plumnovel Chapter 76 An Empty Cage
Chapter 76 An Empty Cage
Chapter 76 An Empty Cage
June 4, 1940, 12:00, Belgium, 3 kilometers south of Forne, forward command post of the German 1st Panzer Division.
The rain finally stopped.
But for this lowland plain, the rain stopping didn't mean it was dry. The air was still saturated with moisture, damp, cold, and sticky, clinging to everyone's skin.
This was the true core competitiveness of the German armored divisions in 1940—not tanks, but communications.
Several Sd.Kfz.251/6 armored command vehicles (Kommandopanzerwagen) were parked in a semi-circle on a slightly dry hill, with huge camouflage nets concealing these steel behemoths in the sparse windbreaks.
Even those unfamiliar with military matters could immediately recognize the unique status of these vehicles: each half-track was topped with a distinctive, massive brass-framed antenna (Rahmenantenne), which looked incredibly cold against the gray sky and was jokingly referred to by frontline soldiers as a "clothes rack."
That's the exclusive configuration for the FuG11 (SE100) medium wave radio and the FuG12 (80W) high frequency transmitter.
Dozens of auxiliary whip antennas pierced the sky, like a metallic reed bed, greedily absorbing radio waves from various attacking fronts.
Beneath these heavy armor plates are rows of communication base stations that can operate at full power even while on the move. A dozen rigorously trained communications sergeants, wearing headsets, operate the most sophisticated vacuum tube equipment of the era in the cramped vehicle cabin.
Inside the bellies of these steel monsters, several dedicated Enigma I encryption machines are operating at high speed.
The sound of the bakelite keyboard striking the keys and the mechanical clicking of the three rotors intertwined, producing a dense, tingling "click" sound—like countless tireless iron silkworms gnawing on mulberry leaves.
Every instruction and every troop movement was transformed here into a series of chaotic characters that were then widely considered "absolutely undecipherable".
This unseen will pierced through the thick rain curtain, weaving a command neural network covering a radius of fifty kilometers.
It not only simultaneously controls every armored regiment attacking on the front lines, the heavy artillery battalion concealed in the rear calibrating its parameters, but even the Stuka dive bombers waiting in the clouds—as long as the damn weather permits.
There's even a strong rear area.
If Lieutenant General Kirchner wished, these seemingly insignificant antennas could at any time bypass the 19th Army headquarters and directly contact the headquarters of Army Group B, hundreds of kilometers away, or even the red-carpeted Supreme Command of the Army (OKH) in Berlin.
This ability to keep frontline commanders mired in the mire in real time in sync with the heart of the empire is the most terrifying aspect of Blitzkrieg.
This is an invisible, tight, and suffocating electromagnetic net.
In comparison, the few British Army No. 11 radios in Arthur's hands, which required the vehicle to be stopped to raise its antenna, had pitiful power, and were as noisy as a tractor engine, appeared rudimentary and laughable in the face of this massive and sophisticated modern command system.
Lieutenant General Friedrich Kirchner, the next commander of the German 1st Panzer Division after Guderian, is standing in front of a huge field map table.
He held a cup of coffee that was starting to go cold in his hand, and his fingers, gloved in gray goatskin, tapped lightly on the location of "Dunkirk" on the map.
"This can't even be called a battle."
Lieutenant General Kirchner's voice carried a victor's characteristic, even somewhat listless, ease, even as his soldiers struggled deep in the mud.
He turned to look at the staff officers bustling around him: "The British have collapsed. The air force reported earlier that they found piles of abandoned Vickers trucks and Bofors anti-aircraft guns on the beach. Those Tommy guys didn't even have time to break down the gun ports before they rushed into the sea."
"Gentlemen, the British are not retreating at all; they are practically waging a swimming race."
A low, muffled laugh rang out from inside the command vehicle.
This relaxed atmosphere had lasted for two full days in the 1st Armored Division's command post.
Since breaking through the Allied Abbeyville Line, their advance has been like a pleasant holiday trip—nothing can stop this torrent of steel except for the damn mud.
"Your Excellency, Commander."
The operations staff officer approached, holding a summary of a newly received telegram: "The 2nd Armored Regiment has reported that while our advance across the broad front is progressing smoothly, a unit on the northern flank seems to have encountered some—minor trouble."
"Troublesome?" Kirchner raised an eyebrow. "You mean that battalion of Zizzevitz?"
"Yes, General." The operations staff glanced at the telegram, his tone somewhat strange. "Major Zizzewitz reported an hour ago that he encountered British resistance on Highway 3 north of Frey. According to his description, it was a group of infantrymen holding out against the ruins and water barriers, and—possibly—a small armored force."
