircular arc to sever the railway lines connecting St.enfords to the rear, rather than pinning their hopes on a blind night assault directly against the city.

Creeping forward like this in the dark without any preparatory artillery barrage was the chosen method.

Lelouch's company was also in the initial assault sequence. Platoon Leader Model acted as the vanguard, leading two platoons in the charge.

Platoon Leader Dieter led the other two platoons, primarily equipped with light machine guns, to provide support from the second echelon.

Lelouch remained stationed with Schweinsteiger to man the radio set, while a dozen grenade-launcher squads were assembled around them, ready at a moment's notice to provide covering fire for their comrades at the front.

Following the conclusion of the Battle of Bailleul a few days prior, everyone had reached a common consensus: Officer Lelouch possessed an extraordinary talent for commanding artillery and grenade-launcher units. Having graduated in architecture, his mathematics—especially geometry—was exceptionally strong, and his physics was far from shabby.

It wasn't that his observation and aiming were exceptionally precise; rather, he always managed to make the utmost use of whatever temporary meteorological and topographical conditions arose, tailoring his approach to create advantages based on the local terrain.

This afternoon, observing the sudden drop in temperature, Lelouch had a flash of inspiration and pulled off a small trick. He had his men fetch hot water and splash it across specific forward trench segments preselected as grenade-launcher positions, slightly melting the snow accumulated on the ground.

However, the subsequent fresh snow and bitter cold would swiftly refreeze the water into a self-leveling sheet of ice. Using this as a horizontal and elevation reference plane for deploying the grenade-launcher squads was nothing short of perfection.

Setting aside the actual tactical effectiveness of this maneuver, the mere curiosity it sparked among the soldiers—who then eagerly passed on tales of its cleverness from mouth to mouth—imbued the troops with extra confidence: "Following such a brilliant commander, we are bound to defeat those foolish enemies!"

Second Lieutenant Model led groups of submachine gunners in breaking down into small units, flattening their bodies against the snow and feeling their way forward. The several rows of barbed wire encountered along the path had already been blasted into numerous ragged gaps during the repeated artillery bombardments of the afternoon. Any potential booby traps hidden among the wire had been thoroughly cleared away in advance by the shelling.

Barbed wire is notoriously difficult to blow apart because of its minimal surface area. Had the defenders been diligent in their repairs—quickly stringing up a few fresh sections to mend the line after a bombardment—they could have easily plugged the breaches.

December 24, 1914, 7:30 PM. (2/3)

Yet, convinced that they would never be attacked on Christmas Eve, the defenders simply couldn't be bothered to maintain their defenses with any diligence.

Model merely had to use wire cutters to snip through a few remaining strands where absolutely necessary, and he slipped clean across the contested zone, safely infiltrating the enemy's primary trench line without a single hitch.

"Who goes there? Messing around in weather this cold—uhr—"

A few sentries speaking with a heavy curry-accented dialect were caught completely off-guard by the commotion. Their hands still tucked into their sleeves with a nonchalant air, they poked their heads out peevishly, their Lee-Enfield rifles still resting casually against the earthen wall of the trench.

These night-patrol sentries were instantly split open by engineering shovels, warm brain matter splashing across the ground. Their dying screams were cut short before they could even fully escape their throats, the sound swallowed entirely by the howling wind and driving snow, failing to rouse the alertness of their comrades.

Second Lieutenant Model personally wielded an engineering shovel in one hand and a C96 Mauser pistol in the other, dispatching four enemy soldiers from the Lahore Division with the edge of his blade.

His original intention was to resort to the pistol should he fumble with the shovel, but to his surprise, it wasn't until the fifth opponent that he failed to put a man down with a single swing, forcing him to execute his backup plan.

Amidst scattered, crisp "crack-crack" sounds, the positions of the 7th Lahore Division finally grew lively; the German infiltration assault had been discovered.

Yet, when the South Asian soldiers attempted to drive the intruders out of the trenches, they discovered to their horror just how formidable, disciplined, fearless, and heavily armed the enemy before them truly was.

The rat-a-tat chatter of submachine gun fire quickly resounded through several adjacent trenches, stretching for a kilometer or two, with crises erupting at no fewer than a dozen breakthrough points.

"Enemy attack! Enemy attack! Quickly organize a counter-attack!"

"How can there be an enemy attack? We didn't even hear an artillery barrage!"

