Chapter 106:
Chapter 106
The long Soviet winter was finally coming to an end.
The German army, which had to endure an unprecedentedly harsh winter with meager winter equipment, could not enjoy the arrival of spring.
“Ugh…”
“Think about it. If you take off your pants, you’ll freeze to death, but if you rip off the seams on the back of your pants, you won’t have to take them off every time.”
The officer who gave the useless advice moved on to the next patient and repeated the same words.
In the dirty and cruel environment, epidemics raged.
Soldiers who contracted dysentery in groups died while vomiting diarrhea, and there was always a shortage of clean water for them.
“Damn… those bugs!”
“They should all be burned to death! This is bullshit…”
Lice, fleas, mosquitoes, ticks. All kinds of pests swarmed in the barracks.
They couldn’t boil their thick winter clothes every day, and even if they sprayed some barracks, the pests quickly spread from other places.
The soldiers scratched their bodies constantly because of the unbearable itching.
The pests did not only cause itching and irritation, but also transmitted diseases.
Diseases such as dysentery, typhoid fever, and typhus caused more non-combat losses than casualties in combat.
The Soviet army might have had similar problems, as there were not many battles, which was a relief.
But for the medics, it didn’t make much difference.
What difference did it make whether they saw patients with severed arms and legs or patients with diarrhea dozens of times a day?
It was only a matter of whether the sheets were dirty with blood and pus or diarrhea.
“They said they would supply more and faster insecticides for disinfection, but they still don’t give them!”
“Well… that’s right. The road conditions are bad and supply is difficult.”
Damn road! How did Napoleon get in here?
Let’s say it was the Führer…
They had experienced it last fall, but in the mud they couldn’t drive vehicles at all.
They had to transport by rail or use traditional means of supply such as horses, but those horses were dying from diseases and parasites.
The rail gauge work was also not easy in places where they sank deep.
Germany used a standard gauge railway with a width of 1,435mm, and used railway vehicles with a corresponding width.
However, due to the dirty weather and ground conditions that were repeatedly emphasized, the Soviet Union laid a broad gauge railway with a width of 1,520mm.
They had to narrow this gap to supply by rail, but it was not easy.
They operated an engineering unit dedicated to gauge work, but it was impossible to cover the entire vast Soviet territory without end.
Spring would be coming soon, so they supplied combat materials for the offensive from above. However, for the frontline field armies, ‘soon spring’ felt like a distant time.
Instead of insecticides they asked for, irrelevant items – new helmets, toothpaste – arrived and the frontline units screamed at the phone.
But the rear command shouted back that there were ‘other demands’ for insecticides and told them to use the limited quantity sparingly.
In this era, there was a lack of awareness of resistance acquisition, and poor disinfection only resulted in resistant bugs.
Anyway, soldiers had to complain if they were told to complain.
The German army had no choice but to complain as they were told.
***
“Mon Dieu! How did you survive in this situation?”
“That’s what I’m saying…”
The French officer who got off the train wearing a stiff officer uniform expressed admiration as he inspected the frontline trenches.
“That’s why they beat us. How can people live in this hellish place?”
Napoleon Bonaparte, you were wrong…
The French felt awe and fear at the vastness and harshness of the Eastern European plain.
The stylish French soldiers shivered at the sight of the German soldiers who glared at them with disdain in this hellish place.
Is this our future?
The Spanish and Italian armies also showed similar reactions.
Those who came from southern Europe where warm sunlight shone were shocked by the weather in April.
The temperature fluctuating between below and above zero degrees Celsius, the ground like a mud pond that sank deep down, and the ration food that was tasteless and scarce.
The newly deployed soldiers seemed to cause a mutiny right away.
They prevented a large-scale disaster by being stared at by veteran German soldiers who survived in this hell with only evil left on their faces, but there seemed to be a lot of dissatisfaction among the new soldiers of the three countries.
***
Stalin was right. <No people, no problem>.
The Germans did not know that he said that, but if they heard it, they would have applauded Stalin’s deep wisdom and insight… no, slapped their knees.
“What? What are you saying? Don’t you speak German? Ger.man!”
“Ou est la salle de bain?”
“Donde esta la sala de reuniones?”
They wore the fancy guise of the ‘Anti-Bolshevik Coalition’, but they were unable to communicate with each other.
The Hungarians and Romanians in Eastern Europe had many German immigrants, so there were quite a few who were proficient in German, and they were only deployed in the southern front.
The Finns operated independently in the north of Leningrad.
