The lead battle group, including the 101st Experimental Heavy Armored Battalion, waited for four hours and still found no sign of friendly forces. Several commanders finally couldn't sit still, and immediately contacted the follow-up troops again, only to learn that the follow-up troops encountered an 11-kilometer-long traffic jam.

Speaking of which, this big traffic jam is still the pot of the pilot battle group.

In the first stage of the operational arrangement, the lead battle group was given the task of "overcoming all difficulties and completely capturing Bastogne in the shortest possible time."

In other words, the rest of the matters are secondary.

Therefore, in the process of rushing all the way to Bastogne, the leading battle group spent most of its time concentrating on drag racing, and occasionally encountered Charlemagne's troops and only defeated them, because they were only concerned with capturing Bastogne within the specified time, and they were convinced that the follow-up troops were closely behind them, and the trivial matters such as capturing prisoners were left to the brother troops, and there was no need to waste time on this.

The old drivers who stepped on the accelerator didn't expect or notice that they had opened a full distance of 30~40 kilometers with the follow-up troops, and they never imagined that the defeat of Charlemagne's remnants, who should have lost their souls and walked into the prisoner of war camp, would actually cause so much trouble to the entire army group.

"Get down!Get down for me!!"

Captain Krugel roared, and the gendarmerie captain, who had always been like a secondary school teacher, was now like a raging lion, and found that an uninvited guest had invaded his territory and acted recklessly, and that humiliation, that anger, even if he tore the perpetrator to pieces, could not be healed.

A dozen ragged Charlemagne soldiers lay face down in a row with the deterrence of the muzzle and the "assistance" of the butts, and the captain pulled out his pistol and released the insurance.

One by one, every time a shot rang out, a puddle of red and white viscous liquid and a yellow bullet casing appeared on the ground.

The 8 rounds were quickly finished, and the magazine was withdrawn, the magazine was loaded, and the roll call continued, one by one, until all the prisoners were corpses with broken heads, and the lieutenant was still angry, and strode out of the deep pit that the prisoners had dug themselves, and without looking back, he walked towards the convoy blocked on the road and could not move. Behind him, soldiers wielded shovels to fill the mound back into the pit.

Strictly speaking, the defense force can be regarded as a professional army that is relatively far away from "indiscriminate killing". This is not to say how humanitarian they are, or that their brains are stiffened by chivalry, still less that the Defence Forces are concerned about political and propaganda work, and how thoroughly they carry out grassroots work such as "the situation between the army and the people" every day.

After all, the aggressor's virtue is a kind of hypocrisy.

No matter how well the propaganda work is done, the wind of international public opinion will blow wherever it goes. In the eyes of Charlemagne's people, the Alfheim Defense Army, which set foot on Charlemagne's territory, was a group of "outsiders" and "invaders" whose language, clothing, and living habits were completely different from their own. No matter how much this relationship is disguised, it will not change. From the moment the war began, the two sides were already in a state of hostility, and even if the war ended, psychological hostility would last for a long time and would not be forgotten even for generations.

Coupled with the racial feuds that have lasted for more than 10 centuries, the Wehrmacht never intended to make himself an amiable and respectable "royal teacher" in the eyes of Charlemagne's people from the beginning.

Even so, they didn't want to waste precious bullets and time on a momentary emotional catharsis, and after the victory of the war, they had plenty of time to enjoy the wails of Charlemagne's defeated dogs.

Therefore, in the very beginning, the defense forces did not have too much difficulty in accommodating Charlemagne's prisoners. Once the identities were confirmed, arrangements were made for military doctors to treat the wounded, and the others began to evacuate. Before leaving, each prisoner of war was given a packet of candy, so that the GIs, who were so excited about riding a truck for the first time in their lives, would break up the truck.

This subtle atmosphere of "goodwill" lasted until the mechanized units chasing the lead battle group discovered that the road had been blasted.

