L.F-Hist.Novelist Chapter 35 A Vow in the Ashes
Chapter 35 A Vow in the Ashes
At the end of Highway D916, the destroyed ambush zone, 08:00 AM, the vanguard of the German 1st Panzer Division arrived.
This place was once a perfect ambush zone, a meticulously planned killing field for the Großdeutschland Regiment. But now, it looks more like a junkyard after a giant has vented his rage.
All I could see were craters.
crunch - crunch -
An Sd.Kfz. 251/6 half-track armored command vehicle rolled over the broken, muddy road, its tracks kicking up mud mixed with blood and wood chips, and slowly came to a stop next to the still-smoking wreckage of the Panzer IV tank.
The car door opened, and a pair of gleaming black riding boots stepped into the mud.
General Heinz Wilhelm Guderian.
The Imperial Armored Forces Inspector General, the key figure in the Blitzkrieg, was wearing a grey gabardine overcoat with the collar turned up, and his signature binoculars hung around his neck. He hadn't even had time to put on his cap, and his sparse hair trembled slightly in the smoke-filled morning breeze.
He stared blankly at the hellish scene before him, his deep-set eyes concealing unfathomable emotions.
Before him lay the wreckage of a tank, shattered by high-explosive shells; the bodies of engineers riddled with bullet holes by machine gun fire, lying haphazardly in the drainage ditch; and a century-old oak tree, violently broken in two.
Of course, there was also the young man who had left a deep impression on him—Major Heinrich von Stransky.
"General..."
Hearing footsteps behind him, Stransky, who was slumped in the mud, trembled violently.
He struggled to his feet, supporting himself on a charred road wheel, and tried to give a standard Prussian military salute. But his hand, covered in mud, blood, and scalded blisters, just wouldn't reach the correct position.
His once crisp Großdeutschland Regiment major's uniform had been reduced to tattered rags, his face was covered in black grime, and only his eyes were filled with broken despair.
He kept his head down, staring intently at Guderian's spotless riding boots, not daring to look his superior in the eye.
"I messed up... Your Excellency."
Strunzsky kept his lips tightly shut, not uttering a single word about "dense fog" or "intelligence bias."
This wasn't because he had nothing to say, but because his gaze swept over the mangled corpses in the drainage ditch not far away—the sappers who, until their last breath, tried to rush toward the tank tracks with cluster grenades, only to be torn apart by heavy machine gun fire.
They did not flinch because they could not see the enemy clearly, nor did they disobey orders because the mission was difficult. They faithfully carried out his order to "die," and then... they all died.
But as their commander, he himself survived.
If, at such a time, he were to blame the damned weather to save face, it would not only be cowardly, but also the most despicable desecration of these fallen soldiers.
Moreover, Stransky was taught from a young age that in the face of failure, any embellishment in language is nothing more than a pale lie woven by the loser to cover up his incompetence.
He felt he controlled the throat of the D916 highway, held absolute first-strike advantage, and had the sharpest assault engineers of the Großdeutschland Regiment in his hands... But he had played this winning hand terribly in less than fifteen minutes.
"I threw the gold armband of 'Gross Germany' into the mud, disgracing the eagle insignia of the 19th Panzer Corps. For a Prussian soldier, I not only insulted this grey-green uniform, but also the name 'von Stransky'."
Stransky abruptly straightened his no longer upright spine, his eyes filled with a deathly pallor:
"Please decide... whether to award me a 9mm bullet now, or to send me to a military court. I am no longer worthy to hold a sword."
To lose to such an Englishman, to lose so thoroughly and so ridiculously, was worse than death for a Junker aristocrat who valued honor above life.
Guderian remained silent.
The scene was deathly silent, save for the occasional clanging of metal cooling from the tank wreckage and the whispers of medics tending to the wounded in the distance.
Guderian simply walked forward quietly, took off his gloves, and stroked the cracked armor plates of the Panzer IV with his rough, large hands.
That was a horrific wound.
