Chapter 590: 588: The Empire is Defeat (Subscribe)
Some people say that the trend is irreversible.
Going against the trend is like trying to stop a chariot with a mantis arm, and you will be crushed to pieces.
However, society is ultimately made up of individuals, and the so-called general trend is also pieced together by the choices and actions of individuals.
So, some people are as light as a feather, while others are as heavy as Mount Tai.
The death of Hohenzollern III was a disaster for the Habsburg Empire, and the chain reactions it brought about were in all aspects.
On the coalition side, emergency consultations began almost immediately after receiving the news.
Led by the Glorious Empire, the Kingdom of Sardinia and the Bonaparte Empire, a group of twenty or thirty small countries, large and small, held a secret meeting to formulate a counterattack plan.
It should be said that their reaction speed was quite fast. They wanted to catch the empire off guard when Hohenzollern III died and the authority of Hohenzollern IV had not yet been truly established.
However, the disadvantages of the coalition forces were revealed at this moment.
The secret meeting was held very quickly, but in order to compete for the right to speak and establish a new hegemony, the Glorious Empire, the Kingdom of Sardinia and the Bonaparte Empire engaged in a series of open and secret struggles.
In a sense, the people of the Glorious Empire were immigrants from the Old World. They had the same race and culture, but were naturally looked down upon.
The Glorious Empire joined the war as a savior, turned the tide of the war, and even provided a large amount of aid.
While they were feeling proud, they also wanted to build a new order centered around the Glorious Empire.
The differences between the two sides were huge, so various internal conflicts arose before the counterattack even began.
It has even become normal for them to collude with each other privately and reach secret diplomatic agreements.
Twenty or thirty countries formed seventy or eighty 'group chats', which is quite impressive.
However, the Church of the Sun God responded faster!
According to gossip, His Majesty even appeared in person at the venue, directly "dragged" the three emperors out, and held a secret meeting.
Then, the new three giants of the coalition collectively announced that the war was not over yet and a counterattack must be launched immediately.
There is no doubt that the contradiction was suppressed, but it is obvious that it was only suppressed temporarily.
The counterattack from the coalition forces was quite swift. On August 8, 318 of the New God Calendar, the Battle of Amiens officially began.
In this battle, the coalition forces took the lead in attack and displayed their highest level.
First, they came up with a new type of magical aircraft that combined the Red-Hot Demon Eye and a fighter jet, calling it a reconnaissance aircraft.
Its function is to accurately identify the position of artillery and perform precise positioning when flying at low altitude.
At the same time, they also used the simple method of "laying straw" to muffle the noise, thereby reducing the noise of the tanks and causing the Empire to misjudge the main attack direction of the coalition forces.
When the war actually broke out, the coalition forces launched the attack under the cover of thick fog in the early morning.
First, there was the precise strikes and blanket bombing by 2,800 magical field artillery pieces.
The Empire's trenches and fortifications were bombed to pieces, many of them the result of concentrated artillery fire, resulting in heavy casualties among the soldiers.
At this moment, the empire's weakness was also exposed. Because of the long-term frontal suppression, both the trenches and fortifications were actually inferior to the quality of the coalition forces.
Under artillery fire, it was unable to provide much defensive effect.
Furthermore, more than 1,000 fighter jets flew across the sky, although they were all first-generation aircraft and could not match the quality and firepower of the Empire.
However, under the pressure of absolute numbers, they directly seized air supremacy.
Then came the frontal attack, with more than 500 tanks, at a density of 21 tanks per kilometer, pushing down the Empire's defense line.
On the first day alone, more than 400 of the Empire's magical field artillery were destroyed.
After the tanks crushed the enemy, a machine gun brigade followed. Each strong soldier held a heavy machine gun and fired into the trenches to finish off the enemy.
It advanced at a speed of 1.5 kilometers per hour, far exceeding the efficiency of previous trench warfare.
Does this set of tactics look familiar to you?
That’s right, this is how the Empire dealt with the coalition forces before!
Artillery fire, air suppression, steel torrents, group charges, infantry and tank coordination...
These were all tactics that the Empire had used before, and when the coalition faced them, they used iron will and far greater numbers of powerful men to stop them.
But what about now?
When the situation turned, the imperial soldiers felt fear when faced with their previous tactics, and even large-scale escapes and surrenders broke out.
The Battle of Amiens ended in just four days. In this battle, the coalition forces thoroughly understood the strengths and weaknesses of the empire, and it also marked the beginning of a full-scale counterattack.
After that, for a month, the Allied forces continued to attack in the Somme River, Albert and other places, constantly breaking the situation and forcing the Imperial Army to retreat hundreds of kilometers.
All the lands captured by the 'Emperor Offensive' were lost, and the empire was even forced to retreat to the 'Hindenburg Line'.
On September 12, 318 of the New Divine Calendar, the Glorious Empire independently launched the Battle of Saint-Mihiel.
Saint-Mihiel, located west of Lutetia, is a prominent position in the imperial offensive and poses a constant threat to the railways and highways leading out of Lutetia.
