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Chapter 33 - Hitting Russia's Breadbasket III

9-21July/1915

I sprayed and fired my submachine gun, cutting down four Russian soldiers, not knowing if they were part of the group that would side with us.

I heard the burst of the machine gun and saw how a group running toward us simply dropped to the ground, followed by screams and curses.

I signaled with my hand to keep moving and attack the train station, since there was supposedly a shipment of ammunition and weapons that should still be there before being sent to the front, having been unloaded to take on food supplies for the front line.

I quickly checked the angles of the entrance and saw a few Russians aiming their rifles at it, and I moved my head just before someone pulled the trigger.

"Fire… shoot through the wood, kill them" I shouted, looking at Friedrich as he moved into position with the machine gun.

Friedrich set up the bipod, leaned against a small wall, and pulled the trigger. The bullets tore through the train station wall, turning it into a mass full of holes.

After the burst, I heard nothing. I checked the angles again and only saw dead Russians, so I entered and immediately spotted the crates of weapons and ammunition we were looking for.

"We have the ammunition" I shouted, checking the boxes filled with Russian rifle rounds.

"The rifles are here" one of the Jägerkommandos said as he entered behind me and quickly opened one of the crates.

"Good, quickly, we need to see if the Ukrainians had any success or if we just burn all of this and pull out" I said while removing the magazine from my submachine gun and checking how many rounds I had left.

We moved through the streets, watching people run and hide in their houses. We were more cautious when encountering movement, only firing if someone aimed at us first, trying to determine whether they were on our side or not.

After moving through and wiping out a Russian squad with machine gun fire, we reached the local police station, where I found that several policemen had killed some of their own and had armed themselves with pistols.

"The weapons are at the train station. There are rifles and ammunition… go get them quickly and find a way to change your uniforms. Anyone who doesn't know about our agreement will shoot you" I said in Ukrainian as one of them got my attention.

"My cousin is an officer in the Russian army… he said he would convince people in the city barracks" one of the policemen said, holding a revolver.

"Take us to the barracks. We'll see if we can do something" I said quickly.

We moved through the streets, following the policeman, staying close to the walls since I didn't want the surprise of a shooter while we were exposed. We could hear heavy gunfire as we approached the center of the city.

When we arrived, we found a full battle between Russian forces. The Ukrainian rebels were fighting against loyalist troops, but there was one problem.

Who was who.

Both sides wore the same uniforms, used the same weapons, and with all the noise of gunfire, we couldn't tell who was speaking what to identify their side.

So we waited for the policeman to guide us, since we had no idea what was happening.

"There… I know that one. He works with us" he said, pointing toward troops on the other side of the street, which meant we were behind the Russian loyalists.

We began firing into the backs of the loyalists, cutting down several of them and helping in the urban fight as we emptied our magazines and rifles, eliminating resistance.

There was a large Russian presence in the city because Romny was an important center for collecting grain from the region and sending it to major Russian cities. Because of that, there was a strong garrison here, though largely Ukrainian in composition, since locals were widely used while Russians mainly filled higher-ranking officer roles.

After dealing with the loyalists and bringing some order to the chaos, I quickly ordered the Ukrainian soldiers to change their uniforms however they could to distinguish sides, removing the upper part of their uniforms as identification.

The city was cut off from the rest of Russia since we had severed the telegraph lines and the roads were being watched by my men, so no one would know what had happened until someone was sent to investigate. Because of that, we immediately began hunting down and capturing or killing Russian loyalists while taking control of the city, as people started arming themselves with Russian weapons from the train station shipment and from the weapons and ammunition inside the local garrison barracks.

Out of a town of around 25,000 people, Ukrainians who switched sides armed themselves, although many were civilians who had never held a rifle before, but they were better than nothing.

Without wasting time, we returned to the train station where Ukrainians were handing out rifles to anyone who could carry one, and soldiers were teaching the basics to the rest.

"Just in time" I said as I saw one of the Russian trains entering the station, coming from the south where there had been no explosions.

The train stopped, and we quickly captured the few Russians and Ukrainians aboard. It was mainly a supply train carrying ammunition. After unloading the munitions and loading a crate of Russian weapons, we followed the train's route, passing through three small villages where we stopped to assist in case the groups assigned to attack local garrisons were not enough, but for the moment everything seemed to be going well.

