Chapter 37: Marshal Pétain’s Counterattack

BOOM!

A thunderous blast shattered the morning calm.

A faint tremor ran through the ground, and dust shook loose from the ceiling overhead.

Inside the command post of Battery No. 1, Model and his staff officers were in the middle of a meeting. The moment the cannon fire rang out, they all hit the deck — standard artillery-evasion posture, protecting themselves as best they could.

But the shot was just one. A long pause passed, and no second explosion came.

"What the hell was that?"

One by one, the men picked themselves up off the floor. A few had already made it to the observation platform, scanning the direction of the blast with their binoculars.

"Forward positions report they’re under enemy artillery fire."

Model turned his binoculars toward Gun Position No. 5. Sure enough, there it was — a massive shell crater right in front of the position.

The crater was at least two meters deep, and damn near ten meters across.

Even from over a thousand meters away, the sheer size of it shook him.

What kind of terrifying firepower could punch a hole like that?

At the very least, the three 305mm guns at Battery No. 1 couldn’t do it.

"That’s their siege guns. Looks like they’re about to launch a full-scale assault!"

The position that got hit — Gun Position No. 5 — was the exact one that had shelled the enemy’s pontoon bridges yesterday.

So yesterday’s little probe really was them testing the waters.

Good thing he’d kept his cool and didn’t show his hand.

The machine gun positions and mortar positions were flexible as hell — shoot and scoot, always ready to relocate. No real worry about enemy retaliation there.

But the heavy artillery was a different story. Moving those things was a nightmare, and the shells weighed a ton — you needed all kinds of auxiliary equipment just to load them.

On top of that, to fight the recoil and keep accuracy up, the heavy guns in each battery were basically bolted down. They couldn’t move easily.

Once their position got exposed, they’d be sitting ducks for enemy counter-battery fire.

"So what do we do now? Just sit here and let them shell us?"

Sure, the guns at Position No. 5 weren’t destroyed yet. But the enemy obviously wasn’t gonna stop after one shot.

The reason there was such a long pause between shots? They were calibrating, or reloading.

Shells for guns that big weighed a fortune — you usually needed a circular rail system plus a small crane just to load them.

By the time the enemy finished reloading, the second round would be coming.

Model was about to say something when the enemy’s second salvo started.

Compared to the first, this time they’d brought out two heavy guns at once!

BOOM! BOOM!

Two massive explosions, one after another. The ground shook harder than before — a lot of the men felt their bodies swaying, barely able to keep their footing.

Model snatched up his binoculars and looked toward Position No. 5.

It was already swallowed up in a cloud of explosion flashes and smoke. Couldn’t see a damn thing in there.

"Go — get a hot air balloon up right now, find where their big guns are!"

Model didn’t have time to check the damage. The priority was finding the enemy’s position and taking them out.

Otherwise, if they just kept bombing like this, every battery in the fortress was gonna get picked off one by one.

BOOM! BOOM!

Two more shots rang out. Marshal Pétain raised his binoculars and looked toward the impact point.

Just then, a gust of wind blew through, clearing the smoke and revealing the enemy’s battery.

The gun positions that had been exposed during yesterday’s fight — completely destroyed.

"Good effect on target!"

"For fortresses like this, you gotta use heavy guns!"

"No kidding. If we’d gotten this kind of siege artillery support earlier, we wouldn’t have paid such a heavy price!"

"Word is, it took the Germans over ten days to wipe out the Belgians inside this fortress. I don’t think we’ll need that long — at this pace, five days is plenty!"

"Ha! Once Liège Fortress falls, what the hell are the Germans gonna fight us with?"

"They couldn’t beat us before, and they think switching emperors is gonna change that? I say we go all the way this time — march straight into Berlin, pull a Napoleon, grab the Victory Goddess statue off the Brandenburg Gate, and rub it in their faces!"

Seeing how well the bombardment was going, the coalition officers were getting optimistic — excitedly chattering about when they’d take the fortress.

Some of the French officers were already daydreaming about how they’d humiliate the Germans after the war.

