In May, Europe is in early summer, the sun is shining directly on the Tropic of Cancer, and the daylight hours are extended because of the more sunlight received, and it is not until 8 o'clock in the evening that the sky begins to slowly darken. Split Port, so to speak, was a small city, and for the Germans who had just come ashore, it was no different from the countryside. Because the port is not large, the throughput is limited, and at the same time, it also limits the speed of the German army's transportation in the troops.

On May 8, under the escort of the Italian Navy, the German army landed in advance of the 1st Infantry Division, which had been reorganized, with a total of 24,509 men, under the jurisdiction of 3 infantry regiments, 1 heavy artillery regiment, 1 reconnaissance battalion, 1 communications company, 12 air defense platoons, 1 engineer battalion, 1 transport wing, and 1 divisional field hospital.

According to the analysis of the operating speed of the infantry that landed in the first batch, it took about three days for a division to arrive at the port of Split, and it would take about three days to mobilize more than 500 ships of various kinds in the area. However, most of this time is spent on small boats, because the harbor cannot accommodate large ships with too deep draft, so they can only be transferred back and forth by small boats.

According to the requirements of the United Front Work Department, in order to win this war, only the nine 1920 infantry divisions of the Wehrmacht had an overwhelming advantage.

Eric is not a person who likes to be fair, and he never ties his hands and feet, and since he has the ability to hang his opponent up, he will not make it easy for his opponent to deal with it. Supposedly, it is not earth-shattering to deal with Greece, but since you have chosen this game, you must find some excitement.

At Eric's repeated requests, seven of the nine Wehrmacht infantry divisions were carried by water, while the 9th Infantry Division and the 1st Panzer Division chose to advance by land.

Greece is also very stubborn, and after a series of diplomatic pressure and armed intimidation, Greece still went its own way, as always, and instead of withdrawing its troops, it advanced heavily and pressed forward step by step, strategically squeezing the Albanian army to the north. By the time seven Wehrmacht infantry divisions landed in the port of Split, the advance of the Greek army had already reached 20 kilometers south of Sarajevo.

Eric very much wanted to airdrop the 37th Parachute Division to the back of the Greek army for a surprise attack, or to seize the advantageous terrain before the deployment of other troops, but the lack of guides, the terrain was unfamiliar, the distance was limited, and the airdrop was of little significance, but let other countries discover their hidden weapons of mass destruction.

In fact, the combat effectiveness of the Greek army is not at the same level as that of Italy, although Greece is a small country, but the degree of militarization is very high, otherwise, the Greek army would not have taken great risks to start a war with the German army. In particular, with the military assistance of Britain and France and the capture of Albania on the battlefield in the early stage, the Greek army is extremely well-equipped, coupled with the advantages of the terrain and the experience of long-term combat in the mountains, it is clear about all kinds of combat ideas, and it is indeed an elite force that is difficult to deal with.

The only time Eric's paratrooper division fought was to carry out urban airdrops and seize airfields, but it lacked field experience and heavy weapons for offensive use.

On the day that the 1st Infantry Division, with a total of 24,509 men, disembarked from the port of Split (that is, on May 8), Prime Minister Stresemann ordered the military and civilians of Sarajevo to abandon resistance on all fronts, open the four gates, and let the Greek army enter the city, and by noon, the city of Sarajevo basically fell. However, the government's call was not heeded by a small group of Serbian soldiers and civilians who hated Greece, and they refused to give up resistance and continued to organize sporadic blockades, causing great trouble to the Greek army that had just entered the city, but at the same time they were mercilessly sniped by the Greek army.

Even the Greek army, which had been fighting fiercely for many days, was also very short-tempered, because the sporadic resistance of the Serbs caused heavy casualties to the Greek army.

Unfortunately, there were some reporters who stayed in Sarajevo City, some of whom did not have time to evacuate, and some of whom were not in a hurry to leave, and their every move after entering the city was all in their cameras, and at the same time they took pictures of the Greek army shooting civilians.

Since many of these foreign journalists came from Britain, the United States, France, and other countries, although the Greek army was very arrogant, it did not want to offend all of them, and even for businessmen with German status, they were only temporarily imprisoned, ready to be used as bargaining chips.

The Minister of the Interior, Hans Luther, was a layman about fighting the war, and as for the front-line fighting, he didn't have that heart at all. In the afternoon of the same day, I was about to go home from a day's work to accompany my wife and children, when the phone rang suddenly, and it was Chancellor Streizer calling.

"Your Excellency Minister Hans Luther, I regret to inform you that today's end of work may be delayed, and what you need to do now is to inform the major newspapers and vigorously disclose to the world the atrocities committed by the Greek army in the light of what the American, British, French and other journalists have seen in Sarajevo, so as to arouse the righteous spirit of the armies of all countries to fight back against the Greek army."

"Alright, Your Excellency, I'll do it now." After Hans finished speaking, he immediately went out and took action.

