A few days passed before everything that needed to be prepared had been properly gathered and shipped off to the Alps. A desolate region of the mountain range near the borders of Italy. Though not exactly on the borders of Italy, as that might be seen as an act of aggression.
Though invited to take part in the military exercise, the Italians chose not to do so. Prompting Kaiser Wilhelm II to believe that maybe Bruno had been right about them not being faithful to the alliance when the day came.
Though it wasn’t a serious enough issue to immediately push for their removal from the Central Powers, it did serve to act as a cautionary example. As for Bruno, he was dressed in his field attire. Which was to put it simply, was a standard uniform as issued to the individual soldiers in the army, albeit with the insignia on his collar of a General der Infanterie.
Other than that, he did not sport any fanciful medals, ribbons, or God forbid sashes at this time. Bruno also wore the new standard load bearing equipment of the German army, which did a great job of dispersing the weight across the body.
He also carried mag pouches on it that held stripper clips for the Gewehr 98 he was currently using. In the upcoming war, this would be replaced with the Gewehr 43, or Gewehr 05, as was known in this life. Which was the new semi-automatic rifle that had just recently passed military trials and was now being equipped with German infantrymen.
But for the time being, this was a state secret and was not to be revealed to the greater world, even to allies during a time of joint military exercises. Hence why Bruno was holding a rifle. Though unusual for a man of his rank, Bruno liked to be closer to properly armed in a time of war.
The Austrian generals standing in the rear with Bruno wore far more fanciful uniforms, as if to boast of their status. They also did not even care to wear helmets, as this far in the rear, there was no need to worry about artillery.
For that matter, Bruno also didn’t wear a helmet. Even so, his attire was far more similar to what was being used by the soldiers taking part in the exercise. To put it simply, a simulation of trench warfare was taking place.
Blanks would be fired to simulate bullets, and a whole complex system was put in place to score casualties sustained during the exercise. Currently, the Austrians were betting that Bruno’s men would not last very long.
“Well, General, I am willing to wager that your men will be overrun by lunch time. Care to take me on?”
There was a reason that the Austrian generals were so smug. The Germans had, after all, deployed a single division worth of troops for the sake of the exercise. While the Austro-Hungarians had deployed twice as many men. There was just one problem: the men that the Germans sent to Austria were mostly veterans of the Iron Division.
Trench warfare was something they had ample experience in during the Russian Civil War. And unlike the Austro-Hungarians, the soldiers the Germans sent all spoke the same language. Thus, their means of communication were swift and efficient.
One of the major problems which the Austro-Hungarian army suffered from was a severe lack of communication in the field. Their officer corps was primarily staffed with Germans. While their NCOs were largely Hungarian, and the enlisted men could be either German, Hungarian, or any other number of ethnic groups which spoke their own distinctive languages, largely from the Balkans.
Bruno had wanted to expose this major flaw in their army’s design, and thus he was quick to take the wager. Even though the stakes of the bet had yet to be stated. And because of this, he was quick to do so.
“Alright General, I’ll take your bet. I’ll even go so far as to say that it will be your army defeated by noon. If I win, then you will have to listen to my advice regarding the organization of your troops. If I lose, I’ll follow whatever condition you set forth.”
This was too good of an opportunity to let go of. Still, Bruno’s arrogance caused all the Austrian generals to break out into laughter. Nevertheless, they agreed, all with contemptible smiles on their faces.
They no doubt held a grudge against him from the comments he made about them last night. Or should I say comments the Archduchess made? Bruno simply agreed with them. But since they couldn’t vent their frustration regarding these insults to their honor onto the Kaiser’s granddaughter, they would be more than willing to take it out on Bruno now that he had given them the opportunity to do so.
Or so they thought, but the artillery quickly went off, with smoke shells being launched instead of explosive shells. If one were caught within the blast radius that these shells would have as a kill zone if they were live, then they were counted as “dead” for the sake of the exercise.
The artillery Germans fired off was rapid and efficient. The men beneath Bruno’s command clearly having significant experience in doing so. The shells poured a thick mist of smoke across the Austrian lines. While the machine guns in the entrenched position began to counter their charge.
Considering they were filled with blanks, and they were a safe distance away, the observers simply counted the echo of gunfire as kills as per the observed rate of casualties sustained during their use in other wars.
The Austro-Hungarians had suffered so many “casualties” in the first ten minutes of trying to charge into the German trenches that they ended up retreating back to their own line, waiting for the Germans to counter charge while they licked their wounds.
As for the Austrian generals, they were completely and utterly dumbstruck by how quickly their ranks fell into ruin. They had no idea what had happened until Bruno pointed it out to them. After all, though the command to retreat had been given, it took some time to properly translate into the dozen or so languages which the soldiers in the field spoke.
And thus, many of them continued to charge into the enemy “line of fire” and, in doing so, being counted as KIA. Thus, reducing the numbers of Austrian troops significantly. Bruno had simply pulled out a cigarette and watched with a cold gaze, before ultimately giving his opinion on what had happened when the Austrian generals stared aimlessly at the field below as if they had lost their ability to think after witnessing their massive loss.
“Yeah… You see that… That right there is what happens when nobody in your army speaks the same fucking language. You might want to fix that…. Preferably before you actually have to fight a war… Because if this was a real battle… Well, I might have earned myself another nickname just now…”
There was no actual arrogance in Bruno’s tone. More like a man watching a bunch of chickens run around with their heads cut off. It was honestly more amusement in his voice than it was disdain. After finishing his cigarette, Bruno flicked it to the ground and stamped it out before turning to the Austrian Generals who were whispering among themselves about the faults in their operation that they had just witnessed.
Only now did Bruno change his expression from one that couldn’t be bothered to care about to a sinister smirk, which matched the shift in his tone as well.
“Well, I suppose it’s my turn now, isn’t it? Watch and learn, general, this is how you properly raid a trench…”
