Retreat is often more difficult than attacking.

Under the pressure of the continuous approach of the enemy's pursuers, how to deploy troops for defense, how to organize and arrange retreat, how to block enemy troops, and how to evacuate civilians - it can be said that this is a task that tests the personal ability of the commander on the ground and the organizational ability of the national army.

The retreat is a classic case of bringing hundreds of thousands of people out of the encirclement like Dunkirk, and the worse ones are the Cherkasy steel encirclement, and the worst ones are probably those organized by the national government, such as Huayuankou, Zhongtiao Mountain, Nanjing, and Changsha...... Anyway, every time they killed a bunch of their own people, the enemy didn't even hurt the hair.

There was no end in sight to the long convoy, shouts, orders, inquiries, and scolds mingled, the black smoke of burning documents and supplies obscured the sky, the gendarmes who were busy directing traffic were sweating profusely, and the sappers were no better, and they were busy planting explosives—fortifications, bridges, railways, stations, water towers, road signs, warehouse equipment—anything that could be used to finance the enemy and had no time to evacuate. In addition to sabotage, they also have to ensure the smooth flow of the road system throughout the whole process, so as to prevent the speed of the troops' march and the destruction of road facilities after the troops leave. In terms of workload, the sappers are probably the hardest group.

These hard-working guys are just the tip of the iceberg of the entire retreat.

The most troublesome part of the retreat is how to evacuate people and government agencies and make sure they arrive safely at their destinations. You must know the specific list of people, where they live, arrange the movement routes, comfort and organize the orderly evacuation of the people through the grassroots of the community, persuade them to give up unnecessary belongings according to the situation, if necessary, you must break up the family, let the old and weak women and children crying and crying for their families get on the bus and boat first, pacify or even forcefully suppress the adult men who do not cooperate, prevent it from turning into riots, and prepare medical care and food along the way to prevent the flow of refugees from blocking the movement of the army...... Considering that government functions are also retreating, and the level of chaos has risen several levels, it is no exaggeration to say that it was a disaster.

Here are just two examples to illustrate. The first was the Battle of France in 1940, after the German Army Group A achieved a breakthrough in the middle, the French did not try to plug the gap, but the road was completely blocked by the swarming Belgian refugees. A vote of French mobile troops lined up in a long snake formation blocked the road and could not move, and was wiped out by Stuka dive bombers. The second was the Battle of Moscow in 1941, from the start of Operation Typhoon in September 1941 to December 1941, with a total population of about 4.2 million in Moscow, only 2.1 million remained, most of whom were evacuated to the Urals and Tyumen in the rear, except for 800,000 on the front. Among them were workers, businesses, actors, doctors, diplomats, and even some of the prisoners were sent to Kuibyshev (most of the rest were shot). In terms of organizational ability and rigor, the free and loose Gallic rooster is not to mention compared with the Germans (in the tragic East Prussian campaign, only one remnant of the defeated Germans still withdrew a large number of people and troops), and even the Soviet Union under the rule of the Iron Father could not compare.

All in all, organizing the evacuation of the population is really not an easy task.

Alfheim doesn't have to deal with such a problem.

"Alas...... May Mother God bless taxpayers. ”

After receiving the list of supplies from Major Klinger, the commander of the engineer battalion, and after a quick check, Parsifal left his name in the signature field.

After the "Thor's Hammer" strategy battle, Parsifal originally thought that his military career would come to an end, and he would soon be forced to retire or be thrown back to the logistics department to sit on the cold bench. Although the curtain call was a bit ugly, Parsifal was a little excited that he could finally live the retirement he had been looking forward to.

With such strong expectations, it is easy to imagine how disappointed he was when he received the promotion notice.

Parsifal's promotion was justified by his success in organizing the retreat of the battery's garrison during the "Thor's Hammer" raider, minimizing the damage. In recognition of this achievement, Parsifal was promoted to Air Force Colonel. Along with the promotion order, there was also his transfer appointment – or rather a temporary part-time appointment – more correctly.

With immediate effect, Air Colonel Parsifal is ordered to take charge of the retreat of the Rhine front.

Technical details aside, the core content is such a command that contains too much information.

Retreat?

After changing to other young generals with strong blood, when they saw this order, they would immediately flip the table and scold, "Is this crazy above?", "Did the General Staff take the wrong medicine?". You must know that although the defense force has abandoned the first line of defense, the combat strength is still intact, and all of them have been invested in strengthening the second line of defense. With the current strength, it is completely possible to turn the Rhine front into a meat grinder and wrench the entire Charlemagne Kingdom into a pile of rotten meat. Do they know that the Rhine front, behind the Rhine River, is the entire core industrial area of Alfheim, where the whole army can fight, and the loss of the Rhine front means that the war is over!

Parsifal reacted similarly at first, but he soon spotted a hint of disobedience.

To put it simply, it's —

"Sir, is this okay?"

Major Klinger glanced left and right, and after making sure that none of the soldiers around him were paying attention, he approached Parsifal.

"I'll see if I can ask for more information from above, I still have a lot of explosives here, and I have time to do it. Just allow it—"

"Major, what is the vocation of a soldier?"

"Obey orders, sir!"

"Good. Since this part is clearly pointed out above, do not manage and do not understand, let's execute. ”

"Yes!"

Looking at the back of the engineer battalion commander turning away, Parsifal sighed softly, turned sideways to the traffic of the entire road, and reflected a row of wooden houses in the afterglow, and could faintly see the closed doors and windows open a narrow bar, and several pairs of eyes were peeking in this direction.

The education of junior officers in the Defence Force places great emphasis on initiative, in other words, allowing the field commander to make tactical adjustments according to the actual situation, rather than the brainless task of commanding one action at a time. For the rapidly changing mechanized modern warfare, this kind of flexibility and adaptability is exactly what a grassroots officer needs. However, sometimes it is inevitable that some incomprehensible instructions will be questioned, and in the end, whether they understand it or not, they will resolutely carry out the parts of the clear orders of their superiors. Otherwise, Parsifal's job would not have been as easy as it is now.

To be honest, he himself couldn't react for a while when he saw that order, let alone the officers and soldiers who implemented it below.

In the third part of the evacuation order, the General Staff ordered that there should be no evacuation of the local human population, that any forced evacuation was prohibited, and that the destruction of indigenous property was prohibited. In the fourth part, sappers are forbidden to destroy food storage warehouses, and it is okay to transfer them directly to the local human population without sealing them.