Admiral Courtois, who has set up his headquarters in Bakou, has been anxious lately, and what makes him anxious is a telegram for help from Major General Antioch, who is defending Suceava. Major General Antich, who had high hopes for him, sent a rescue telegram on the ninth day of Suceava's defense.

In the telegram, Major General Antich reported his results to His Excellency the Admiral, and in nine days of defensive operations, the defenders of Suceava inflicted 24,000 casualties on the attacking Germans at the cost of 56,000 casualties themselves. In this telegram, full of reports on his victories, Antich puts his own casualties in the foremost place, apparently hoping that His Excellency will notice the heavy casualties of the Suceava defenders.

The experienced Admiral Courtois could not see the intentions of Major General Antioch, but Antioch's desire to retreat would disrupt the Admiral's plans. Major General Antici knew the Admiral's intentions and still sent this telegram, which was obviously unbearable, but he was still clever enough to propose a retreat plan with a telegram reporting the results of the battle, which made His Excellency the Admiral feel very troubled. Therefore, for the sake of stability, Admiral Courtois gave his opinion to others, and Lieutenant General Andrew, who had just been transferred to him as his deputy, was obviously a suitable person.

"Antici is going to be unbearable in Suceava, I want to ask your opinion."

In his office, His Excellency the Admiral, who was gray-haired and somewhat tired, asked Lieutenant General Anderson, who was sitting opposite.

Lieutenant General Anderson was a little embarrassed as he watched the tired admiral ask his own questions. Because he had only followed the train of the Sixth Division to Bakwu for a day, he had a preliminary understanding of the basic situation, and General Courtois now asked himself what he thought about the battle situation, which made him answer, so he ......

After much deliberation, Lieutenant General Anderson expressed his opinion. "Your Excellency, I think it is necessary to know whether Major General Antici can continue to defend and fight. If not, then we need to think about retreating there, and then there is the question of the enemy's pursuit. ”

Speaking of which, Lieutenant General Anderson had the figure of Marshal Mackenson in his mind, and he also had some careful consideration for this famous Marshal Anderson.

Anderson's words didn't give the admiral much hint, but the old admiral said with a smile. "Antioch had sent me telegrams saying that the German offensive was putting him under a lot of pressure, and that he obviously wanted reinforcements, or that he was allowed to retreat. However, it can be seen from the battle in Suceava that our newly formed troops suffered heavy casualties in the face of the German attack, and it was difficult to reinforce them. ”

The admiral said it very mildly, in fact, where it is difficult to reinforce the past, but it is impossible to do so. Because according to the intelligence, in addition to the besieging German army, Suceava also hid other forces, and if it was reinforced, the troops were likely to be routed halfway, and you must know that your opponent was a master of mobile warfare. And what about the retreat? This is also a difficult problem, as there is a problem of where to withdraw, whether it can be withdrawn, and how to arrange the receiving troops. If there were no receiving troops, it would be difficult for the Suceava defenders to get rid of the German pursuit, and if they wanted to respond, then the problem would be the same as before.

The result of such a passive situation was that he, Prishan and others underestimated the combat effectiveness of the German army and overestimated the combat effectiveness of the mobilized divisions. This can be seen from his previous battle plan, in order to reduce losses, Admiral Courtois initially arranged a garrison of 100,000 troops in Suceava, trying to make it a fortress city to resist the German army.

But how could this city, which was equipped with troops and commanders approved by him, complain to him that he wanted to evacuate before it could even defend for ten days. According to his plan, the city could be defended for a month, and then, when the attacking Germans were exhausted, he led a large army to force the enemy to evacuate and relieve the siege, or fight them right there.

The premise of his plan was that the Suceava defenders were able to exhaust the enemy. But at present, it seems that the enemy is tired, and the defenders will not collapse because of too many casualties, so don't think about the tired enemy, so the general is now a little helpless in the face of this situation.

Lieutenant General Anderson considered this. "In this case, it is estimated that the only option is evacuation."

"Evacuate?"

