Chapter 220: The Intensity of War
"Say that again?"
Amid the roar of gunfire, De Gaulle's voice sounded particularly sharp.
"All the troops in the North Macedonian region abandoned their defenses?"
His towering figure was a full head taller than his adjutant. Combined with his swollen, bloodshot eyes after several sleepless days, he looked like a tired rooster forced to stand in a storm.
When the adjutant nodded, De Gaulle's face flushed with anger.
Abandoning territory without firing a single shot.
This was not merely a mistake.
This was a disgrace that would be carved into the military history of France.
"Tomorrow! No…"
He clenched his fist.
"Control Peter Jolin now. Relieve him of all his duties immediately!"
The adjutant did not dare provoke him. After hesitating for a long while, he quietly said, "Sir, Peter Jolin… has already resigned. He said he would rather give up his rank than continue fighting alongside the Italians."
"Then arrest him and send him to a military court!"
After venting his anger, De Gaulle stared at the map in silence.
He had originally believed that it would take Germany at least a week to break through the defenses in North Macedonia.
Reality had slapped him across the face.
If Athens could not be captured quickly, the Franco-Italian Allied Army would soon face the awkward chaos of being caught in a two-sided pincer.
Fortunately, the mountainous terrain that had previously slowed their advance had now become Germany's problem. The mountains, combined with the four infantry divisions deployed in the rear, should be able to delay the German Army for at least five days, even if the Germans pushed forward on a forced march.
Those five days would be critical for capturing Athens.
But a two-front pincer attack against Athens was no longer enough.
They had to squeeze every last ounce of strength from the Greeks.
Thinking of this, De Gaulle's gaze fixed on the coast of Athens.
"Contact Paris and Rome."
His voice was low.
"We need an emergency naval landing strategy."
Paris.
The situation on the Greek front made Daladier's frown deepen.
If Germany's three-day advance to Budapest had not yet counted as direct combat against France, then the German Army's current attack on the Macedonian region left no further room for retreat.
However, from a strategic perspective, the intervention in the Balkans was still a success.
Germany's intervention in Greece was, in fact, a good thing.
On the Polish front, Germany needed to deploy heavy forces to guard against Soviet Russia. Now, it also had to commit an elite army corps to clean up the Balkans.
Theoretically, the remaining military strength along Germany's main front should not be large.
As long as France lit the fuse on the main battlefield, it would indirectly relieve pressure on the Balkan front.
And the longer the Balkan front dragged on, the more air bases France and Italy could build on the Greek islands.
From there, they could strike Germany's land-based oil supply lines periodically.
Thinking of this, Daladier approved the order to deploy the Navy into the Aegean Sea and turned to Pétain.
"The value of Greece is far greater than we imagined."
His voice was firm.
"Send additional Duquesne-class heavy cruisers, Bretagne-class battleships, and Eagle-class destroyers to form a combined fleet."
"Notify Mussolini. His fleet is to cooperate in the joint attack. We must quickly defeat the Greek Navy."
Daladier's eyes sharpened.
"It is time to escalate the intensity of the war."
Pétain nodded, then asked, "What about the homeland?"
"Execute Plan One."
Daladier gave the order without hesitation.
"Launch an attack on the Rhineland."
Pétain, whose hair had already turned stark white, took a deep breath.
It was an instinctive reaction whenever war approached.
He had once believed that 1918 would be the end of all wars.
He had not expected that, in his old age, he would soon become a man who had lived through two world wars.
Marseille Port.
The Bretagne-class battleship, which had survived the Great War and had only recently completed updates to its combat systems in dry dock, left port under the cover of night.
Its mission was to rendezvous with Eagle-class destroyers and Duquesne-class heavy cruisers near Neil.
On the ship, two crewmen quietly slipped out of the cabin and found a corner of the deck to smoke.
"Peter, what the hell is this war even for?"
Peter, who had experienced the later stages of the Great War, took a deep drag from his cigarette. He looked at the brilliant starry sky and the waves being cut apart by the hull, then slowly shook his head.
"Don't ask me. I don't know either."
His voice was low.
