"Your Majesty, a call from Soldao, at 11:47 a.m., the 12th Cavalry Division of the 8th Army has arrived in Soldao and turned to the defense, and the nearby 18th Division and the 3rd Reserve Division have been engaged in an attack on the Russian 17th Army, and the Russians will not be able to withstand it for long." Putting down the knife and fork in his hand, Goltz, who received the telegram from the staff officer, raised his eyebrows, and then reported the good news to His Majesty the Emperor, who was dining with him in the canteen of the Army General Staff.

"Although there were some twists and turns, the objectives of the first phase of the Polish campaign were basically achieved." Jochen was calm on the news.

"Yes, although there are some problems, but in general it will not affect the second phase of the operation."

Unlike His Majesty the Emperor's calmness, Goltz was secretly relieved.

In fact, even if Soldao could not be held, the outcome of the Russian 3rd Army would not make much difference. Mackensen's 1st Army, which was preparing to enter Poland through Mwawa according to the plan, was also moving south, and in the face of the 1st Army's front, only a small number of Russian troops withdrawing to Poland could not hold Mwawa for long, and the rear route of the Russian 3rd Army would still be cut off.

But in this case, the 1st Army would waste time in Mwawa, and if the desperate Russians were to destroy the railway system at Soldau and Mvawa, the logistics of the 1st Army would be a big problem. And if Mackensen's 1st Army is not in place, the second phase of the operation will not be carried out at all.

Although the outflanking mission of the 12th Division and the 3rd Reserve Infantry Division is considered a failure, the impact on the overall situation is not great. It is obviously harmless to let go of some fish that have slipped through the net because of the disrupted command system and the inability to organize orderly actions than to let the Russian 17th Army, a reserve force with basically complete combat strength, pounce in the encirclement.

Moreover, there were only two longitudinal railways leading from East Prussia to Poland, and with the return of Soldau to the Germans, the western one had been completely cut off. The Russians wanted to retreat by rail, only through the eastern strip that was currently under the control of the Russian 1st Army. However, all the main lines of the transverse railways in East Prussia remained under the control of the Germans.

In the face of the German attack on all fronts and the constant bombardment overhead, the Russian 3rd Army wanted to cross most of East Prussia on two legs and return to the defense area of the 1st Army, which might not be as fast as walking south and directly back to Poland.

Moreover, at this time, Crook's 4th Army was also on the way, and the Russian 2nd Army had to move fast enough if it wanted to withdraw safely and steadily, not to mention the 3rd Army, which had already cut off the main transportation route.

So it's good news that Soldao is holding on, but it's good news that has to come. In the case of the brilliant victory of the Mediterranean Fleet, if the army messed up, the reaction of His Majesty the Emperor, who was now eating with a flat face, would be unpredictable.

After all, His Majesty the Emperor did not even return to Charlottenburg Palace after returning from Pulaport, and went directly to the General Staff, which shows the importance he attached to the entire Polish campaign.

Jochen, who was concentrating on the slaughtered meat platter in front of him, did not expect that he would put a lot of pressure on the officers of the Army General Staff, including Goltz.

In fact, Jochen didn't have a mustache-like roar in the Army General Staff, like "all those who get in my way are scum", "seventy thousand sisters-in-law and wives one by one", and "all go to feed Stalin".

It's not that Jochen didn't want to be a "mouth-strong king" in the Army General Staff, but he endured it in the end.

Being a master of micro-exercises like a mustache or an empty grid will not have any good results, and professional things are still done by letting professional people do such a conscious yoheng.

Moreover, the staff officers of the General Staff were not unaware of such problems as "the 8th Army General Staff was overly optimistic about the plan to deliver reinforcements by rail", "the aerial reconnaissance on the advance route of the troops was not in place", "the air support provided by the air force to the ground forces was not timely", and "the response of the 8th Army Staff was not flexible enough after the 20th Division's attack was blocked."

