I was a tycoon in World War I: Starting to save France - Chapter 604

There are a lot of things going on today, only one chapter, sorry!

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The early morning in Antwerp is covered with snow, and snowflakes fall from the gray sky, gently falling on the roofs, long streets, and trees of this ancient city.

This is a fortress city, called the “National Fortress” by Belgium, and it is also the last safe haven of this small country.

In order to withstand possible enemy attacks for a long time, the fortress designers dug a huge underground facility in the east of the city to withstand possible enemy artillery fire.

At this time, it happened to be used as a warehouse by Lieutenant General Ives.

Lieutenant General Ives stood in the snow and watched the cars coming and going on the highway. They were like moving ants, moving supplies from the port into the underground warehouse.

The most precious thing at this stage is materials, which means everything.

Lieutenant General Ives knew that it was unsafe for supplies to accumulate in the port. The warehouses there were all open-air, and a considerable part of the supplies were munitions, which might be burned if bombed by German fighter planes.

The best way is to move them to underground warehouses.

Looking at the carts full of supplies, Lieutenant General Ives had a smile on his lips.

Frenchmen, how long can you hold on?

Charles can’t give you bread, nor can he give you ammunition. He’s not Moses, who can conjure supplies with a wave of his staff.

If you don’t want to run out of ammunition and food, you should lower your noble heads and surrender to us, especially that Ciel!

When he thought of Charles, Lieutenant General Ives’s eyes showed deep hatred.

“General.” At this time, the staff officer approached Lieutenant General Ives’ ear and reminded: “It’s General Eden.”

Looking along the staff’s gaze, Lieutenant General Ives saw Major General Eden walking through the turbulent snowflakes with several guards. Some snow had fallen on his cap and shoulders, and he seemed to have stayed outside. some time.

“Good morning, General.” Major General Eden spoke fluent English and took the initiative to shake hands with General Ives.

“Good morning, Major General.” Lieutenant General Ives replied.

He was a little surprised. These Belgian generals always made things difficult for the British if they didn’t like them. Now Major General Eden seemed to be too enthusiastic.

But in the next second, Lieutenant General Ives understood that it must be because of the supplies. They already knew who was the master!

Thinking of this, Lieutenant General Ives straightened his chest, and his voice was full of confidence and condescending: “Long time no see, Major General, aren’t you in Namur? Why are you here?”

Major General Eden raised his head towards the fortress defense line one kilometer away: “I’m here to inspect. I heard that the Germans may take action recently, a big action.”

“Big operation?” Lieutenant General Ives raised his eyebrows: “You mean attacking Antwerp?”

Major General Eden said “hmm” and asked, “Haven’t you heard?”

“No.” Lieutenant General Ives shook his head disapprovingly: “This is impossible, Major General, unless the Germans are crazy!”

There are more than 300,000 British troops gathered on this line of defense. They have sufficient ammunition and strong troops. It is impossible for the Germans to attack here.

If they want to attack, they should attack Charles’s 6th Army, Lieutenant General Ives thought, because the 6th Army had just recovered from the mutiny and now lacked supplies and ammunition.

Eden seemed to see through Lieutenant General Ives’s thoughts. He smiled slightly: “Maybe the Germans are scared of Charles, General.”

This made Lieutenant General Ives look a little ugly, but he did not argue with Eden, but replied calmly: “Really?”

Let’s wait and see, the Germans are stupid and will choose the easier and the harder.

This was part of Kitchener’s plan to use the German army to force the Shire to surrender.

Kitchener’s original words were: “If the Shire refuses to surrender, the Germans will just give them a good beating. There are only two paths before the Shire: be defeated by the Germans, or seek ‘cooperation’ with us.” “

Everyone thought that Ciel would choose to “cooperate” as long as he was not stupid.

Major General Eden took out a cigarette from his pocket and handed it to Lieutenant General Ives, but responded confidently: “Yes, Lieutenant General, I think they will attack Antwerp.”

After lighting a cigarette for Lieutenant General Ives, Major General Eden added: “Because as we all know, they will choose the enemy’s weak points to attack.”

It took Lieutenant General Ives a while to understand what Major General Eden meant: the British defense line was a weak point.

At that time, he happened to have half the cigarette in his mouth. He couldn’t take a breath and was choked so hard that he coughed several times and tears came out of his eyes.

After finally recovering, Lieutenant General Ives shook his head and glanced at Major General Eden, sighing: “You will understand, Major General.”

Lieutenant General Ives did not get angry because the Belgians, including King Albert I, were all their targets.

However, before Lieutenant General Ives finished speaking, intensive artillery sound came from the distance.

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Ives looked doubtfully towards the direction from which the gunfire came, and raised his binoculars, but could see nothing among the snowflakes.

“General.” A communications soldier ran over in the snow, panting and steaming as he spoke: “Our forward position was shelled by the Germans. The artillery fire was very fierce. The Germans People may launch a full-scale attack on us!”

Lieutenant General Ives was stunned, did the Germans really attack Antwerp?

Major General Eden asked at this moment: “What do you want me to understand, General?”

A trace of embarrassment flashed across Lieutenant General Ivis’s eyes, but he still insisted: “This may be just a small-scale attack.”

But soon, intelligence came to Lieutenant General Ivis one after another:

“General, the Germans launched an attack, with hundreds of tanks and at least five divisions!”

“The enemy’s attack is planned and organized, and their submarines are attacking at the same time.”

“More than ten of our merchant ships were sunk by the Germans just now, and it is still continuing!”

…

Lieutenant General Ivis’s face changed.

If the Germans launched an attack from both sea and land at the same time, it means that this cannot be a “small-scale attack”, but a pincer attack on the port city of Antwerp.

…

In the Atlantic Ocean, only 70 nautical miles away from Antwerp, a fleet of more than 50 merchant ships was ambushed by a group of German submarines.

The Germans were very smart. They assembled 38 submarines to attack at the same time. These submarines immediately sank half of the 12 destroyers escorted by the British. The remaining destroyers fought back hastily but were not careful about the end. Soon, they were either killed or injured and lost their combat effectiveness. The only two remaining destroyers saw that the situation was not good and hurriedly abandoned the merchant ships and fled.

The merchant ships were immediately trapped in the hunting of German submarines and had no power to fight back. For a while, there were burning flames and ships that lost their center of gravity everywhere. Some of them tilted their hulls, some were lifted high to reveal propellers, and others continued to explode and emit bursts of flames.

On the sea, there were sailors jumping into the water to escape and ship fragments everywhere.

The sailors hugged floating objects in the cold sea water, shivering, with deep despair in their eyes.