"During the Great War, the politicians and generals rallied us with slogans about resisting the evil Wilhelm II and defending every inch of France."
He exhaled smoke into the sea breeze.
"Now their slogan is to resist the dictator Jörg and maintain European peace."
Peter turned his head and looked toward the ship's great guns.
"But we are invading another country's territorial waters with weapons of war. We are preparing to blow Greeks to pieces with forty-five-caliber main guns."
He laughed bitterly.
"If we win, does that truly mean we stood on the side of peace?"
Peter shook his head and tossed his cigarette into the sea.
The salty wind ruffled his sideburns.
For a moment, he suddenly felt that his fate was not much different from that of the battleship beneath his feet.
Both were controlled.
Both were commanded.
Both would continue forward until they died.
Hearing this answer, the young crewman who had asked the question suddenly felt lost.
The passion he had felt when first joining the Navy gradually faded before the fear of war.
All that remained was a confused soul, numbed by nicotine, drifting with the waves.
"By the way," Peter said as he turned to leave, "don't mention what we talked about today. I don't want to be assigned to scrub the deck."
The cigarette butt drifted farther and farther with the waves.
Slowly, it floated toward the U-47 submarine, which had been continuously tracking its target.
Inside U-47, Captain Rainer identified the ship's outline through the periscope.
He did not even need to consult the manual.
It was the prey he had been waiting for.
A Bretagne-class battleship.
When the Bretagne-class battleship had once been moored in Marseille Naval Port, Rainer, then merely a crewman, had seen this enormous fish with his own eyes.
Now, he could finally tear it apart.
"Follow it!"
His voice was suppressed but full of excitement.
"Fifteen degrees to starboard!"
The first mate took the periscope and asked, "Captain, we are close enough. Aren't you going to flood tubes one and two?"
Rainer listened intently to the sounds in the water through his headphones, then shook his head.
"Not close enough. We must ensure torpedo accuracy."
"But they are speeding up!"
"Don't bother me, Karel!"
Rainer's jaw tightened.
"I want to smash it more than you do."
He took two deep breaths of the murky air inside the submarine, forcing himself to remain calm.
Then he silently calculated the distance.
After a long minute, he finally spoke.
"Surface. Torpedo crew, flood tubes one and two."
The torpedo officer shouted back, "Flooding complete!"
In the dark night, the black shape of U-47 surfaced seven hundred meters from the Bretagne-class battleship.
On the battleship, the young crewman who had remained lost in thought on the deck suddenly felt as though a wolf were watching him.
He looked out toward the sea.
But he saw nothing.
"What's wrong with me?"
The next moment, just as he lamented that his nerves were becoming increasingly confused, the answer came.
Bang!
Three torpedoes struck the hull.
The violent impact caused the battleship to sway.
Then came a larger explosion that shook everyone aboard.
The ammunition depot had been precisely detonated by a torpedo. Flames scattered everywhere, piling upon one another in a frenzy.
The rising inferno was like an erupting volcano, spewing upward uncontrollably.
Captain Helka immediately realized that they had been targeted by a submarine. He roared at the first mate.
"Speed up! Shake it off!"
In the depths of the night, the fear of being unable to see the hunter gnawed at everyone's heart.
The flames bursting from the hull and the sizzling of twisting steel sounded like the scythe of death scraping across iron.
"We can't shake it off, Captain!"
The first mate's voice was hoarse.
"One of our engines is completely destroyed. We can't accelerate!"
He raised his binoculars and tried to locate the hidden hunter on the sea.
But whether it was fear clouding his vision or the darkness itself, all he saw was an endless stretch of black water.
Then, after searching carefully, he discovered three more torpedoes rushing straight toward the hull.
"It's over."
The murmur was swallowed by the wind.
The massive breach caused by the earlier sympathetic detonation was torn open even wider by the new torpedoes. The shells that had not yet exploded detonated completely in the second attack.
Boom!
Bang!
The hull began to break apart from the middle.
Steel wailed.
Rivets burst.
Crewmen screamed inside the flames.
As the disintegrating hull capsized, they died with it.
By the time the destroyers arrived, only scattered wreckage remained.
The sea had already returned to calm.
.....
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