Loyalist forces were reduced while Ukrainians armed themselves with the Russian equipment left behind.

In a matter of hours, we had sparked uprisings in several villages.

It was not decisive in the grand scale of the war, but it would significantly delay the restoration of communications, since the Russians would first have to crush the rebellion before reestablishing their lines.

When we regrouped with Hans' forces, we continued the plan to a certain extent. In some villages the uprising had failed, so we simply withdrew to our hideouts, waiting for the Russians and focusing on supporting the villages where the rebellions had succeeded.

But our next target was another Russian train heading toward Kiev, loaded with supplies that would be vital for the defense, as it carried a massive amount of ammunition that should have been at the front feeding multiple Russian armies. It was quickly unloaded and distributed among Ukrainian militias that were beginning to move through nearby areas, trying to convince others to join.

It did not take long for the Russian response to arrive. Someone must have warned them, or perhaps regular patrols in the area noticed something. Soon enough, Russian patrols began arriving in the zone.

We focused on prioritizing Russian officers, using the height of buildings in towns and cities to shoot and blow their heads off. This left the infantry disorganized, taking fire, fleeing, or in the best cases surrendering.

The problem was that this was not a massive uprising as one might have expected, even after investing time convincing many to join us by promising them their own state, though likely under the rule of some German noble.

Due to the overwhelming Russian military presence, the results were not widespread. We spent the entire day targeting Russian officers whenever we could spot them to keep them at bay. It did not take long before Russian battalions began arriving to besiege the cities and bring them back under control.

On the second day, we began ambushing Russian patrols that were trying to move supplies to the front using horse-drawn wagons, transporting supplies from the rail lines where they had been cut. We frequently had to move into position, set up the machine guns, and fire carefully to conserve ammunition. By the second day of fighting, we were already running low, so we began switching to Russian rifles to save our own ammunition.

The machine guns still required German ammunition, as did our submachine guns, so once that ran out, we would be in serious trouble.

On the third day of fighting, while the Ukrainian uprising in the cities we had managed to ignite continued, the Russians kept sending more and more men to force the Ukrainians into surrender.

Troops from the south joined us, breaking part of the encirclement after catching Russians in their camps and sweeping through them with machine guns, massacring who knows how many within minutes. At that point, all my men were back with me, but the situation looked grim. Russian forces were also arriving from the rear in all directions.

We withdrew under the cover of night, instructing the Ukrainians to do the same. The Russians were too many, and we were running low on ammunition.

For two days, we helped Ukrainian rebels hide in local crop fields while Russian patrols searched the area. Eventually, it seemed that German offensives had begun to have an effect.

Suddenly, the Russians shifted from hunting us to trying to harvest Ukrainian fields and assist peasants, spreading out across the countryside. Something was going in our favor. This reduced pressure on us and allowed us to conserve ammunition, which was already scarce. We still needed to cut some Russian retreat routes, so we moved toward roads that were most likely to be used for withdrawal.

As days passed, hiding when necessary and ambushing Russian supply convoys for food, we began to notice that the Russians were moving hundreds of thousands of livestock along the roads while also burning fields that had not yet been harvested.

That indicated that German forces were hitting them hard now that their supply lines were compromised.

We set a trap using the explosives we had left, placing and concealing charges along a road in case a large convoy attempted to pass. We built a small concealed position among the low hills in the area.

In the following days, we observed the same pattern. Livestock everywhere and Russian troops burning fields, with smoke visible across the landscape.

Finally, after days behind enemy lines with little success, we saw Russian columns advancing, but there were too many. We were literally watching an entire army trying to evacuate.

We remained hidden, observing as tens of thousands of Russians passed through the area. I was tempted to trigger the detonator and watch thousands of them die, but we would not have survived. Cavalry units marched alongside them and would have overrun us immediately. We let that massive target pass in favor of something we could actually handle.

We continued observing as massive Russian formations evacuated the region, leaving us with little room to act or escape safely.

A suicidal attack would have pleased the OHL. We would have killed thousands of Russians at the cost of a few hundred Germans. For now, I preferred to keep breathing, especially now that I was no longer dying of cancer.

Finally, one morning after days of observation, we saw a convoy of vehicles moving along the road.

I immediately ran toward the detonator while watching through binoculars as the convoy approached along the path rigged with explosives.

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