Chapter 438: Defeat Like a Collapsing Mountain

It seems there was an unwritten rule in the German high command: when the battle was going their way, they used the panzer forces—the good steel on the blade’s edge—to advance three thousand li in a day, their aggression like fire. But when it came to the toughest, most grueling battles, they sent in the grenadiers. It was dirty, exhausting, and frustrating work, but they were like an unmovable mountain, forged in blood. The grenadiers, much like Napoleon’s Imperial Guard, were not flashy, but they possessed an overwhelming, world-conquering spirit.

Unlike the German army of another timeline, in this one, Akado had pushed the German industrial system to its full potential early on. He had also unearthed August, a contemporary “grand councilor,” and had men like Jelinek Cassia and Speer, who were first-rate geniuses of industrial integration. As a result, the German grenadiers were much better equipped than their counterparts in the other world.

Accompanying the column of assault guns that advanced slowly on both sides of the road was the most elite infantry division of the German army: the 1st Infantry Division of Army Group A’s 1st Mechanized Corps. These dust-covered German soldiers were the pride of the entire German land army.

Compared to the SS, who would charge into battle screaming “Long live the Führer” and whose combat tenacity was unbelievable but whose losses were astonishing, the Wehrmacht troops were much smarter. If the SS fought out of personal loyalty to Führer Akado, then the Wehrmacht fought with the “technique” that was ingrained in their very bones.

These German grenadiers were brave and tenacious to the extreme. They took pride in fighting the most difficult and seemingly hopeless battles. They rejoiced in being the force most trusted by the German Führer.

However, in recent days, the British counter-attacks had been somewhat baffling to these German soldiers. Compared to the earlier fighting in the Norwich area, the recent British resistance, or rather, their counter-attacks, could only be described as weak. The spirit of fighting for every inch of ground had vanished, replaced by a feebleness that led to thousand-li routs.

After taking Cambridge, Rundstedt had his troops hold their positions and wait for a British counter-attack. After waiting for an entire afternoon, the British had failed to muster the courage to retake Cambridge from the German army. Army Group A was thus granted a brief but precious period of rest.

They also took the time to sort through the British supplies they had captured over the past few days. Compared to Montgomery’s steady and methodical approach, Gort’s forced offensive had in fact exposed a massive weakness to Rundstedt. And the commander of Army Group A, a favorite of Akado’s, was clearly a “tough character” with real substance. He seized the opportunity presented by the forced British counter-attack and, in one fell swoop, devoured the effective strength of the British army.

Moreover, by using rapid assaults combined with special forces’ decapitation strikes and sabotage in the rear, he had captured the majority of the rear-area supplies that Montgomery had managed to keep largely intact. These supplies included small stockpiles of food near Norwich, as well as fuel and ammunition, and even some airfields and repaired railways that the British hadn’t had time to destroy. It could be said that after Montgomery’s departure, the British army had become little more than a logistics transport corps for the Germans.

The loss of these supplies made the distribution of resources in London even more strained, which led to the current embarrassing situation of having no forces for a counter-attack. It wasn’t that the British didn’t want to counter-attack; it was that they simply had no way to do so. They were like Germany in 1945, able to do nothing but passively wait for the Allied offensive, without any effective means of striking back.

Britain had hundreds of thousands of troops in name, but they had to defend an even larger territory. To prevent the Germans from crossing the River Ouse and heading north, the 100,000-strong army in the Peterborough area could not be moved an inch. To prevent the Germans from advancing west, the 50,000 men in the Bedford area were also immobile. Tens of thousands of men were still needed for coastal defense along the long coastline, and at least 100,000 were needed to defend London against the German advance. At this stage, the British army was not only severely lacking in quality, but it was also beginning to experience a shortage in numbers.

Now, it wasn’t just Churchill, the Prime Minister who should have been dismissed by His Majesty the King long ago, but even the King himself no longer believed in such nonsense as “driving the Germans back into the sea.” Whether the British could even hold London seemed to have become a question. The plan to mobilize the populace for a fight to the death had thrown all of London into a panic. The Royal Family had now cancelled all public speeches and inspections, for fear that a British citizen might toss a hand grenade onto the podium.

The colony of India was stirring restlessly. Japan was eyeing Hong Kong like a tiger. Australia was flirting with the United States to completely break free from British control. Even the North Africa and Mediterranean region, which Britain had always considered its lifeline, was in flames. Now, Britain had to keep a close eye on its one remaining relatively quiet and obedient colony: Canada.