The 75mm high-explosive shell did not penetrate the armor. Instead, like a giant hammer smashing a walnut, the terrifying overpressure caused the entire upper front armor plate to crack and cave in at the welds. The pilot and radio operator inside didn't even need to be hit by shrapnel; the instantaneous shockwave alone was enough to turn their internal organs into mincemeat.
a long time.
Guderian turned around, reached out, and gently patted the dirt off Sstránsky's shoulder.
The movements were very gentle, like a father comforting a child who has fallen.
"This is not your fault, Heinrich."
Guderian's voice was unexpectedly calm, lacking the thunderous anger Stransky had anticipated, as well as his usual sternness; it even carried a hint of the kindness and helplessness characteristic of an elder.
"Raise your head, Major. Look at me."
Stransky looked up in shock, his bloodshot eyes filled with disbelief.
"Look at this tank," Guderian said, pointing to the pile of scrap metal, his tone becoming almost lecturing. "Tell me, what do you see?"
"I...I saw my own incompetence..."
"No. What you should see is the failure of physics."
Guderian shook his head, his gloved fingers slowly tracing the cracked welds of the Panzer IV, feeling the cold, irreversible physical damage:
"And the failures in tonnage and metallurgy."
Stranski looked at Guderian with confusion, but Guderian ignored him, staring at the wreckage before him and speaking to himself:
"You have to understand, our Panzer IV Ausf. C was originally designed as a 'short-barreled hammer' to support infantry. Its armor was a mere 30 millimeters thick, and it was made of perfectly straight, vertical steel plates. And that British Char B1 bis?"
Even Guderian had to let out a helpless yet slightly resentful snort:
"That was a mobile fortress built by the French over twenty years with a fanatical defensive mindset. 60mm of sloped armor, plus a complex cast hull. Our tanks were simply helpless against the laws of physics."
At this point, Guderian seemed to recall something, his gaze drifting towards the western horizon, his tone becoming somewhat subtle:
"You're not the only one who got thwarted by these steel monsters."
"Just a few days... no, a little over a week ago, in Alas. Irwin's 7th Armored Division also encountered British heavy tanks—but they encountered the 'Matilda' thing, which had even thicker skin than the B1."
"I heard the report from the High Command, and it was said that the scene was extremely ugly. He complained to the Führer that our 37mm anti-tank guns were like hitting a door with a rock, doing absolutely nothing except making a 'clanging' sound. The infantry at the front were driven to the brink of mental collapse. If it weren't for that madman Erwin firing his 88mm anti-aircraft guns horizontally, the 7th Armored Division would probably have been trampled flat by those British tortoises."
Guderian withdrew his gaze and looked at Sstránsky, whose face was filled with shame:
So, stop blaming yourself for nothing.
"When a glass hammer strikes a granite wall, it is the hammer that breaks. This has nothing to do with who wields the hammer, nor with whether the person wielding the hammer possesses Prussian chivalry."
"This is the cruel logic of industrial warfare."
Guderian paused, his gaze fixed on the forest shrouded in thick fog to the north. Even from this distance, he seemed to be able to sense the presence of his young adversary.
A cold glint flashed in his eyes, a keen sense of smell for his own kind:
"That Englishman... clearly knows this very well."
"Instead of fighting you fairly like a pedantic knight, he took advantage of the difference in equipment, the terrain, and even your pride."
"He's very clever. You could even say... cunning like a fox that only knows ballistics."
At this point, Guderian's expression became somewhat uneasy, and then his voice lowered:
"Don't be ashamed, Heinrich. Last night, he took advantage of my negligence and my blind confidence to blow up my command post and almost sent me to meet God as well."
Strunksky's eyes widened, his lips trembling: "General, you too...?"
"Yes."
Guderian readily admitted, pulling a silver cigarette case from his coat pocket and offering a cigarette to Sstránsky, "That's war. It's a beast; it won't be merciful to you just because you're a high-ranking officer or of noble blood. That Englishman named AS... taught both the old and the new a lesson overnight."
Strunkowski took the cigarette, remaining silent. He hadn't expected this legendary general to admit his embarrassment. This frankness, however, lessened his shame, replacing it with a profound sense of gratitude for someone who would die for him.
