"Continue the attack!"
"Which idiot gave the order to retreat! Keep advancing!"
In the middle of the Golt army, Lieutenant General Hopkins, mounted on horseback, roared angrily ahead.
He didn't understand why such an unexpected situation was occurring on the battlefield. The 53rd Division in front of him was not strictly implementing the tactical arrangement of charging to meet the enemy. At this moment, most of the soldiers of the 53rd Division were advancing, but some of them were shouting to retreat, and they actually turned around and began to retreat.
This was absolutely unprecedented. Hopkins did not believe that the soldiers were cowardly, because he had just grabbed a soldier who was running back and asked him, and the soldier said that Lieutenant Colonel Miner had been the first to call for a retreat.
This enraged Hopkins, who slapped the soldier hard across the face and immediately yelled at them to continue fighting.
In addition, he ordered his men to search for Miner in the chaotic crowd, but they were told that Miner had been killed in a recent artillery barrage.
But that wasn't the worst news. Just now, he learned from some people that when the enemy launched their first artillery barrage, their commander, Lieutenant General Klein, was unfortunately killed in the artillery fire.
This is truly terrible news.
Hopkins wasn't very familiar with Klein, the commander of the 53rd Division. Although they had met several times, they hadn't developed a close relationship. However, through their in-depth understanding over the past two days, he knew that Klein was an excellent commander.
But he died so hastily in the artillery fire, which is truly a lamentable injustice of fate. His luck was simply too bad. But in any case, this undoubtedly caused the empire an irreparable loss.
But Hopkins had no time to mourn him. What he needed to do now was to rally the 53rd Division and get them back into the fight, instead of letting a nonsensical "withdrawal" cause chaos in the army.
"Withdrawal is a wrong order! Continue fighting now!!!"
Hopkins roared, and the messengers with him joined in. The 53rd Division soldiers who were running back and those who were confused and hesitant turned around and rushed towards the front line.
Ahead of them, the 46th Division had suffered casualties exceeding half, and the 53rd Division had also suffered significant losses, since the initial artillery barrage launched by the Yan Army was aimed directly at their location.
The fierce battle continued, and soon it was six o'clock.
In winter, this is the darkest time of day, yet the entire battlefield is engulfed in flames of war, and the officers of the 53rd Division gradually realize that the situation is serious.
The 46th Division ahead continued to launch an assault on the Yan Army's positions, but so far, they still could not see their own troops breaking through the Yan Army's positions, and the 46th Division had already suffered heavy losses in the process of attacking the positions, with less than one-tenth of its troops remaining.
As the successors, they had no choice but to spread out their lines and, for the first time ever, change their horizontal formation into multiple columns to launch an attack. Changing to columns would undoubtedly greatly reduce their combat effectiveness, and without the ability to fire in unison, their hit rate would be extremely low. However, they were forced to change their formation now, otherwise, the dense barrage of shells would kill them before they even arrived.
Even so, this method of advance was still ineffective against the almost non-stop artillery bombardment from the Yan army's positions. The enemy's shells seemed endless. From the time they started shelling the Macedonian military factory at midnight until now, the enemy had launched a high-saturation bombardment for six consecutive hours. This was an unimaginable amount of weapons.
This was completely baffling, and the commanders of the various units couldn't help but wonder if this was really a lone army that had fallen into danger because it was overly pursuing strategic locations.
Ordinary soldiers, who only needed to follow orders from their superiors, had no time to think more amidst the gunfire, but the officers gradually realized the seriousness of the problem.
However, it was not the frontline personnel who first noticed the problem and realized the need to change the plan, but Lieutenant General Harbor, who was at the rear of the army.
In the initial tactical plan, Lieutenant General Harbor's troops were to spread out their lines to encircle any enemy troops that might flee in the later stages of the battle, and then join forces with the main force to carry out a full-scale annihilation.
But as Lieutenant General Harbor led his soldiers to gradually spread out their lines, they discovered that the battle on the front lines had turned into a disadvantage for their side.
Perhaps because he was in the rear and not deeply involved in the war, Lieutenant General Harbor's thoughts were not clouded by the intense shelling, and he remained calm.
He then keenly sensed that the course of the battle had taken a major turn for the worse.
The enemy, which should have been quickly overtaken by our superior forces, not only held their ground but also inflicted heavy casualties on our attacking forces.
The advance of our own troops was exceptionally slow, and this "slowness" was based on the fact that after the soldiers at the front were killed, the follow-up troops went up as replacements to fill the gaps in the line of fire.
That kind of advance isn't an advance; it's sending soldiers to their deaths in a line!
Upon realizing this problem, Lieutenant General Habo turned pale. He didn't know whether it was right to continue attacking the Yan Army's position despite the heavy casualties, or whether the battle, which had been turned into a siege by the enemy, had already failed and that preserving manpower was the right thing to do.
Lieutenant General Harbor's deliberations did not last long. When he heard that the enemy's artillery bombardment had not diminished but was intensifying, he made his decision.
"Withdraw troops immediately!!!"
This chapter is not finished, please click the next page to continue reading!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
