Chapter 40:
Chapter 40
A cold wind blew and cooled the sweat on my neck.
I gasped and the chilly air of November penetrated deep into my lungs. But how could it cool down this blood that was burning in my chest?
Budenny, my enemy, threw off his dress coat with medals dangling on it and stretched his muscles that were bulging under his shirt.
He could not hide them even if he wanted to. He was ready to ride again!
His horse Rozina neighed and pranced as if responding to his stretch.
Her lush mane fluttered in the wind.
Along with the flag of the Red Army’s First Cavalry Army.
As I rode, every muscle cell in my thighs and arms craved for oxygen and drank the hot blood that burst out of my heart.
This body that was cooling down and buried in fat was heated up to the point that I shouted involuntarily.
“Ura! Ura! Soviet Ura!”
“Ura! Ura!”
My subordinates followed me and shouted.
When I first set foot on this land, the ones who followed me either fell on the battlefield or became fat generals who aged with time.
They all grew old and tired and stopped riding.
They only gave orders through radios from safe armored cars or command vehicles, instead of charging towards the enemy with a shout from their chests like cavalrymen.
But I will die on horseback!
The enemies who tried to crush the revolution were stretching their yellow teeth and claws towards this land and the Soviet again.
The intervention army of the Polish far-right regime, the royalists of Romania and Hungary, and those White Army reactionaries who tried to restore Tsar!
They wanted to devour the rich plains, and Budenny and his First Cavalry Army repelled them time after time.
Now, a powerful fascist army of Nazi Germany was advancing.
In front of the tanks and armored vehicles that were wrapped in steel armor and fired machine guns, even the brave cavalrymen of the Red Army had no choice but to retreat.
Budenny knew well that this was the last battlefield where cavalry could shine.
The secretary-general and other enemies tried to stop him.
They asked him what he would do if he died, and said that the morale of the army would drop.
He was afraid too.
Of becoming a powerless corpse that fell on the ground without saving even one more person.
Of his heart stopping beating.
But the cavalrymen of the Red Army only charged towards their fear.
“Song! Bayonet! Sing!”
“We are the Red Cavalry!”
<We are the cavalrymen of the Red Army
The storytellers tell our stories with their melodious voices
They tell our heroic tales
Even on nights without a single cloud
Even on days when fierce winds blow
We march proudly to the battlefield!>
To the battlefield! To the battlefield!
The cavalrymen who followed him cheered. Let’s go to the battlefield!
The artillery fire began.
The young Zhukov, who commanded the Southern Front Army, promised enough artillery support to overwhelm the enemy for the cavalry’s charge.
The secretary-general also poked Novikov, the air force enemy, and borrowed fighters and Sturmoviks for the offensive of the Southern Front Army and Budenny’s Cavalry Army.
Likewise, by order of the secretary-general, modified light tanks – equipped with machine guns, grenade launchers, or mortars instead of turrets – were also assigned to the cavalry army in large numbers.
The shells rained down like rain, and in front of the cavalrymen who charged with a shout, the Romanian soldiers who had never experienced such a battlefield only buried their heads in their trenches and shivered, unable to show any proper resistance.
The Romanian soldiers were second only to Germany in terms of manpower in the Eastern Front with 500,000 troops, but their combat power was very poor.
They were not worth facing by the traditional elite of the Soviet army, the cavalry.
“Surrender! Surrender!”
Some threw away their guns and raised their hands with clumsy Russian words they learned somewhere.
Among them, some brave ones tried to resist until the end with their old rifles, but they soon became good advice for their colleagues next to them by falling under the crossfire of machine guns carried by cavalrymen.
It was an overwhelming firepower that seemed excessive.
The Soviet poured out a huge amount of firepower.
The positions where enemy artillery was observed were bombarded with 203mm heavy howitzers or 152mm field guns, crushing the Romanian artillerymen who were trying to move their guns while groaning.
The machine gun positions that I had arranged with the scarce amount of weapons were bombarded by 76mm field guns and mortars.
Pour out as many shells as the enemy has soldiers!
The secretary-general said so on the radio.
“Artillery is the god of modern warfare! Don’t hesitate to pour out shells to save the lives of our soldiers. Even if we fire a million more, it will be more profitable if we win a month earlier!”
The voice of the secretary-general, who had lost both his sons at once on the battlefield, seemed to burn with rage.
He wanted to kill 200,000 or 2 million sons of Germans, Romanians, Finns and Hungarians in exchange for losing his two sons.
That rage returned to the soldiers as generous artillery support.
Despite the opposition of the staff and commanders of the entire army, Budenny jumped into the front-line battle himself.
He could not follow those who risked their lives by charging from the front line. But when he said he would definitely participate in the battle of the second wave unit, which was relatively ‘safe’, everyone gave up as if they could not stop him.
His reliable subordinates could take care of the command of the unit.