The Glorious Empire withstood the pressure from within the coalition, withdrew a large number of troops, assembled nearly 550,000 people, equipped with 3,000 field artillery pieces, more than 700 magic tanks and 1,500 aircraft, forming a pincer attack on Saint-Mihiel from the north and south.
This is a troop strength gap of nearly 5 to 1, and it is also an absolute crushing strength.
The reason why the Glorious Empire insisted on independent command and independent combat was to demonstrate its unparalleled strength to the countries of the Old Continent.
This is also a struggle for the right to speak!
Although the result of the war was victory, the effect was not satisfactory.
The empire itself was preparing to evacuate due to insufficient military strength, so before the pincer attack was formed, it chose to fight and retreat.
At the same time, the fortifications were systematically destroyed, which greatly reduced the military value of the main occupied areas and required more time and manpower to repair.
In this battle, the Glorious Empire also exposed its weaknesses such as rigid command, intelligence errors, slow pursuit, and slow logistical supply.
After all, they have not experienced the baptism of large-scale wars, and are immature in all aspects. Moreover, there are serious conflicts among different ethnic groups within the country.
However, the potential for war that can be seen with the naked eye is enough to make all countries tremble with fear.
After this battle, the Glorious Empire immediately learned its lesson and began to closely contact and unite with the coalition forces to learn from their experience.
At the same time, the new Big Three of the Allied Forces came up with a new combat plan, namely the Battle of the Saint-Quentin Canal.
There is no doubt that by now the empire had switched from the offensive to the defensive, and the 'Hindenburg Line' was the empire's in-depth defense system that had been operating for four full years.
There were countless trenches and various fortifications, as well as multiple barbed wire fences, anti-tank trenches and concrete fortresses.
The Saint-Quentin Canal section is its core hub, controlling the railway to the Habsburg Empire's homeland.
This battle is undoubtedly extremely crucial, and the coalition forces have made preparations for a hard and fierce battle.
On the Empire's side, there were also obvious movements of troops and supplies.
However, what no one expected was that this battle would be a devastating advance.
The Imperial Air Force had only 300 aircraft left and completely collapsed under the encirclement of an army several times its size.
The Empire does not have the high-end combat power of the coalition forces. After losing air superiority, it is really helpless in the face of magical aircraft.
These first-generation fighters even dared to fly at low altitudes and strafed with machine guns.
Then the tank cluster charged and was directly divided into three waves.
The first wave crushed the barbed wire and filled the anti-tank ditch.
The second wave, infantry and tanks cooperated and cleared the soldiers in the trenches.
By the third wave of tanks, they penetrated deep into the imperial artillery positions and destroyed them one by one.
Of course, the most difficult part of this battle was building a bridge over the Saint-Quentin Canal to ensure the passage of the army.
Originally, everyone in the coalition thought that this would be a fierce battle and would become a battlefield of repeated strife.
However, once the Empire lost air superiority, the canal became virtually unthreatening.
The coalition forces used magic, dimensional bags, a large number of engineers, and ships to build the bridge in a very short time.
When the tanks crossed the bridge and pushed to the east side of the river, it meant that the defense line had been lost.
In this battle, the Allied forces advanced a full 150 kilometers, and the Imperial Army was forced to abandon all occupied areas of the Bonaparte Empire.
At this point, after four years of war, the Napoleonic family finally regained all their lost territories.
Then, the three giants of the Allied Forces became more and more courageous as the war went on. Seeing the dawn of victory, they planned a decisive battle in the shortest time possible - the Meuse-Argonne Offensive.
Its strategic goal was to cut off the core railway hub for the empire's evacuation, forcing the imperial army to collapse in the encirclement and then surrender.
At this time, the battlefield had advanced to the area where the former Carolingian Kingdom was located, with the focus on the Meuse River and the Argonne.
The east bank of the Meuse River is a typical steep highland with dense Argonne forests. Coupled with the fortifications built by the empire, it is really difficult to attack.
In this battle, the three giants gave their all, each assigned a region, and mobilized elite divisions. On September 26, 318 of the New God Calendar, they fired the first shot of the war.
The tactics are still the same tactics. Both the Empire and the Coalition have proved the reliability of the tactics through wars and casualties.
However, the initial stages of this war were not smooth.
Both the Bonaparte Empire and the Kingdom of Sardinia advanced relatively smoothly, but the legions of the Glorious Empire faltered again.
Due to poor information flow and inaccurate intelligence, the Glorious Empire's prolonged bombardment of the evacuated empty positions was ineffective.
Because there were too many new recruits and insufficient training, the coordination between infantry and tanks was completely disrupted.
The tanks drove over, and before the soldiers could catch up, it gave the Empire a chance to counterattack.
In addition, due to the complex terrain of the Argonne Forest, the Empire built dense machine gun positions and cross-fire networks to directly block the attack.