"If the movements of the Russian 17th Army could be discovered in time, the operational objectives of the 12th Cavalry Division, the 18th Division, and the 3rd Reserve Division could be adjusted in time, and aviation forces could be mobilized to cooperate with the ground offensive, the Russians would not have launched a six-hour attack on Soldao."

However, it is not difficult to find the problem, but it is not so simple to solve the problem.

In the current era when communications below the brigade level are basically relied on roaring, and radios cannot be used during transportation. The German Army, which can popularize low-power radios to the battalion, and the use of trucks and diesel generators also allows the troops to have a certain degree of communication capability in motion, and the timeliness of communication is already the best army in the world.

If you want to go one step further, it is the field of professionals who need to work on both technical and organizational structure.

If Jochen wants to be a "keyboard military strategist", there are many ideas to solve problems, but these ideas are all based on the technical level of the era of information technology of military communications, flattening of military command, mechanization of troops, and three-dimensional troop projection in Jochen's memory. If you really want to give any advice to these professional staff officers of the General Staff, it is just an indiscriminate command without any operation.

However, although he resisted the urge to have a seizure, Jochen still couldn't give the German army elites present a good face.

When faced with His Majesty the Emperor, who had just returned from Pulaport after commending the officers and men of the Navy and rushed directly to the Army General Staff Headquarters after listening to the report, he only said with a straight face, "It is normal that the plan cannot catch up with the changes," and then said that he would stay at the General Staff Headquarters and stop speaking after waiting for the results, the officers in the Army General Staff could still feel that they were uncomfortable in the low air pressure.

Everyone in the General Staff knows that although His Majesty the Emperor does not like to point fingers, there is still the influence of His Majesty's intervention in the strategic principles currently being implemented by the General Staff of the Army and in the current tactical system of the front-line troops.

Although His Majesty the Emperor has always only made suggestions and not interfered in specific operations, it is obvious that it is not easy to fool the lay monarch in the past by listening to a few explanations. Rather than being vexatious, silence is more unsettling to them.

So now that the results are out, in any case, the purpose of the first phase is basically achieved, and the second phase can be continued, it is no wonder that Goltz will breathe a sigh of relief.

"It's okay with August, it's up to Erich now."

From Jochen's point of view, the current Polish campaign resembles the historical battles of Tannenberg, Lake Masuria, and Lodz that unfolded at the same time.

The battles in East Prussia were fought by both sides with more troops than in history, but are still largely a replica of the battles of Tannenberg and Lake Masuria.

The Army General Staff's requirements for Pritwitz's 8th Army were not particularly high, and if they could not bear the Russian 3rd Army, they would first surround it, and then block the rescue of the 3rd Army after the Russian 2nd Army, which had been scattered by Mackensen's 1st Army, after possible reorganization, and wait for Crook's 4th Army to go north to join the encirclement and annihilation of the Russian 3rd Army.

If the Russian 2nd Army abandons the 3rd Army and wants to run on its own, it will also be allowed to retreat, and strive to eat the Russian 3rd Army steadily, so as not to be greedy and chew too much.

But the second phase of the Battle of Lodz demanded much more from Mackensen and Falkenhein.

The historical Battle of Lodz was because the German army took risks, and the German army tried in vain to wedge the combined part of the two Russian armies with a small number of troops, and then carried out a mobile encirclement of the Russian army, which failed but led to the breakthrough troops being encircled. After breaking through with heavy casualties, the tactical intention of the German army to try to encircle and annihilate the Russian army also failed.

Therefore, when formulating the battle plan for the Polish campaign, Jochen emphasized that the goal of the second phase of the campaign should only be in Lodz, and not to be greedy and focus on Warsaw, so as not to choke to death if he can't eat it at the time. This is also a lesson from the past, as the offensive operation of the German-Austrian army in the Warsaw-Ivangorod campaign before the Battle of Lodz also ended in failure.

In order to achieve the goal of encircling Lodz, only Prittwitz's 8th Army has been resisting in East Prussia, while the southern front has four armies, including reserves.