Kirchner chuckled and put down his coffee cup.
"Zicewitz is a typical theorist. Give him a battalion of tanks, and he'll be too scared to move by a few British skirmishers with anti-tank rifles. He's always complaining about the mud, complaining about supplies, and now he's complaining about the British blocking the way."
“Tell him,” Kirchner’s voice turned cold, “that I don’t want to hear excuses. Let his tracks crush whatever British infantry or whatever armored forces are in the world. Tell him that if he can’t take the northern outskirts of Flne by two o’clock this afternoon, I’ll relieve him of his post and send him to the logistics company to tend the horses.”
"Yes, General." The staff officer stood at attention, saluted, and turned to convey the humiliating order.
Kirchner didn't take it to heart; such things happened every day on the battlefield.
Unlike Ziezewicz, who was on the front lines cursing and swearing about the mud, and unlike Guderian, who was always on edge in front of the map, calculating every minute.
To the commander of the 1st Armored Division, the British’s desperate “scorched earth tactics” of blowing up dikes and creating floods were nothing more than the rage of a weak and powerless man.
In his view, this was nothing more than a trivial, even somewhat jarring, discordant note in the otherwise triumphant symphony.
This doesn't change the outcome.
At most, they were just a few dozen desperate British lunatics huddled in one or two abandoned, flooded bunkers, making a final, even somewhat comical, death throes with a few old machine guns.
It means nothing except leaving an insignificant stain of blood on the tracks of this massive war machine.
He turned his attention back to Dunkirk on the map.
"Tonight," Kirchner said with a smile to his adjutant, "we'll open champagne on the beach. I hear the British left behind quite a bit of good wine."
However, Kirchner could never have imagined this at that moment.
That bottle of champagne he had promised to use for the celebration was destined never to be opened.
On the contrary, starting this afternoon and for a long time to come, even until the end of the war, the word "champagne" will be an absolute taboo in the 1st Armored Division.
Whenever someone mentions it, these survivors will never think of the sweetness of the sparkling wine; all they will remember is the stench of corpses at the intersection of Flörné.
12: 45.
The relaxed atmosphere in the command center was gradually freezing.
Initially, this change stemmed from the unusual actions of a few communications soldiers.
Then, they took off their headphones, exchanged puzzled glances, and whispered among themselves.
Then came the increasingly frequent and higher-pitched calls from next to the radio station.
Finally, that unsettling anxiety spread like a plague throughout the command structure.
"Calling 'Falcon' (1st Battalion code name) — Please respond —"
"This is the Wolf's Den," calling Falcon—repeated, please respond—"
On the other end of the radio wave, there was only deathly silence, and the unsettling, irregular hissing sound of electrical current.
The operations staff officer approached Lieutenant General Kirchner once again. This time, a fine layer of cold sweat beaded on his forehead.
"General."
His voice was trembling.
"What's going on?" Kirchner frowned, a sense of foreboding making him put down his cigar. "What's Zizewitz up to? Another radio malfunction? Or is that damn weather interfering with the signal?"
"It's not a malfunction," the operations staff officer denied directly. "Even if the battalion headquarters radio is broken, it's impossible for several radios in the subordinate companies to break down at the same time."
Just then, the rear hatch of the command vehicle was suddenly pushed open.
A damp, cold mist mixed with a strong, earthy smell wafted in.
The person who came in was a captain, a liaison officer, from the 2nd Armored Regiment.
He was soaked to the bone, his gray-green uniform covered in black mud, and his marching boots looked like two lumps of mud.
But what's most unsettling about him is his expression.
It was a kind of blank stare mixed with fear and bewilderment.
"General."
The captain even forgot to salute; his hands were trembling violently, and rain dripped from the brim of his hat onto the map table, forming an ink stain.
"The Air Force liaison officer just said the cloud cover is too low for reconnaissance planes to take off—" Kirchner looked at the distraught officer with some displeasure, "So, where's the intelligence we need? Where exactly is that battalion of Zitzewicz? What's that guy up to? Why haven't we heard from him?"
The captain's Adam's apple bobbed violently, as if something was blocking his throat, and he was trying to find the right words.
"No need to look anymore, General."
He finally decided to get straight to the point: "They're on Highway 3. I've already—I've already had my crew check."
"Confirmed?" Kirchner raised an eyebrow. "Then why aren't they responding? Did those bastards all fall asleep after the battle?"
"No, General."
