Chapter 167

The fierce battle near Siedlce had already been raging for several days.

On the vast Polish plains with few obstacles, the Steel Cavalry clashed ceaselessly.

The tanks, divided by platoon or company, advanced, retreated, and maneuvered to catch each other's flanks, spewing fire in a ferocious engagement.

The sight of countless tanks colliding, and infantry units using the wreckage of destroyed tanks as cover for their own fierce firefights, was transforming the vast Polish plains into a steel grave.

Numerically, the Soviet tanks were far superior, and the T-34's performance overwhelmed the early model Panzer IV.

However, the new model Panzer IV was by no means inferior to the T-34, and compared to the German Army, which had long standardized and mass-produced the Panzer IV, the Soviet Army, which was slow to adopt the T-34, had a large number of light tanks.

Having succeeded in linking up, the German Army used its characteristic organic communication system to bypass the powerful Soviet T-34s and began to prioritize the destruction of the vulnerable light tanks.

In addition, as the Luftwaffe, consisting of a few Stukas and Hs 123s remaining on the Eastern Front, provided constant air support, the Soviet Army also had to endure significant casualties.

Faced with the numerically superior Soviet Army's relentless offensive, swapping units without rest, even Hube, a master of defensive warfare, found it difficult to fend off the armored units without pre-established positions.

Just as the German Army was being pushed back due to its numerical inferiority, the Allied Forces, dispatched from Warsaw, arrived.

-

"Aaargh,cough!"

Clemens's MP40 roared, and a charging Soviet soldier screamed and fell.

"G-Grenade!"

"Aaargh, damn it!"

Meanwhile, seeing a Soviet soldier raise a grenade towards the tank wreckage they were using as cover, Clemens and his men scrambled out in terror.

Soon, with a heavy explosion, shrapnel flew where they had been just moments before.

"Run, ru—aaargh!"

"Gasp!"

The soldier running with Clemens fell, but Clemens dodged the hail of bullets and successfully dove behind another tank's wreckage.

I'll have to grab his dog tag later,Clemens thought, just as he made eye contact with a Soviet soldier hiding in the same wreckage.

"Huh?"

Clemens immediately raised his MP40 and aimed at him, but his gun let out aclick, signaling an empty magazine.

"Oh, fuck."

The Soviet soldier swung his Mosin-Nagant, smacking Clemens across the cheek and sending him sprawling to the ground.

"Ack! Hey, hey, wait, just wait! Fuck, spare me!"

The Soviet soldier grinned, said something unintelligible, and aimed his gun at him, but then, with arat-tat-tat, he collapsed in front of Clemens.

"Are you alright, Major?"

It was his adjutant, Vinrich Behr, also holding an MP40.

"Pant, pant,fuck. I was a goner.

Thanks, Adjutant."

Even as he spoke, Clemens was already habitually changing the magazine.

This was his last one.

The situation was descending into a complete free-for-all.

The battlefield, littered with the wreckage of thousands of clashing tanks, had become virtually impossible for tank mobility, and instead, the infantry was fighting in utter chaos, like a game of hide-and-seek among the debris.

Just then, Clemens noticed the trembling tip of a military boot sticking out from under the tank wreckage.

As he swiftly ducked and aimed his gun, a scream erupted.

"Gasp! Please spare me! Spare me!"

German.

Dumbfounded, Clemens grabbed the foot and yanked him out. The private, who looked to be in his late teens at most, was dragged out still clutching his head, his eyes half-unfocused, and trembling.

"This bastard, if you were here, you could've helped me…"

Clemens muttered bluntly, then realized.

He had seen this kind of thing a few times before.

The first was Habenstein, the 3rd Platoon Leader in the Condor Legion.

That bastard Dietrich had been dispatched to the Luftwaffe, leaving Clemens as the acting Company Commander, and with Habenstein in that state, Clemens had to go through hell cleaning up after the 3rd Platoon's mess too.

Back then, fueled by that grudge, he had joined the other men in denouncing and blaming Habenstein as a coward.

But after a calm conversation with Dietrich who joined later, he came to understand that it was a condition that occurred regardless of one's will.

Clemens let out a deep sigh.

"Adjutant."

"Yes, Major."

"Take this bastard to the rear."

"…Will you be alright?"

"Yeah. If I leave him here, he's obviously just going to die. Just say you brought him back because he was unfit for combat."

Vinrich Behr looked at Clemens with a slightly renewed sense of surprise, then saluted and pulled the private to his feet.

"Gasp! P-Please spare me!"

"I'm not gonna eat you, kid. Follow me if you want to live."

In the meantime, the sounds of gunfire had already grown distant.

Just in case, Clemens peeked a mirror over the tank wreckage to confirm the vicinity was clear, then popped his head out to provide cover and gestured to Behr.

"I'll see you later then, Major. Take care of yourself."

"You survive and make me coffee again.

You make good coffee, you know."

"…"

The two moved away.

Clemens gripped the MP40 that had become his lifeline. He'd been half-convinced, but in close combat with this many obstacles, this gun really was the best.