As mentioned earlier, the leading battle group was all focused on taking Bastogne, and these rabid dogs who were racing against time were defeated when they encountered the enemy, and as a result, the troops scattered by these mad dogs all the way were able to make up a reinforced battalion......

If the follow-up troops followed up in time at this time, it would be very easy to collect prisoners of war, disarm, and evacuate, but the group of unchained rabid dogs rushed too fast, and the distance between them and the follow-up troops was nearly 40 kilometers. Although the vast majority of Charlemagne's soldiers who were scattered had low combat effectiveness and were frightened by the sudden and violent attack, there were also some soldiers who were loyal to their duties and still had a sense of patriotism and honor. Unlike their comrades who fled in a panic, they chose to be loyal to their homeland until the last moment.

The remaining dead men gathered their ammunition and weapons at hand, and then began to move in groups, some of them firing black guns at the marching columns of the defenders under the cover of the forest, delaying the enemy's footsteps. The other part blasted bridges and roads under the guidance of sappers.

These brave men succeeded, and at 11 noon that day, the bridge was blown up and craters (in order to make repairs more difficult, the defenders dug the asphalt road and planted the bombs on the roadbed and detonated, so that it was difficult for heavy tracked vehicles to pass. There was a traffic jam of up to 2 kilometers in Army Group B. Admiral Kleist, who learned of this, immediately asked the sappers to repair the road quickly, and contacted the air force to coordinate the sweep of Charlemagne's stragglers.

After the war, whether it was official documents or personal recollections, the events that happened during this period were vaguely mentioned as "sweeping up the remnants of the enemy", but anyone who knew anything about the army's style and related affairs knew very well that the so-called "sweeping" was actually synonymous with "leaving no living mouth" and "sweeping away the enemy army like garbage".

Being delayed, extra work, and pressure from superiors - the above factors are superimposed, and the mood of the elven soldiers is naturally not much better, and it is natural to start with heavy hands. But the order given by Admiral Kleist himself had other considerations than to vent his anger.

Due to traffic jams, road transport capacity is temporarily paralyzed, and air power must not only provide uninterrupted air cover, but also assist in transporting equipment and personnel to repair roads, and finally coordinate with the army to sweep away the remnants of the enemy. At this moment, any human and transport forces are extremely valuable, and it is simply impossible to spare some of them for prisoners of war. Even if the road repair is completed, the traffic situation will still be quite tight for a while. Rather than letting these remnants of the army take up valuable vehicles and roads for nothing, it is more cost-effective to give them a bullet.

Now that there is a clear directive from above, the front-line executors who are already in a bad mood will naturally not show mercy anymore, and the beautiful forest full of green in summer has become a hunting ground for hunting humans in the blink of an eye.

Originally, the Ardennes region was densely forested and an ideal hiding place, and it was not difficult to hide a handful of people. But in the face of air power equipped with various detection and sensing devices, Charlemagne's poor hiding skills did not make much use at all. As soon as a trace of human activity is detected, the MDS of the squad unit will immediately enter "search-and-annihilate" mode, either shooting all non-Defence Force fighters in their line of sight into a mess, or directing nearby ground forces to outflank and coordinate the destruction of enemy forces. In just two hours, all the remnants of Charlemagne's troops scattered in the Ardennes Forest were wiped out.

Of course, some of these stragglers laid down their arms and surrendered to the Wehrmacht, but they were greeted not by the medic and the interrogators, but by the armed gendarmes and the shovels thrown on the ground, and they were asked to dig a large pit under the threat of their guns......

Four hours after the traffic jam began, the roads and bridges were finally repaired, but the traffic jam did not ease, but worsened. The original 2-kilometer congested convoy has now discharged an 11-kilometer long queue, and almost every minute that passes, the long steel dragon winding on the road is growing, and it is becoming more and more intense for a while.

At the same time, the lead battle group, which had been waiting impatiently in Bastogne, finally began to contact friendly forces, because they had not only run out of patience, but also encountered some situations that made them cry and laugh, and had to ask for help from the peak.