And tactically, there is no need to wedge the Russian army in the extremely adventurous way, but to use a frontal defeat, outflank on both flanks, and wrap up the two army groups and slowly digest them.

A frontal defeat is certainly not a problem, and the current situation has proven it. At this time, the superiority of the German army over the Russian army was all-round. And interestingly, the Russians would never have imagined that the Germans' bullets were copied from their own, and the Germans' tactics were actually copied from their own.

Attack on the whole front, focus on breakthroughs, and different from the common two flanks after the breakthrough in the early stage of World War I, the German army after breaking through from multiple breakthrough points does not expand, and the follow-up troops pour in from the breakthrough to the flanks and rear of the Russian defense line in different depths, and the forces are deployed in the movement, and the friendly forces that are also moving in a roundabout way with the adjacent breakthrough points are carried out, and the troops moving in opposite directions respond to each other, forming a number of multi-level shallow interspersed on the battlefield, and finally the interspersed Russian army will be divided and surrounded.

This tactic is somewhat of a variant of Brusilov's offensive.

The Brusilov offensive is an all-out attack, focusing on one point, breaking through at multiple points, and interspersed with shallow interspersed maneuvering tactics after the breakthrough. Compared with the in-depth penetration of Schlieffen's plan, which was actually only beautiful due to the limitations of the troop propulsion and logistics transportation capabilities during the First World War, the Brusilov offensive was actually the most effective infantry breakthrough method in the First World War.

If it weren't for the poor quality of the Russian army in 1916 and the low efficiency of the execution of orders, the Brusilov offensive would have had the opportunity to directly and completely collapse the nearly 500,000 German-Austrian troops and even shake the entire battlefield situation of the Allies on the Eastern Front.

It can be said that the Brusilov offensive was the most valuable military idea left over from the Tsarist period, and the Soviet Union's theory of great depth was also deeply influenced by the idea of the Brusilov offensive. And the offensive methods of the Soviet ground forces during World War II and even the Cold War still have the shadow of Brusilov's offensive ideas.

The high casualty rate in the early days of the Soviet-German war after the Soviet Union switched to the offensive was also related to the idea that the breakthrough in the Brusilov offensive was dominated by infantry, supplemented by other forces. As a result, the Soviet armored forces were only used as the spearhead of the breakthrough in the early stage, and the infantry was still the main force for the breakthrough.

And with the continuous growth of the armored forces of the Soviet Union, this line of thinking has not changed, except that the infantry has become mechanized infantry and has become part of the armored force.

At this time, the variant of the Brusilov offensive used by the German army at least in Jochen's opinion had become perfect in the conditions of the First World War, with aerial bombardment, barrage advances, commando tactics, assault gun use, huge communication advantages, and the high quality of the German army, bullying the Russians on the Eastern Front, and it was also common sense to devastate in the frontal offensive.

Of course, the two wings used to outflank are risky, what if the pockets can't be closed? What to do if you are flanked by the Russian 9th Army from Warsaw? Therefore, the bottom of the pocket must be thick, and the two armies responsible for this pocket are the two armies of Mackensen and Falkenhein.

Fortunately, thanks to the special shape of Germany's eastern territory at this time, East Prussia extended out to provide great convenience for Mackensen's offensive, and most of the southern part of East Prussia was brought back under German control, which avoided many problems for the southward outflanking operation, which was already in the category of deep penetration.

The 5th Army of Falkenhain had a much bigger problem than Mackensen at this point, and from the map, the 5th Army, which had a right hook, needed to advance much longer than the 1st Army. Moreover, the railway lines of communication in Poland radiated outward from Warsaw, and the 5th Army's advance route was not as smooth as the 1st Army's.

If it weren't for the fact that the 2nd Army of Hetzendorff was unfolding on the frontal battlefield and the 3rd Army was still a reserve behind it, if necessary, it could be thrown into it to carry out a deep penetration to open up the passage between the 2nd Army and the 5th Army, otherwise the 5th Army's outflanking operation could almost be called a reckless operation.