Realizing his surroundings were quiet, Clemens got up and trudged over to collect the dog tag of the soldier who had fallen beside him.

The battalion had scattered in the chaos, and the radio operator had been down for a while, so he couldn't get any intel on the war situation, but the last transmission he heard was that reinforcements from the German-Polish Allied Forces had arrived.

It seemed like the enemy was actually being pushed back, so it must be true.

Clemens spent a good while searching and collecting his subordinates' dog tags.

He just grabbed a backpack from a random soldier's corpse and shoved the dog tags in, but even that felt heavy, making him feel anew a sense of depression. Finished with his task, he slumped down exhausted under a tree and lamented his predicament.

"Sigh, what a life. How did I end up rolling around on a battlefield! Dietrich, that damn bastard!"

Since there was no one around, Clemens began to wail in earnest.

"Manstein, you son of a bitch! Did you really have to throw me into this hell!"

"Pfft-"

"Whoa, you scared me!"

Startled by the laugh from above his head, Clemens shot up, only to realize that a bullet had just slammed into the spot where he'd been sitting.

Goosebumps ran down his spine and all over his body.

"Fuck!"

A sniper!

Clemens instantly threw himself to the ground, and another bullet hit the spot where he had been.

But the next bullet came before he could even get up.

"Aaaaaargh!"

A searing sensation pierced his butt.

As Clemens, instinctively crying for help, tried to raise his head toward the tree, a calm voice flew at him.

"Don't look this way."

Fuck, it's hot, it hurts.

Am I going to die so pointlessly? Getting shot in the ass, how pathetic.

"Fuck, fuck, goddammit…"

As soon as Clemens finished his third curse, a gunshot rang out from the tree above.

"…Direct hit."

"Hyaaack!"

Along with the low murmur, a human figure covered in all sorts of leaves and wrapped in camouflage cloth dropped in front of him, causing Clemens to let out a bizarre scream.

"Ah, geez. You're loud.

…A major, ah. You're a major.

My apologies. I was impolite, I thought you were an enlisted man."

The person threw off the camouflage cloth, and only then did Clemens realize it was a woman in a Polish military uniform.

The woman, wearing a sergeant's insignia, gave a two-finger salute to the brim of her cap.

"Sergeant Karina Juhlińska, 21st Infantry Regiment, 'Children of Warsaw,' 4th Infantry Division of the Polish Army."

"Hey, thanks for saving me and all, but I don't give a damn about your affiliation, I'm in fucking pain right now…"

Sergeant Karina didn't hide her utterly dumbfounded expression at Clemens's words, but she soon nodded, put down the Kar98k in her hand, and took out bandages and medicine from her bag.

"A-Are you a medic?"

Are there sniping medics these days?To the flustered Clemens, Karina replied with a grin.

"I have worked as a medic before, Major. You're lucky."

Having said that, Karina casually drew a knife.

"H-Hey?"

Then she took out a lighter and began to heat the knife in the flame.

"Sergeant?"

Regardless of Clemens trembling in fear, Karina expertly twirled the knife,flick, flick, readjusted her grip, and grinned.

"Take off your pants. We have to get the bullet out."

"N-Noooooo!"

In the end, Clemens had to suffer the humiliation of having his pants pulled down by a Polish woman he'd never met and his butt cut open with a knife.

It was a moment that would go down as the most embarrassing of his life, but fortunately, because he had been dodging and throwing his body around, he was hit in the fleshiest part of his butt, so it wasn't a critical wound.

After receiving first aid, Clemens was being supported by Karina as they headed towards the main force.

Being supported by her, he could smell her fragrant scent—yeah, right.

Both had been rolling around the battlefield for days without washing, and their noses were numb to each other's stench, so they couldn't smell anything at all.

Although their first meeting involved him baring his ass and the whole situation looked terrible, she was, at the end of the day, the woman who had saved his life.

Still, having received first aid and feeling a bit more human, Clemens's interest in her was piqued.

Could this be a fateful encounter?

"By the way, you speak German very well, don't you?"

If it weren't for the Polish uniform and the two-finger salute, or rather, if not for the fact that she was a female combat soldier, which the German Army didn't have, she was fluent enough to be mistaken for a German.

"I'm from Poznań."

"Ah, I see…"

Wait, Poznań? Posen?

"Though I was kicked out by the German government."

Karina replied with a bright smile, and Clemens quietly shut his mouth.

As Clemens was inwardly sighing at their first meeting, which contained not even a milligram of romance, a few people were seen trudging towards them in the distance.

"Gasp, General!"

"Oh, good to see you.

Major, Sergeant. Is this the way to the main force?"

It was General of the Panzer Troops Oswald Lutz and his tankers.

"Yes, it is! General!"

Since Clemens couldn't salute while being supported, Karina answered with a two-finger salute, and Lutz grinned.

"That's a relief. Lost the tank, the radio got smashed, and we ended up falling behind. Let's go together."

"I-It's an honor…"

They suddenly became a strange party: a major wounded by a shot to the ass, the Polish sniper who saved him, and a tankless general and his tankers.