Of course, Britain’s move to Canada was, in fact, an infringement on America’s interests. As the sole great power in North America, the United States could not allow Britain to establish its rule in Canada and continue to survive. Therefore, the British had been in painstaking negotiations with the United States over the Royal Family’s move to Canada, even giving up their interests in Asia to the Americans and turning a blind eye to Australia’s actions.

And from the American perspective, a German-unified Europe was merely one more competitor, but a British government-in-exile in Canada was a direct threat on America’s doorstep. So Roosevelt was absolutely not budging this time. He had publicly stated that he hoped Britain would fight the Germans to the last man on its own soil.

But a fight to the death, after all, required “blood” to fight with. Britain’s maritime supply lines could barely sustain the air war and the country’s own survival. Now that the conflict had shifted to a large-scale land war, the terrifying rate of consumption had caused that fragile supply line to completely collapse.

Dönitz was the German Navy’s final trump card. U.S. President Roosevelt had figured this out long ago, but it was something the American president would not say, and something the British Prime Minister Churchill dared not say. In the short half-month from February 14th to March 1st, the total number of British ships sunk by German submarines was so high that even Churchill, who was determined to hold on to the last moment, felt the world spin when he saw the figures.

Having lost the grain stores on the plains and a portion of the front-line army’s strategic materials, and having lost all its elite troops, the British government had nothing left that could affect the overall German offensive.

Moreover, as the German southward advance became sharper and the entire front line moved closer to southern England, German bombers could fly more frequently from the Dunkirk area to support the German forces in Britain. As the Germans captured more and more frontline airfields, the German air force’s support became more and more timely. The hundred or so Hurricane fighters that had been painstakingly scraped together were not lost in battles against the “Butcher” strategic bombers, but were slowly attrited in dogfights with the German aces flying Fw-190Ds from British soil.

The Americans’ promise to the British was simple: as long as London could hold out for three months, American strategic materials would be continuously shipped to Britain. Countless fighter planes and tanks would help Britain overwhelm the 300,000, or even 500,000, German troops on their soil, and Britain would ultimately win the war against Germany.

But not even the most optimistic Churchill was confident of holding London for three months. He didn’t even know if, after reducing Britain to a ruin and turning its colonies over to the Americans, the war could still be considered a British victory.

What frightened the Royal Family and Churchill himself the most was not the ever-increasing hundreds of thousands of German landing troops, but two increasingly loud voices from the north. Ireland was bypassing the Royal Family and the Churchill government and was in direct contact with the powers-that-be in the Scottish Highlands, preparing to partition the British mainland with Germany.

In fact, the German Führer was extending an olive branch to Scotland in the north, claiming he was willing to rule the British mainland jointly with the “pragmatic” British and the Irish. The future British mainland would be divided into three parts: Ireland, Scotland-England, and the German-controlled south. Both the new Britain and Ireland would be important components of Germany’s “European Steel Axis.”

Although the bait offered by the German Führer was not much, the solid military advantage that had been won at the point of the German grenadiers’ rifles and under the tracks of the German panzer forces was far more convincing than America’s pale guarantees. These people were also waiting for the right moment. The day the German army entered London would be the day they stepped out from behind the curtain and onto the stage. Like the Vichy government in France, they were preparing to bet on both sides to secure a future for themselves.

And these people were the ones who truly threatened the lives of the Royal Family and Churchill. The moment they stood up, they would divide the British colonies and turn the entire British Empire into a pile of loose sand. Although these people could not help the German cause much, they could certainly harm Britain, forcing it to cough up its last drop of blood. These people were truly useless at accomplishing anything but masters of ruining things, a nest of vipers that Churchill hated even more than the German Füger.

Now, some of the powers-that-be in Britain were beginning to have regrets. They regretted not shaking hands with Germany immediately after the disastrous defeat at Dunkirk. They regretted senselessly committing the Royal Navy to the fight and losing the advantage of their home fleet. But at this point, no one dared to be the first to stand up and oppose the decision of the Royal Family and the King, nor did anyone dare to challenge the near-death Prime Minister Churchill. They were all waiting, waiting for the moment the German army captured London.

But now, Churchill and His Majesty the King had no time to worry about these turncoats. They were risking a falling out with the United States to transport an elite division to Canada, to be handed over to Montgomery who had just established himself there. They were helping to deploy the remnants of the Royal Navy and preparing to organize an attack on Danish-owned Iceland, to send 30,000 British troops there as their final gamble.