The captain looked up, his uneasy eyes fixed on Kirchner as if he had seen a horde of demons: "Because there are no living people left."
The command vehicle fell into a deathly silence.
All that could be heard was the meaningless crackling of the radio; it was a complete joke.
"What did you say?" Kirchner's voice turned cold.
"All personnel killed in action."
The captain took a deep breath and reported the horrific truth as if in a dream: "The 1st Battalion of the 2nd Armored Regiment, including the battalion headquarters, a total of 24 tanks, and a grenadier company accompanying the attack—all lost. There were no survivors, not even a wounded."
"That's impossible!"
Kirchner slammed his fist on the table and roared, "That was an entire armored battalion! Even against the main British anti-tank gun corps, it's impossible for them to be wiped out in such a short time! And they didn't even send out a distress signal?!"
"General, you'd better—you'd better not go see it yourself."
The captain wasn't intimidated by the general's rage; he simply shook his head, clueless about what had happened: "There—it was like a slaughterhouse. All the tanks were wrecked; some turrets were ripped off and thrown into mud pits dozens of meters away, others were blown open from the inside—"
As he spoke, he pulled a muddy metal fragment from his pocket and placed it on the map.
A group of people, including a lieutenant general, immediately surrounded them.
It was a torn piece of tank armor plate, with its edges exhibiting a strange, curled shape.
"Moreover, we found this in the mud by the roadside."
The captain pointed to the flank of that deadly intersection on the map: "There are several track marks there. Very wide, very deep. Our Panzer III tanks were completely stuck in that mud, but that thing—that thing could."
Kirchner's pupils contracted sharply.
As a veteran armored soldier, he could recreate that scene in his mind without needing a photograph.
Wide tracks. Side ambush. Impenetrable armor.
"Matilda".
The chief of staff beside him whispered the name that gave all the German armored soldiers a headache: "Only the British infantry tanks have such wide tracks and side skirts. Moreover, the fact that they can maneuver in that kind of muddy terrain shows that the enemy is very familiar with the terrain, and may even have deliberately lured Ziezewitz into it."
He stared intently at the blue flooded area on the map. Half an hour earlier, he had scoffed at that swamp, thinking that the method of creating mud was nothing more than the meaningless destructive urges of the weak before their death, which at most would only soil the beautiful gray paint of his tank.
But it turned out he was wrong, terribly wrong.
This muddy ground wasn't some indiscriminate roadblock at all; it was a meticulously designed one-way valve.
That bottomless layer of silt was specifically designed for his Panzer III and Panzer IV tanks, which were designed for high-speed maneuverability and had high track ground pressure.
In that terrain, General Guderian's prized high-speed, precision machinery became immobile iron coffins.
And on top of that deadly layer of silt.
The British Matilda—the kind of slow-moving infantry tank he usually mocked as a "prehistoric monster"—became the sole and deadliest predator in the swamp thanks to its wide tracks and side skirts.
They may still be slow, but at least they can move.
This was a failure of the blitzkrieg and a disgrace to the 1st Armored Division.
"Ferné————"
Kirchner looked up, his gaze fixed on the small dot on the map. If the enemy could launch a large-scale counterattack here, it meant General Guderian's assessment was correct—there must be a large force of British troops hiding in the city of Flörn.
If this unit cannot be dug out and crushed, the honor of the 1st Armored Division will be forever nailed to the pillar of shame.
"Pass on my orders!"
Kirchner roared, "Artillery regiments, deploy immediately! Target—the city of Flne!"
"I'm going to bombard that damned city with 150mm howitzers! I'll flatten every single building! No matter how many British tanks are hiding inside, I'll bury them all in the mud!"
13:30, outside the city of Frene.
The tremors lasted for a full fifteen minutes.
德军第73炮兵团的36门105毫米leFH18榴弹炮和12门150毫米sFH18重型榴弹炮，对着这座原本就已经在战火中摇摇欲坠的中世纪小城，倾泻了超过两千发高爆弹。
The flames from the explosion turned the gray sky crimson.
The ancient clock tower collapsed with a deafening roar, brick and stone houses crumbled like sand sculptures, and streets were filled with rubble. The entire city of Flörn was shrouded in a thick, earthy yellow smoke and dust.
When the artillery fire finally reached the city, the armored infantry of the German 1st Infantry Brigade, under the cover of tanks, cautiously made their way into the city from three directions at the same time, bayonets at the ready.
They were on edge, their fingers gripping the triggers tightly, ready to receive anti-tank shells or machine gun bullets fired from the rubble at any moment.