Hearing Anderson's words, Admiral Courtois smiled a little bitterly. "There is no problem in evacuating the defenders of Suceava, but Homan and Iasi, who are facing the German attack next, are still a little ill-prepared."

The Admiral's words made Lieutenant General Anderson ask puzzled. "What's going on?"

Before, Anderson, as the deputy chief of staff, still had an image of the allocated materials, and remembered that it seemed to be distributed in full, could it be that there were materials in the transportation department that had not arrived?

When questioned by Anderson, General Courtois explained why. In fact, the supplies that had been allocated had already arrived, and His Excellency the Admiral himself had made a new allocation in them.

Because of Suceava's important position in the admiral's plan, many of the military supplies and weapons that should have been allocated to Homan and Iasi were secretly allocated to Suceava's defenders. So when the defenders of Suceava could not stop the enemy's offensive, now His Excellency the Admiral realized that he had done something stupid.

After listening to the reasons given by Admiral Courtois, Anderson also had a headache. At this moment, he suddenly felt that the admiral in front of him was old, and his thinking was a little unable to keep up, but this thought only flashed in his mind. This issue is too much to implicate and is not something that a small lieutenant general can talk about, and it is what he should do to care about the development of the war situation.

Lieutenant General Anderson spoke after thinking about the gains and losses. "Admiral, we can only let Major General Antici evacuate with Suceava's defenders now."

"Why?"

Faced with Admiral Courtois's inquiry, Anderson patiently explained. "According to the Suceava battle report you showed me, I found that the defenders suffered too many casualties. Now we can't send troops to rescue them, so we have to evacuate them to prevent a collapse. ”

Hearing Anderson's words, Admiral Courtois voiced his long-awaited concern. "In this case, the defenders will not be able to escape the pursuit of the enemy."

As a defeated defender, it is basic common sense that there is no responding troops and it is still in the plain terrain, and it is easy to be chased and annihilated by the enemy. Obviously, Lieutenant General Anderson must have had this common sense, and he must have had his own considerations for making such a decision.

"My reason for doing this is to get the Suceava defenders to withdraw to Iasi."

"Iasi?"

"That's right, it's Iasi." Anderson spoke to the battle map and explained his reason. "It is now clear that the defenders of Suceava can only withdraw in two directions, west of the Carpathian Mountains and with unrepaired supply points, and retreating here is basically an undesirable farewell to the defenders. Then there is the evacuation to the south, where there are two evacuation points, Homan and Iasi. Two of them are about the same distance, and Homan is the closest to us and can get our support. And Iasi needs to be on their own. ”

Anderson's words prompted Admiral Courtois, who took the lieutenant general's words. "So the Suceava defenders can't evacuate to our side, because Mackensen's target is us, and if they evacuate us, they will definitely be overtaken. And it would be much better to evacuate to Iasi, because if you don't have a line with them, the enemy will have to divide your forces. In addition, Iasi was the center of gravity of our defense against Russia before, and there were not many fortifications at all, and it was not so easy to capture, so evacuating to Iasi was the best result. ”

"Yes, Your Excellency."

In the face of Admiral Courtois speaking his mind, Lieutenant General Anderson agreed. "Actually, my idea is more about how much the enemy attaches importance to our Bakwu troops. If they do not pay attention, then they can only count on the command ability of Major General Antich. ”

"But we're going to take a gamble."

The telegram authorizing the evacuation soon reached Suceava, who was already relieved by the exhausted defenders of Suceava, who were exhausted from defending the German offensive. The huge casualties had long taken the defenders out of breath, and now they could finally evacuate.

So after ten days of fighting to defend Suceava, the defenders, led by Major General Antich, withdrew in the direction of Yassi. And the Germans who captured Suceava immediately reported to Marshal Mackensen whether it was permissible to pursue the enemy's defeated army.

"There is no need to pursue, through this period of fighting, the enemy's mobilized division is not a big threat to us. As long as they dare to leave the turtle shell, they will be swept away by us like fallen leaves. ”

Marshal Mackensen said, looking at the location of Bakwu on the map. "On the contrary, it is the troops gathered here that are the elite of the Romanians, and only by defeating them can the enemy's will to fight be broken."

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