"Where is the enemy?"

Countless South Asian soldiers and a small contingent of British supervisory troops rushed frantically toward the compromised defense lines. Clusters of panicked soldiers fumbled blindly in the dark for rifles discarded in the corners of the trenches, resulting in a chaotic trampling of one another.

Those fortunate enough to grasp a rifle found that, due to sheer panic and overly frantic movements, the mere brush of a hand against the metal stripped away a layer of skin and flesh!

These weapons had been exposed to the freezing elements for a long time and were thoroughly chilled to the bone.

The German assault teams fought fiercely down the trenches, swiftly capturing several communication trench nodes and exploiting the chaos to expand their gains, plunging the British positions into a state of panic.

"Move! Don't stop! Capitalize on the moment to expand our gains and tear the enemy's defense line to shreds!" Model led a massive contingent of submachine gunners forward like a flood of quicksilver, launching a deep assault into the interior.

"Light machine gun squads, do not stop! Charge at full speed into the trenches and deploy along both flanks! Suppress the enemy forces counter-attacking in reinforcement!" Second Lieutenant Dieter followed closely behind, quickly penetrating the enemy's initial layers of trench networks.

Moreover, Second Lieutenant Dieter proved exceptionally shrewd, immediately ordering his men to rig the light machine guns horizontally along the trenches to secure every junction.

In the darkness and confusion, unaware of which positions had fallen and which remained intact, the enemy blindly rushed forward to reinforce.

When squads of South Asian infantry rounded trench corners and blundered into trench segments that had already fallen—unbeknownst to them—the German light machine guns taught them a harsh lesson.

"Tat-tat-tat-tat—" Tongues of licking flame spat forth, cutting down squads of South Asian soldiers marching in formation down the trenches without a moment's warning. Fresh blood pooled along the earthen floor, turning the trench into a crimson channel.

The British heavy machine gun nests were by no means willing to remain idle, firing wildly into the darkness ahead to vent their inner panic and halt the advance of the assault teams. However, these blindly exposed fire points were swiftly suppressed by the grenade-launcher teams of the German assault force.

"Whoosh-whoosh" went the high-arched trajectories of the grenades, landing with relatively precise angles at the intersections of the trenches and squarely upon the roofs of the earthen pillboxes spitting fire, blowing individual fire-support points into the air.

The defense sector of the 7th Lahore Division rapidly plunged into catastrophic disorder.

Its divisional headquarters was quickly choked by a constant stream of mounted couriers delivering conflicting bad news and chaotic intelligence reports, leaving the entire command structure completely bewildered.

Major General Walter Betting, the divisional commander, had been fast asleep when he was abruptly jolted awake by the barrage of reports, failing to grasp the situation for a moment.

Divisions hailing from South Asia possessed smaller establishments than home-service divisions, mustering only 12 battalions and 12,000 men per division. To ensure combat effectiveness, the British command dared not rely entirely on indigenous South Asian soldiers, frequently mixing in one-third white colonial troops—amounting to roughly four white battalions.

Yet, on a night like Christmas Eve, even the white personnel of the Lahore Division had mostly partaken in drink, some even sneaking away from their units to celebrate. The number of white soldiers Major General Betting could hastily muster amounted to barely one or two thousand.

He could only bite the bullet and pin his hopes on this handful of white troops to stabilize the situation and prevent the looming collapse from widening.

Yet, this meager force fell short of the manpower of Lelouch's two assault battalions, and their elite status was nowhere near comparable.

December 24, 1914, 7:30 PM. (3/3)

This makeshift fire-brigade force, having just been rushed to the front, was battered and half-crippled under the concentrated suppression of light machine gun fire, pinned down inside the trenches with heads unable to lift.

Overhead, grenades launched from grenade-launchers dropped periodically, plunging into the trenches along hyper-parabolic trajectories and kicking up showers of blood.

Major General Walter Betting and several leading white officers of various ranks were wounded in succession, following which all unit cohesion completely dissolved.

As the German troops slaughtered their way into the positions of these South Asian rabble—whose hands were too frozen to hold their rifles properly—they acted like tigers descending upon a flock of sheep. Disoriented groups of dark-skinned soldiers panicked, broke rank, and scattered in all directions like startled birds.