Because that's what the British have been doing for the past two days.
however.
A minute passed.
Ten minutes have passed.
Half an hour has passed.
Instead of the sounds of intense gunfire, the radio crackled with reports of successful entry into the city from various companies: "This is Company 1, advancing to the city center square—no enemy sightings detected."
"This is Company 2, which has captured the train station—it's completely empty. There are only a few burned-out trucks."
"This is Company 3, searching the church—God, this place is like a ghost town."
Lieutenant General Kirchner drove his command vehicle into the city he had just "conquered" with two thousand shells.
The tracks crunched and creaked as they rolled over the broken glass and bricks scattered on the ground.
He got out of the car and stood in front of the ruins of St. Nicholas Church. Several soldiers had just emerged from the basement, carrying several empty wine bottles.
"General."
A sergeant major ran over with a very strange expression, holding a military map covered in mud: "We found the enemy's makeshift command post in the underground wine cellar. Inside—there's nothing. Except this map."
Kirchner grabbed the map.
It was a British defensive map of the Furne region. In the center of the map, at the intersection of Highway 3 where Zizzewitz's army was wiped out, a hole had been pierced with a sharp object.
The edges of the hole were rough, clearly indicating that it had been pierced by a bayonet.
On the back of the map, someone had written a line of text in an extremely arrogant manner using the kind of fancy English that only elite schools teach:
"Thanks for the champagne. But we prefer whisky. —AS"
Kirchner's hands were trembling.
He felt as if a ball of water-soaked cotton had been stuffed into his chest, making it hard for him to breathe.
This is a humiliation that is even more unacceptable than defeat.
He assembled the main force of the entire division, mobilized the heavy artillery group, and unleashed a series of combined attacks at thin air that were enough to destroy a regiment, but in the end, he only smashed a birdcage that was already empty.
The enemy has fled.
Moreover, they swaggered away after wiping out one of his most elite battalions; it was incredibly arrogant.
"AS————"
Kirchner stared intently at the two cursive letters written in pen, his hands clenched into fists.
It's not because of fear, of course.
That was a deep sense of confusion and extreme anger at being played.
He had considered the thick list of senior British officers in his mind, from the commander of the First Army Corps to the commander of the First Guards Brigade, and even the commander of the Cold Creek Guards Regiment, but he couldn't find a single person who matched those two letters.
"Who is this?"
He whirled around, his gaze sweeping over the intelligence officers behind him: "Is it Alexander? Or Alanbrooke? Or some ghost that sprang from the rocks?"
A dead silence.
The staff officers exchanged glances, none daring to provoke trouble at this moment. In the existing German intelligence database, this "AS" was like a blank; there was no known British division or brigade commander who could be matched with this abbreviation.
"General—"
Just then, a hesitant voice came from the corner.
The speaker was the intelligence officer in charge of compiling legion-level battle reports. He pushed up his glasses, seemingly trying to dig out an unsettling, archived document from the depths of his memory.
"Perhaps—we don't need to check London's household registration records."
Kirchner whirled around, her bloodshot eyes fixed on him: "What did you say? You know who he is?"
"I'm not sure of the name, General. But I've seen the initials."
The intelligence officer swallowed hard, his voice low, and he even pulled the general aside, not wanting others to hear: "Do you remember three days ago, the night before the 19th Army headquarters issued the order to force a crossing of the A River?"
"That night, General Guderian's forward command post was subjected to an extremely reckless night raid. It was not like the fighting style of a regular army at all; it was more like a suicide charge by a group of desperados."
The staff officer paused for a moment: "Although we don't know the details of that attack very well, and there were too few survivors, I think I heard General Guderian mention at the scene afterward that the leading British commander had arrogantly left the same mark during the retreat."
"At the time, we all privately thought it was some kind of provocative graffiti."
The staff officer pointed to the map on the ground with a hole punched in it: "But now it seems—this might be that person's signature."
"AS."
Upon hearing this, Kirchner felt a chill run down his spine.
If it really is the same person—
This means that after attacking General Guderian, this madman did not hide like a rat, but instead led an armored force to Flörn, where he set up a perfect ambush and wiped out one of his mixed battalions.
Kirchner slammed the map onto the dusty ground, then ground it down heavily with his mud-caked boots, as if they were Arthur's throat: "Contact Military Intelligence!"
He roared at his adjutant, "I need to know where this unit went! They couldn't have flown away! With those heavy tanks, they can't run fast!"
"Send out all the scouts! Turn Belgium upside down, find these damned rats!!"
There will be another chapter tonight.