But so far, at least, so good. Although he didn't show it, Jochen was actually relieved.

Relieved, Jochen was also in the mood to make a little joke with the Chief of Army Staff to break the solemn atmosphere.

"The canteen of the Army General Staff is also full of the smell of the battlefield." Jochen swallowed the food in his mouth with difficulty, and then teased after taking a large sip of water to dilute the taste in his mouth.

Although Jochen has been a German for almost 50 years, he does not protect his shortcomings, German cuisine is not in the stream, it cannot be put on the table, and it is counted in Central European cuisine, that is, Hungarian cuisine.

In Jochen's original time and space, Germany after entering the 21st century is also lackluster in eating, the Federal Republic of Germany has conducted a selection of specialties in various states, and the result is that most of the state's specialties are similar, and some states can't even choose a special dish, so they have to take desserts to fill the number, and there are even worse ones who can only fool around with locally produced special vegetables.

Therefore, the level of food in the German army at this time can be imagined, and the men in the canteen of the army general staff will not cook as carefully as the chefs in the restaurants of later generations, so the lunch in front of Jochen can completely compete with the food of the British across the sea.

Marinated pork and cabbage, salty and sour flavors in a slaughtered meat platter stewed with sausage potatoes dominate the mouth.

But thanks to this smell of violence, it is absolutely impossible to see it on the tables in the palace, and Jochen, who smells sour, can eat it hard.

In addition to the fact that the amount is sufficient, and it is also a rare hot food on the front line, at least from the standard point of view, the food in the canteen of the Army General Staff is really not much different from the front line.

"Only in this way can those of us in the rear feel a little bit of the breath of the front." Seeing that His Majesty the Emperor was joking, Goltz knew that the matter was over, and he responded with a smile.

"Young officers should go to the front line to experience the battlefield for themselves, lest they have any romantic fantasies about war." Jochen said with a smile: "After all, there are not many people who know that this war will not have much warmth right now. ”

"Your Excellency, Chief of the General Staff, don't feel too much of the frontline in this regard." Jochen pointed to the plate in front of him, "Your physical health is related to the strategy of the entire empire. ”

"Thank you Your Majesty for the relationship, I'm used to it." Goltz nodded slightly in thanks: "I've always been worried that it won't be to your taste, Your Majesty. ”

"In times of war, at least you can't waste it, can you?" Jochen continued to use his knife and fork to deal with the food on the plate and laughed: "It seems that I need to treat the stomachs of the officers in the General Staff after the Polish battle, where do you think it is better?" ”

"Your Majesty, what do you think of a Christmas banquet in the Royal Palace of Warsaw?" Goltz said with a smile.

"The Russians won't let us take Warsaw so smoothly, will they?" Do you dare to say this kind of flag for Christmas in XXX? "It's not that I don't believe in the Army's abilities, but it's not a good idea to hold a Christmas ball in a place that has been baptized by war." ”

"If August and Erich can really block the two armies of the Russians, I don't think the Russians will choose to fight another tough battle with us in Warsaw." Goltz didn't know what His Majesty the Emperor was thinking at this time, but analyzed it seriously.

"As long as the Russians are not crazy, the 9th Army should withdraw to Brest, so that it can still confront us across the Havetz River and the Bug River, and the defeated 7th Army should also withdraw to Galicia and join the 8th Army, where the traffic situation, at least in winter we have nothing to do with the Russians."

"So Warsaw should be able to be liberated peacefully." Goltz accentuated the word "liberation."

"If that's the case, then we can look forward to this banquet together." Jochen thought for a moment and added, "But I don't force it on Christmas Day. ”

Goltz, who understood the wrong meaning, said with a smile: "Your Majesty can be so considerate of the army, and the army needs to work hard, isn't it?" We will certainly try to make it possible for His Majesty to spend Christmas in Warsaw. ”

"Your Excellency, my Chief of the General Staff, don't keep raising the flag." Yoheng complained in his heart with black lines on his head.