As soon as the war machine was activated, Hoffmann became the busiest general in all of Germany, and as Eric ruled, the cabinet seemed to be headed by Stresemann, but it was Eric who was actually in charge. Because the war is under the jurisdiction of the United Front Work Department, the Ministry of National Defense is now under the command of the United Front Work Department, such as the Ministry of Communications, the Ministry of Food, and the Ministry of Agriculture, all of which need to be under the unified dispatch of the United Front Work Department. This approach has advantages and disadvantages, it is conducive to overall planning and arrangement, and the efficiency of the front is doubled, but it also gives Hoffmann, the chief of the general staff, the opportunity to mobilize the strength of the whole country, and the disadvantages are not the same, if you replace it with an ambitious chief of the general staff, you only need to be a little respectful, and the United Front Work Department will become its own "shogunate", even if Eric thinks that he is the commander-in-chief, it is useless, because the army only recognizes military orders, and all other government orders are all ignored.

There are many rules and regulations involved in military and political affairs, and if the constitutional system really needs to be comprehensive, Eric can't do it himself, and Chancellor Stresemann can't do it either. Marching and fighting is not what politicians are good at, and blind command and playing micro-manipulation will only end up being military and political hostility and intensifying contradictions, so it can only be handed over to capable and trustworthy people to do, and in Eric's mind, Hoffman is such a person.

The second landing force was the Wehrmacht's newly formed 53rd Engineer, but this unit was not part of the German Army, but was formed by the 1st Air Army, followed by a Croatian reserve brigade hastily reorganized in Vienna under the name of the 112th Croatian Reserve Brigade.

The ground forces of the 1st Air Army consisted of three divisions, namely the 112th Croatian Reserve Brigade, the 51st Air Defense Division, the 53rd Engineer, and the Aviation Combat Corps consisted of 2 aviation regiments.

Due to the mountainous nature of the western Balkans and the rugged terrain, which was not conducive to the large-scale operation of mechanized troops, Hoffman did not let the 1st Panzer Division go deep into the battlefield, only as a training, and the new equipment still needed to be run-in, so it was impossible to fight for a while.

The 112th Croatian Reserve Brigade was a group of veterans of the First World War, all Germanized, and due to the time constraints, this unit did not distinguish it from the general German army.

In addition to this Croatian force, there were also Serbian 113th and 114th Reserve Brigades, all of which were formed after the screening of veterans of the First World War, and were not incorporated into the sequence of offensive operations, but only used as ground bases and important ports to protect the air force, and used for defensive operations.

Offense requires a high degree of fit, language differentiation is a big problem, and Eric knows that this problem can only be consumed over time, perhaps through reinforcement learning, and when the next generation joins the army, the language communication problem can be greatly reduced.

The first priority of the 53rd Engineer after landing was to establish an air base and to build a defensive camp to accommodate the subsequent troops, and the reason why it had to be formed as a separate division was mainly because of the large number of people. Through this problem, the German army discovered another fatal problem, and the effectiveness of even the most mechanized troops would be greatly reduced once they encountered a place with poor transportation conditions. So, a paperwork for the creation of a logistics support team was handed to Eric again.

"Who wrote this?" Eric looked at the report and the inscription was not the name of the person but the unit, which was written about the 14th Panzergrenadier.

"Admiral Watt wrote." Brauchitsch said.

Eric only took a brief look at it to understand what Watt meant, and he wanted to restart a "weapon" used in World War I and solve the problem of transportation difficulties as soon as possible - empty boats.

Use an airboat to hang some weapons and equipment and fly over areas that cannot be traveled from the ground, such as broken bridges, rivers, mountains, lakes, etc.

The instructor does have such an obligation, through the integration of intelligence transmitted back from the front, and then conduct many exercises on his own, and after finding a solution to one of the problems, he will practice and find it again, until the initial results are obtained, and the document is compiled and handed to the Ministry of Defense.

"How much R&D funding is needed?" Eric knew that Brauchitsch's coming meant that it was a big expense, otherwise where would the president need a personal nod.

Seeing that Eric had no objections, Brauchitsch's heart fell for the most part, and then he said: "The first R&D expenditure is expected to be 1.4 million marks." ”

This is the price after the Ministry of Defense communicated with the designer, and there must be some moisture in it, which is the usual routine for applying for funding, saying that it is 1.4 million marks, which is generally doubled, and it is easy to bargain.

Eric is really glad that Germany is not poor now, although there are many places to spend money, but this little money can still be obtained.

"Well, I agree to allocate 3 million marks, but the specifications are a little higher, because this army has spent a lot of effort to transport only a few small arms and hanging cannons, which is really shabby." Eric is indeed very optimistic about some of the capabilities of the airboat, but only investing in the development of some small airboats will definitely gradually be insufficient due to the increase in the weight of the equipment.

"How big? Isn't it okay to be so big? Brauchitsch pointed to the data on the plot. He felt that this scheme was already very good, capable of carrying 4 armored vehicles.

"Bigger, I want an empty boat that can carry large tanks." Eric tilted his head, found a pen, crossed out the funds in the application report, and wrote 3 million marks on it with a red pen.