"but……"
Guderian suddenly changed the subject.
He struck the match himself and lit Sstránsky's cigarette, his eyes rekindling that chilling, conqueror's flame:
"This is just a temporary gain or loss."
"The British won tactically, but we won strategically. And technically..." Guderian looked eastward, towards Germany, "the engineers at the Kummersdorf test range haven't been idle."
"The Berlin Ordnance Department has been terrified by reports from the front."
Guderian lowered his voice, his tone carrying a complex mix of emotions—dissatisfaction with the present situation and anxiety about the future:
"The engineers at the Kummersdorf proving ground are working overtime. Henschel is trying to create a behemoth on the blueprints for the 'Panzer V' or 'Panzer VI'. They call it the 'Durchbruchswagen' (heavy breakthrough tank)."
At this point, Guderian frowned, because this touched a nerve with his tactical philosophy:
"They reportedly plan to build a monster weighing 30 or even 40 tons, sacrificing speed for heavy armor and larger caliber artillery. Some have even suggested stuffing an 88mm anti-aircraft gun inside... It's insane."
He glanced at Stransky, making no attempt to hide his disgust for this direction of development.
"Heinrich, you know I've always been against this kind of thing. These cumbersome steel bunkers will drain our fuel, crush our bridges, and slow down the entire armored division's advance. It goes against the very soul of Blitzkrieg—mobility."
Guderian sighed, looking again at the Panzer IV tank that had been destroyed by the B1, his eyes filled with helplessness:
"But we must admit that when we faced the British Matilda and the French B1, our Panzer III and IV tanks were like fighting with toothpicks. Until that ideal 'mobile combat vehicle' was born, we may have to accept those cumbersome monsters."
"but……"
Guderian raised his head, looked at the clouds above, and a smile returned to the corners of his mouth.
There he had his truly trusted "heavy anti-tank weapons".
"We have more efficient solutions before those monsters on the blueprints become reality."
He straightened the collar of his coat; although he disliked Göring, he liked Stuka.
"Why build 50-ton tanks and go head-to-head with the enemy? Hermann Göring's 'Jericho Horns' will solve all our problems."
"Those Ju-87 dive bombers were the coffin nails prepared specifically for these slow-moving heavy tanks."
Guderian patted Sstránsky on the shoulder.
"Don't overthink it, Major. That Englishman may have had a moment of glory with his thick armor, but after that barrage of bombardment, his luck should have run out."
"No matter how cunning the Englishman was, no matter how thick the tank armor was, in the face of those hundreds of kilograms of aerial bombs, he was no different from the soldiers who died on the beach."
"Get back to the unit. As long as our tracks turn fast enough, no enemy can catch up with us—or stop us."
The ashes in Strunzsky's eyes dissipated. In their place came gratitude, and even more so, a raging fire of revenge.
He straightened up abruptly, ignoring the pain in his hand, and gave a perfect military salute:
"General! I swear! I will live! I will kill him with my own hands!"
"very good."
Guderian nodded in satisfaction.
Just then, a muffled rumble of thunder came from the sky.
Ughh ...
That was the roar of the Ju-87 Stuka bombers returning to base. The vibrations from the carpet bombing earlier could still be felt here.
Guderian glanced at the sky, adjusted his gloves, and his tone became relaxed again, as if he had become "Fast Heinz" once more.
"However, perhaps you won't need to do it yourself."
"Hermann Göring, that fat man, is annoying, but his 'Jericho Horns' are no pushovers. According to the pilot's report just now, they conducted a blanket bombing of the area north of Highway D916."
"Although I also wish you would take out that AS yourself, under the bombs of that density, even if that British guy had three heads and six arms, he would probably be ashes by now."
Guderian waved and turned to walk towards his command vehicle:
"Clean up the battlefield, Major. Collect our dead. Then catch up with the main force."
"That Englishman was just a minor incident. The hundreds of thousands of Allied troops are our main course, and besides that, we still have Paris to conquer."