However, the armies of France, Spain, and Italy were deployed across the front line to fill the shortage of personnel.
The problem of communication expanded to the entire battlefield.
Especially, the French, who had their pride tarnished by the ‘six weeks’, pretended not to understand even though they understood some German, and acted stubbornly unless they spoke French.
The German officers wanted to shoot bullets into the heads of the French who laughed at them while babbling in French that they couldn’t understand, but that was strictly forbidden.
The Spanish and Italians were better.
Especially, the Italian army showed amazing battlefield adaptability despite their poor combat power.
The Italians learned German and Russian faster than anyone else.
Why?
“Oh, miss. Your eyes have a blue lake breathing in them!”
“Hohohot, Lieutenant Luigi is really…”
“Don’t call me by that stiff title, lieutenant, my little coquette. Call me by a sweeter name.”
The Italians showed their spirit everywhere and seduced women.
Their main target was the German army nurses.
According to the Nazi Germany’s gender discrimination policy, the nurses were all women, so the Italians visited the field hospitals frequently and flirted with the nurses.
In this process, the statistics of malingerers in the Italian army increased sharply.
The commander was shocked by the report that they visited the hospital so often that he personally inspected the trenches.
When it was revealed that the soldiers pretended to be sick and went to the hospital and played with the nurses, an order was issued to prohibit sending them to the hospital for minor injuries.
Of course, as always, if a policy was made from above, a countermeasure was made from below.
“Here, say ah~.”
“Thank you, Ilya. Hahaha.”
The Italian soldier who wrapped his right hand with a white bandage wore a patient’s gown and spent a tender moment with a nurse who fed him food.
If they couldn’t be sent for minor injuries, why not get seriously injured? It was a miraculous solution.
Especially if they hurt their hands like this, they could get ‘legal’ intensive care from the nurses.
When soup dripped onto his chest between the loose patient gown collars, the Italian soldier exaggerated his reaction.
“Oh! Ilya, the soup is hot! Just like my heart for you. Won’t you wipe it off?”
“Of course. Here… Ah!”
When the nurse’s hand touched his bare skin, the Italian soldier grabbed her hand with his healthy left hand.
Their eyes met and…
Anyway, this kind of thing happened frequently.
The German officers who supervised the Italian army were shocked by the unexpected military disorder. Even the Italian officers were not very enthusiastic about it.
“Matteo Vizalli! You bastard!”
“Huh… Is it because you have a higher rank? Let’s compete with your charm as a man.”
The lieutenant drew his gun as if he would shoot him right away.
The soldier who wore only a corporal’s rank badge was very confident and smiled leisurely at the lieutenant who blushed while grumbling.
The soldiers around them flocked with excitement.
Wow! A fight! Fighting was always fun.
As long as I wasn’t involved.
They ran away first when fighting the enemy, but they didn’t back down even a step when fighting for a woman.
The bravery of the Italians shone in the barracks, not on the battlefield.
“So… is this information true?”
“Yes. This is the full text of the operation plan shared by the German army headquarters to the Italian army.”
Soviet commander Chernyakhovsky was speechless.
He knew vaguely that the Italian resistance tried to infiltrate and organize sabotage through military enlistment.
But how could the Italian army be so loose that they could desert with an entire operation plan? He doubted it even though he saw it with his eyes.
‘Is this really a 20th century army?’
And he even succeeded in seducing a local woman on his way of desertion. If he was a real spy, why did he do that? If he was a resistance fighter, why did he do that?
The woman who held his hand tightly appealed to Chernyakhovsky with tears in her eyes.
“Ilya is not like that at all, comrade commander. He just…”
“I love you dearly. My love. Just leave it to me now.”
The woman smiled bashfully and blushed.
The Italian looked at her with burning eyes, and the staff officers and NKVD agents who were present rubbed their foreheads.
As blunt Russian men, they could not follow the expressive sentiment of southern Europe.
The women loved it very much.
“Anyway, if what you said is true… you deserve to be called a hero of the people. You brought very important information. Is there anything you want?”
“I would love to have a small cottage with a garden where I can live with my love.”
“…I’ll consider it.”
Chernyakhovsky also had a headache, but this cheesy Italian really brought important information.
He infiltrated the army and became a guard at the command post.
He came to the Soviet army barracks leisurely with the deployment and rough operation plan of the army.
He had been visiting civilian houses so blatantly that no one suspected him when he left.
Anyway, now that such a report came in, he had to report it to above as soon as possible. Maybe they were already reporting it to intelligence… They needed to revise their plan.
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