In the span of a single midnight, the German forces rapidly pierced and tore through several kilometers of deep fortifications, bypassing the western suburbs of St.enfords entirely and severing the railway lines linking the northwest of the city to the rear. The scene bore an uncanny resemblance to the earlier Battle of Bailleul.

The sole distinction lay in the fact that tonight, the German forces capitalized on the enemy's Christmas Eve lethargy, the South Asian soldiers' unimaginably rock-bottom morale, and their shockingly feeble combat prowess. This caused the British forces to step into the exact same trap for the second time.

Discovering that the railway line had been severed, the British forces attempted a makeshift counter-offensive to retake the positions.

The soldiers of the 1st and 2nd Canadian Divisions, who had just finished their Christmas Eve feasts and fallen into a heavy, drunken sleep inside the city, were roused by their officers in the dead of night.

Ordered to hastily don their uniforms, grab their weapons, and launch a counter-attack in the freezing winter darkness, they were tasked with recapturing the positions and railway lines abandoned by the South Asians before the enemy could firmly entrench themselves.

Yet, when the Canadians finally organized their offensive array and initiated their counter-attack, they were met by enemy assault battalions that had already firmly established themselves along both sides of the railway and deployed MG15 light machine gun nests.

Due to the pitch darkness, the main body of the following German forces had been unable to keep pace immediately, as large-scale nocturnal shifts risked friendly fire and coordination errors.

Still, holding the newly captured positions for a few hours relying solely on two assault battalions was entirely feasible.

Furthermore, the Canadian counter-attacks did not witness all units arriving on the battlefield simultaneously. Under such chaotic conditions, troops arriving piecemeal and falling into a piecemeal attrition tactic was practically guaranteed.

Flocks of Canadians, likewise untested by the fires of war, mechanically and rigidly launched repeated charges against the light machine gun positions, ultimately piling up layers of corpses before the lines.

With the machine gun barrels buried directly in the snow, the sustained firing endurance of the light machine guns approached that of heavy machine guns. In the end, it was only due to a genuine depletion of ammunition carried by the troops that the German assault battalions were forced to temporarily surrender a tiny fraction of their newly won ground, trading space for time.

"Company Commander! The ammunition for all thirty-two light machine gun squads in our company is completely spent! Even the five-round stripper clips of the riflemen have mostly been stripped out and crammed into the machine gun belts!"

Listening to his subordinate Dieter report this grim status, Lelouch couldn't help but feel a headache coming on.

He hadn't anticipated these Canadians to be so thick-headed! Lacking combat experience, their raw courage was surprisingly decent.

This reminded him of an episode on Earth during World War II, where Canadian soldiers were sold out by their allies to participate in a suicidal, exploratory landing designed merely to test enemy defenses, costing six thousand Canadian lives traded away by the politicians of the suzerain state.

He never expected that in this world, the Canadians' maiden combat debut—where they were similarly sold out as cannon fodder by their suzerain—would also end up folding right in his hands.

Reluctant to concede defeat just yet, Lelouch argued, "Doesn't a machine gun squad carry an 800-round belt, plus another thousand-odd rounds from riflemen temporarily reloading? Is that still not enough? Then borrow some from Company Commander Rommel next door!"

Dieter managed a wry smile. "It's genuinely not enough! The whole company has fired at least thirty thousand rounds of machine gun ammunition! Company Commander Rommel's machine guns have run dry too!"

"What a shame. Never thought I'd live to see the day when we'd actually run out of machine gun ammunition!"

Surveying the landscape ahead, littered with at least a thousand Canadian corpses, Lelouch had no choice but to sigh in frustration and order a temporary tactical retreat of several hundred meters, leaving the submachine gunners to provide a rearguard screen and blocking fire.

Fortunately, his core tactical objective had already been attained. Tonight's offensive wave had successfully severed St.enfords from the rear supply lines.

The British forces across the entire Ypres Heights salient were now cut off from receiving new material reinforcements via rail.

As the assault battalions held out until the first glimmer of dawn, the main divisional reserves finally flooded forward, fully consolidating and securing every captured position.

Meanwhile, both the Canadians and the South Asian soldiers ultimately abandoned their counter-attacks, thoroughly beaten back by the German forces.

--

Author's Note: If future enemy-crushing tactics follow a similar pattern without any fresh, innovative approaches to the advance, I will summarize them briefly. There will be no padding of word count, so everyone can rest easy.