It was not until October of the 318th year of the New Divine Calendar that the Glorious Empire, having suffered heavy losses, stopped its attacks and began to reorganize and train on the spot.
It was not until the end of the month that a gap was opened at a heavy cost, and the army advanced to the north of the Argonne Forest.
At this time, the expeditionary forces had suffered 70,000 casualties, which was the greatest loss the Glorious Empire had suffered since entering the war.
However, after breaking through the defense line, it would be the end of the imperial army.
The most important railway transportation was cut off, the empire's supplies on the Western Front were completely cut off, and the remaining legions collapsed across the board.
It was not until November 4, 318 of the New Divine Calendar that the Allied Forces proposed 35 armistice terms to the Empire.
On the same day, an uprising broke out among the sailors of the Imperial Kiel Port Fleet.
At the end of October, the Empire released the "Final Battle" plan, requiring the fleet to launch a suicide attack to preserve the honor of the soldiers when encountering the navy of the Kingdom of Sardinia.
This was considered an act of collective suicide by the sailors, so they resisted the combat orders by destroying the engine and extinguishing the magic energy pool.
The imperial high-ranking officials chose to suppress the rebellion forcefully. The imperial military police intervened and arrested many leading sailors.
As a result, 6,000 sailors held a march demanding the release of their captured comrades, and were subsequently shot by military police, resulting in many casualties.
This finally touched the sailors' most sensitive nerves, allowing them to directly seize the weapons depot, control the warship, and disarm the officers.
This was the first uprising in the empire, but not the last. When the news spread, it was like a boiling pot, and people from all over the country rushed to raise the banner of resistance.
Even in the imperial capital, workers and soldiers organized an armed strike.
At this point, the empire was completely trapped in internal and external difficulties, and Hohenzollern IV was forced to announce his acceptance of the armistice agreement.
So, on November 10, 318 of the New Divine Calendar, the two sides negotiated in a train car in the Compiègne Forest of the Bonaparte Empire and signed an armistice agreement at five in the morning.
Later scholars called this agreement the "Armistice of Compiègne", which also indicated that the protracted war that swept across the entire Helka plane had finally come to an end.
Ironically, the agreement was signed at five in the morning, but the regulations were to take effect at eleven noon, leaving six hours for notification to the front line.
But even so, thousands of soldiers died due to delayed information.
On the day the agreement came into effect, artillery fire on the Western Front, from Lutetia to the Argonne Forest, completely fell silent.
Time seemed to have passed for a long time, but it also seemed like only a moment had passed. Countless soldiers walked out of the trenches in silence.
They were covered in dust and their eyes were dull. They dropped their weapons and burst into tears.
The entire Old World, from the west coast to the center of the continent, with thousands of miles of rivers and mountains, looked like ruins.
This battle lasted for ninety-nine days, from August 8th to November 11th, the year 318 of the New God Calendar.
Therefore, some scholars called this period of war the Allied Forces' Hundred Days' Counterattack.
It also foreshadows that this war will end with the empire's defeat!
…
Abyss 138th floor,
The news reached Loyi's ears through a special way. He was distracted and was knocked away by the Abyss Werewolf Lord.
It was like a meteor falling to the ground, creating a huge hole.
At this moment, the red dragon Virgil swooped down and smashed the attacks that followed with his powerful body.
He roared, "Luo Yi, what are you doing? Pay attention. We're fighting a demigod. Do you want to die?"
Luo Yi looked up woodenly and said, "The empire has been defeated!"
"What?"
"I said, the Empire is defeated!"
The next moment, the red dragon Virgil paused, and then was hit hard by the blood-red claws of the vampire prince.
Like Luo Yi, he drew an arc and hit the ground like a meteor, creating another bigger pit.
Strangely, the two pits are connected.
Luo Yi turned his head and said, "See, after hearing this news, you are no longer calm."
Red Dragon Virgil didn't care about his injuries, but asked: "Are you telling the truth?"
"Do you think I'm lying to you?"
"The empire's defeat is not the end, but the beginning!"
"Yes, so we can't delay here any longer."
The next moment, the earth trembled, and a shock wave visible to the naked eye spread outward, and Loyi flew into the sky like a cannonball.
He once again took on the form of a holy spirit, transforming into light. He pointed the divine weapon in his hand and said, "I have something to do, so all of you, get out of here!"
While the words were still echoing between heaven and earth, a raging Dou Qi slash was swung out, like a river pouring down from the sky, covering the whole sky.
There is also a ball of blazing fire burning, emitting light and heat that can ignite all elements and substances in the void.
Seeing Luo Yi rushing forward under the flames, the three besieging demon lords looked as ugly as if they had eaten shit.
That mad dog-like man is here again!
Therefore, they retreated very quickly, fearing that they would be entangled if they were a step slower.
And when they retreated, Luo Yi did not hesitate at all. He spread and flapped his wings. When he reappeared, he had already arrived at the war fortress and stepped into the space channel in one step.
As I said, the empire's defeat had an impact like a tsunami, so he had too many things to arrange.
(End of this chapter)
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