Unlike Clemens, who had no motivation to chat with a general and kept his mouth shut, Karina, perhaps feeling less pressure due to her different affiliation or maybe it was just her personality, spoke to Lutz.

"By the way, General.

If you don't mind my asking, may I ask one thing?"

"Oh, haha. What are you curious about?"

At Lutz's easygoing response, Karina pointed a finger at what was hanging around his neck and spoke.

"Is that… an accessory?"

In response to her question, pointing at a necklace so badly mangled—perhaps by shrapnel—that its original form was unrecognizable, Lutz grinned and replied.

"It's a token that God has granted this old man's wish to retire safely!"

-

January 25, 1941

Central Poland, Siedlce – Soviet Army Forward Headquarters

General Konstantin Konstantinovich Rokossovsky had never once been proud of his Polish birth.

He was born into a poor worker's family, grew up a worker, joined the Russian Revolution, and even fought for the Soviet side against Poland in the Soviet-Polish War.

As a result, in Poland, he was condemned as a Soviet stooge, a traitor.

But even after proving his loyalty, in the Soviet Union, he was just a Pole.

During the Great Purge, simply because he was of Polish descent like Tukhachevsky, the NKVD dragged him away, a man who had fought against Poland, accusing him of being a Polish spy, subjected him to horrific torture to force a false confession, and sentenced him to death.

He, who was released thanks to Zhukov before his execution, was once again facing Poland as a commander of the Soviet Army.

To prove that he was not a Pole, but a Soviet.

Fortunately, thanks to the consideration of Zhukov, who was once his subordinate, he received significant support and was given a chance to distinguish himself.

However…

"General, we have been defeated. You must retreat."

At his staff officer's devastating words, Rokossovsky was seized by a feeling of despair.

It was a battle all but won.

The operation he and Zhukov had planned was in no way inferior to theirs.

His capabilities were not inferior to their general's either.

Despite the poor conditions of having lost air superiority and lacking proper radios, making it difficult to move organically, Rokossovsky had worked with Líster, coordinating their timetables to move their units and fiercely press the enemy.

But the outcome of the battle was not decided by operations or his capabilities.

The enemy's high command had the decisiveness to split their forces and send reinforcements even in the inferior situation of having a crucial strategic point like Warsaw under direct attack.

But his ally, Field Marshal Kulik, did not send reinforcements, using the excuse of achieving the impossible goal of crossing the Vistula River and capturing the metropolis of Warsaw in just a few days.

Rokossovsky's anger surged at the reality that this single difference had deprived him of the best opportunity he had been given.

"Damn it!"

As Rokossovsky was venting his resentment, Enrique Líster burst through the door of the command room.

"General, we must retreat now. Our unit is being routed, and the defense line we established won't hold them back for long."

Rokossovsky, feeling a sense of despair, opened his mouth.

"Wouldn't it be better to hold out here as long as possible and be defeated?"

The reality that it wouldn't be strange if he were purged again at any moment drove him to a state of powerlessness.

"Now that we've collapsed, the operation to capture Warsaw is a failure. As things stand, we must join Field Marshal Kulik and defend Lublin at least, to maintain a bridgehead for the capture of Warsaw and secure the safety of Field Marshal Shaposhnikov in the south."

Líster's words sounded valid even to him, but Rokossovsky had a doubt.

"What are you fighting so hard for, General?"

Even he, who had been loyal to the Soviet Union for so long, was treated like this just for being of Polish descent; what was a general from faraway Spain fighting for?

Líster remained silent for a moment before speaking.

"At first, I wanted revenge on Germany, but now I don't know."

"…You don't know?"

"But does a general need a reason to reduce the meaningless deaths of his subordinates?"

Rokossovsky felt as if he had been struck in the head.

He too was once a proud Soviet general, but when had he become a man who fretted only over his own safety and gave in to despair?

So many Soviets had been dragged to the front for the ridiculous justification of 'protecting Poland' and were dying on the battlefield, yet he hadn't even cared about that fact.

Rokossovsky let out a deep sigh.

"…Very well. Let's retreat to Lublin.

I'll inform Comrade Zhukov and Comrade Kulik in advance. We have been defeated and will retreat to Lublin, so they should prepare for the German offensive…"

-

However, Rokossovsky, Líster, and even Zhukov who had agreed with their opinion, had all greatly overestimated Field Marshal Kulik.

While pushing the offensive on Warsaw, Field Marshal Kulik had remained in the safety of Lublin, but upon hearing the news of Rokossovsky's and Líster's defeat and that Lublin would become a battlefield, he ordered a retreat for all his forces and hastily fled even further to the rear, to Lviv.

Kulik's Army Group, already in disarray from its reckless attack on Warsaw, was thrown into great confusion because the Field Marshal had simply issued a retreat order, then abandoned his headquarters and fled.

And the armored units and the German-Polish Allied Forces, which had recovered from their damage under the command of General of the Panzer Troops Hans-Valentin Hube and Major General Hasso von Manteuffel, secured Siedlce, which Líster and Rokossovsky had already vacated, and then fell upon Kulik's Army Group, which was retreating in a panic.