Listening to his subordinates’ lively discussion, Marshal Pétain’s mood lifted too.

Liège Fortress was tough as hell. With conventional tactics, who knows how many lives it would’ve cost to take it.

But lucky for them, they had the Germans’ own playbook to copy!

The Germans never would’ve guessed that the tactics they left behind would come back to bite them in the ass, courtesy of the Entente.

"Split the siege guns into five groups, two guns each — rotate bombardment on the enemy’s batteries!"

Since the results were this good, Pétain wasn’t gonna hold anything back. He threw every heavy gun he had into the fight, looking to crush the enemy in the shortest possible time.

He even made a bold promise: "Ten days from now, I’ll be hosting a victory celebration for all of you inside Liège Fortress!"

That got the French officers cheering like crazy. Morale shot through the roof — like victory was already in the bag.

The French moved fast. The moment Pétain gave the order, the remaining eight guns got their assignments and opened up on the German batteries with everything they had.

For a moment, the battlefield shook like an earthquake. Explosion after explosion rolled across the landscape.

Under the assault of ten siege guns, the German batteries did take some real damage.

Some of the weaker outer gun positions got blown to pieces one by one. But the core batteries were still standing tall.

"Give the order to fight back — we can’t just sit here and take this!"

"Exactly! Watching our guns get blown up and not being able to fire back — that’s the most suffocating feeling in the world!"

Inside Battery No. 1, the Germans who’d been taking a beating were fired up, demanding Model order a counterattack.

They had over a hundred guns. But under Model’s orders, they were forbidden from firing — just standing there taking hits. The frustration was eating the soldiers and officers alive.

Model was a parachuted-in commander, and his rank wasn’t high enough to really command respect from these battle-hardened vets.

But even with the pressure from above and the mutiny brewing below, Model stayed ice cold.

Keep your head when the shit hits the fan. Panicking never solved anything.

Without knowing where the enemy was, firing blindly would just expose their own firepower layout — giving the enemy a map of exactly where to aim. The losses would only get worse.

Model didn’t even lift his eyes. He calmly said one word: "Wait."

"Wait for what?"

His subordinates demanded, anxious.

"Wait for Air Force intel."

Earlier, they’d sent up a hot air balloon to try to find the enemy artillery positions.

But unfortunately, the enemy’s siege guns were dug in way too far back.

The balloon’s altitude was limited, and it was fragile as hell — no way it could push in close for recon under enemy anti-aircraft fire.

So the plan to spot the enemy positions with the balloon and guide the batteries’ guns to take them out — dead in the water.

The moment Model heard that result, he immediately sent a request to the nearby Air Force.

He asked them to send reconnaissance planes to do low-altitude recon over the areas where the enemy siege guns might be, and take photos.

The Air Force had accepted the request. But the first recon plane to reach the target area got shot down.

Right now, they were recruiting volunteers for a second low-altitude recon run.

But given how dangerous this mission was, there probably weren’t gonna be many ace pilots with both the skill and the guts to take it.

Which made Model’s waiting a gamble.

If the Air Force couldn’t pull it off, then every price they’d paid so far was for nothing.

Just as Model was racking his brain over how to find the enemy’s position — back at Aachen airfield, Göring, the battle hero who’d just been promoted and decorated by the Emperor, found his old partner Roser and asked him to take on a dangerous mission together:

"Hey, old buddy — you still got the balls to charge into the lion’s den with me, like we did at Verdun back in the day?"

Roser scoffed:

"You’re the household-name war hero and you’re willing to risk it. What makes you think I’m not? I’ll gladly die right alongside you!"

The two men exchanged a smile. No words needed.

Neither Model nor Göring had any idea.

Back in Berlin, Wilhelm — hearing the news that the front wasn’t doing so hot — had immediately jumped into the system shop. He gritted his teeth and spent 20,000 merit points to buy a counter-battery radar, ready to ship it to Model.

Shit, you can’t find the enemy artillery positions?

I’ll just solve that problem for you.