EP.61
“Of course, there are times when you lose strategically even if you expend a lot of enemy forces in battle. “Is it really okay to interpret it that way?”
“But don’t you think there’s nothing wrong with what the colonel said?”
“I think so too. “When I think about the theory the professor mentioned, I can clearly see the reason why the war occurred, which I couldn’t understand while reading papers from my time at the academy.”
If the lecture had been taught this way at the academy, the students would not have been able to understand it because their knowledge was still immature and they lacked understanding of the principles that work in practice.
However, perhaps it is because they are elites who have overcome tremendous competition from the Academy to the General Staff College.
I feel like teaching is rewarding because they seem to be discussing how to apply and understand even just the very basic stories I gave them.
However, instead of showing my proud feelings, I stood at the podium, looked at them, and spoke.
“Everyone, pay attention. “Now that the 10-minute break has passed, we will begin the next class.”
When class started an hour ago, I was more interested in the genius who was granted a baronetcy at the age of 21 and was promoted to lieutenant colonel than in the new class.
Now everyone is completely immersed in the class that advocates new theories.
I really liked this desirable aspect of a teacher, so for a moment I even thought about settling down as a professor.
“Professor Bon has about two hours left, so we will teach the class based on the battle that took place in Visocia. “I’m sure everyone has read the general report on this battle, right?”
This report is also classified as Level 3, so Academy students cannot access it without permission, but the students here are the stars of the future.
Of course, he had the right to view it, and in order to survive in the competition, he would have seen all the details of the battle report.
“Then today, I will present a good example of how the strategic gains gained from winning a battle can be wasted just by the will of the enemy commander-in-chief to carry out the battle. Everyone knows that when Nikolai, the commander-in-chief of Czechia, was defeated in battle, he had no regrets and fled to Visocia Castle, right?”
Then, as expected, all the students in the classroom raised their hands and answered that they had read it.
“good night. Then, we will begin the lecture in earnest. Because of the choice of Nikolai, Commander-in-Chief of Czechoslovakia, our Reich Empire was in danger of not being able to achieve any results on the Czechavian front. No, at a strategic level, we almost entered into a draw-and-lose plan (where both sides only suffered losses), with both sides incurring losses and withdrawing. “This is a good example that proves how powerful the commander-in-chief’s will to wage war can be.”
If we dig a little deeper into the situation, Nikolai is nothing more than a coward who ran away without thinking of fighting until the end when he was on the verge of being defeated by the Commander-in-Chief.
If that son of a bitch’s plan was successful.
Oh, I’m going to talk about that in a lecture anyway, so I shouldn’t even think about it. Just thinking about it makes me feel like shit.
Nikolai, the bastard who will fail the college entrance exam with an F in his second year after getting into medical school.
However, it can be a good example of what results can be achieved if a commander has the will to continue the war without giving up.
“When His Highness the Crown Prince lured Nikolai’s 50,000-strong army by pretending to be pushed back and then charged back, and at the same time, the 8th Division commanded by Major General Ludwig succeeded in ambushing the enemy’s main force, the enemy army had already lost more than 30% of its troops dead or missing. It has reached a state of annihilation. “It was like a unit that had almost lost its combat power and was difficult to control, so the only option was to retreat.”
So, like a king of Joseon who abandoned his people faster than light, Nikolai’s son, the so-called commander-in-chief, abandoned his headquarters and ran away.
In a normal case, since that damned captain had escaped, an orderly retreat would have been impossible, and the friendly army would have been able to suck the honey by simply beating him up.
“So, in a narrow sense, our imperial army had inflicted enormous damage on the enemy, so all we had to do was kill as many enemy soldiers as possible, who were the basis of the enemy’s combat capabilities. But if you look at it a little more broadly.”
With that said, I roughly drew a map of the battlefield and the vicinity of Visocia Castle.
“Usually, annihilating an enemy army means when 30% of the soldiers mobilized by the enemy are killed or seriously injured. If you escalate the damage by engaging in a chase, up to half of the soldiers will die or desert. The rest are inevitably missed due to the limitations of our troops’ capabilities due to the nature of the battlefield, so the enemy soldiers who missed them go to Visocia Castle, where the commander-in-chief is located.”
When they heard those words, the students’ faces slowly began to harden.
Because a gentleman named Nikolai would have induced us to launch a siege.
The army led by the crown prince is faced with a situation where it must enter a siege even though it has won a major victory in a fight on the plains.
This is because, no matter how much the enemy’s trampling and morale has dropped, it is extremely difficult to capture a castle with 25,000 defenders with only 40,000 men.
In military science, this is what is taught when a situation like this arises.
‘A siege requires at least three times as many troops. Surround yourself or give up. Otherwise, you will be left behind.’
This is a truth that has not changed since the Imperial Military Science Textbook was created.
Then I roughly drew a map around the empire and continued the lecture.
“As you can see, the empire has many adjacent enemies due to its geographical characteristics. There are the Francois Republic, Czech Republic, Switzerland, and the Kingdom of Warsaw. If the war lasted longer, there was a high probability that they would come in through the cracks. In their view, the longer the siege goes on, the weaker the empire becomes, so they think they have a high chance of winning.”
It is true that if our empire goes one-on-one with those countries, it will have the upper hand in national power and military power, but if it goes one-on-two, the front lines will expand and it will become difficult to maintain superiority due to supply issues.
In other words, there is a possibility of defeat, which means that we could end up like an empire after the death of a prime minister who had blood and iron flowing in his veins.
Since there is no all-out war, such a thing may not happen, but we will be beaten in a similar way…
“If two fronts are created and the worst situation occurs for our empire, we may lose our territory to another country. It would have been possible to prevent such a situation from occurring somehow, but even though the empire achieved a great victory, it may have ended up negotiating with the enemy in the Visocia region under less favorable conditions. In other words, rather than the entire Visocia region, only half of it is ceded.”
In fact, if the Prince of Czechia had really high diplomatic capabilities, he would have created an inclination to declare war by mobilizing two or three countries that are sharpening their swords against us.
If that were the case, he might have had to get away with compensation that only compensated for the actual losses.
I shouldn’t even say that.
At this point, I must also praise His Highness the Crown Prince.
If you have received something, it is your duty as a subject to return that much, if not more.
“However, I realized that when attacking the enemy’s main base, the garrison defending the main base was a bit less desperate. That was an indication that Nikolai had already abandoned his base and ran away. When I informed him of that fact, His Royal Highness the Crown Prince did not ignore my message, even though he was just a major. As a result, Nikolai was caught and died while running away, leaving him a coward and the Reich army was able to achieve an overwhelming victory.”
If Nikolai hadn’t been caught, everyone in the Crown Prince faction, including His Highness the Crown Prince, would have suffered a huge blow.
Of course, war has a kind of gambling element, so the loser loses everything.
The thought of what I could have lost makes me feel truly heartbroken.
“Even though he is the commander-in-chief, the will of one individual to wage war can completely shake up the war situation, so we must always do our best to crush the enemy’s will to wage war when fighting a war. “Then, this will conclude today’s class. If you want to know more about how to reduce the enemy’s war-fighting capabilities, please continue taking my class.”
As soon as I finished speaking, the major, who seemed to be the oldest in the class, stood up and saluted, ending my first class completely.
The sound of many students gathered together and muttering came to my ears.
Let’s take out the map and analyze it again.
Anyway, today is the course registration change date, so you don’t have to go to the next class.
There’s Lieutenant Laura, who served as your adjutant at the scene, so let’s bring her in and hear her story.
Even in Korea, guys who are sexually greedy review during break time after class. It’s the same at Staff College.
Thinking like that, I left.
See next episode