The divisions under the First Cavalry Army were reorganized into guard divisions with direct support units and light tank units – the secretary-general called them infantry fighting vehicles now – attached to them.
The corps and division commanders were basically cavalry commanders who were familiar with reconnaissance, flanking, and light skirmishes, so they seemed to be confused at first by the huge firepower they were given for the first time, but they seemed to get the hang of it as they slaughtered the Romanians.
How did he know? T
he front line was already collapsing!
“Kiyatho! You bastard!”
He shot a Romanian who was aiming at his soldier with a rifle.
The new rifle drove a heavy three-point bullet into the neck and chest of the Romanian soldier and sent him back to his motherland.
“Let’s have breakfast at Dniester and dinner at Prut!”
“Ura! Breakfast at Dniester, dinner at Prut!”
His battle cry was echoed by his direct unit.
The Prut River, which was the border between Bessarabia and Romania, was far ahead.
He had already received a report that the vanguard had crossed the Prut River.
“Oh really? Good job, do your best!”
Budenny’s direct unit, which was clearing up the remnants left by the vanguard, was behind, but the cavalry army marched towards Romania with unstoppable momentum.
“You guys are terrible at shooting, aren’t you? Let me show you.”
The last enemy squad that was stuck in a Tachanka was spraying bullets in all directions with two machine guns.
Most of the remnants had been cleared up and surrounded, so he ordered them to surrender, but they either did not understand or simply refused and resisted until the end.
There were simple ways to wait until the machine gun ran out of ammunition or call for artillery support… But Budenny poked a soldier’s side who had missed a rocket launcher shot.
“Yes? Yes! Huh!”
The enemy himself came to show how to fire a rocket launcher while flipping over dust and shooting.
The soldier who was pointed out by Budenny turned pale. But Budenny laughed heartily and started aiming with a rocket launcher.
The principle was always simple.
Whether he threw stones or fired an old musket at wolves that threatened his flock when he was a child in his neighborhood, or fired a ‘assault rifle’ with gold plating that the secretary-general personally gave him, or fired something he had never seen or heard before like this.
He just had to shoot well and hit well.
“Waaaaah! Budenny enemy ura!”
The rocket launcher he aimed and fired went straight into the gun port of the Tachanka.
With a loud bang, machine gun fragments flew out and the Tachanka fell silent.
The soldiers cheered at his amazing feat.
The young soldiers who grew up listening to the legendary bravery and courage of the First Cavalry Army and sang Budenny’s march song admired his exploits.
Others would sigh if they saw it, but anyway, the soldiers loved this old mustachioed enemy.
‘Are Zhukov and Borosilov doing well?’
Budenny thought so while showing his clenched fist in front of his soldiers.
A mansion in a corner of Bucharest.
The boy king Mihai I was virtually exiled here, but this place was thoroughly fortified unlike its shabby appearance.
Machine guns were hidden among the lush bushes in the garden, and manual detonation mines were buried under the stone wall.
The boy king had few troops he could mobilize to overthrow Antonescu’s military regime.
The Soviet agents called them guard divisions and police units, but two of the four battalions of the guard division were sent to the front line.
The police who controlled the capital had only ‘police’ level weapons, without infantry weapons such as grenades, automatic weapons, or mortars.
In the first place, the Romanian army had only one tank division as an armored unit.
He didn’t mind not having an armored unit… But it hurt to have only two platoons of mounted police as the only mobile force.
The deputy chief of staff of the Romanian army’s rear headquarters was able to divert the supplies sent by Germany, as he turned a blind eye to the activities of the coup army, but he could not do anything about the lack of basic training level.
However, when the royal army was considering the timing of the coup, unexpected support arrived from the Soviet Union.
“Your Majesty… Salute!”
Snap! The young special forces captain with a colonel’s rank saluted Mihai I with a crisp voice, along with the commanders of the special forces unit sent by the Soviet Union.
The Soviet army had procured them themselves, or they wore field combat uniforms of the Romanian army that they had never sent, and Mihai I admired the five officers who wore them naturally.
“They are truly elite officers. They will be a great help for the execution of the operation!”
“Thank you, Your Majesty.”
The special forces captain bowed his head slightly.
The coup commanders also seemed impressed.
They had instigated a coup and pushed hard on the front line, but they seemed to ignore their situation and suddenly contacted them and offered to support a special unit. Suddenly?
“Our royal army’s operation plan was this. First, we will send two battalions of the 1st Regiment to the city, and the entire force of the 4th Regiment will surround the headquarters building…”
The coup army had not done many coups before, so their plan relied on some luck.
What if the minimum security force that had to be in the headquarters resisted?
What if they resisted fiercely, and Antonescu, who should have been in the headquarters, happened to be somewhere else and was not caught?
If a division or even one of the police forces in another city or on the front line turned back and marched here, they had no way to stop them.
Of course, the coup army argued this way.
The lower-ranking officers who actually commanded the troops, such as captains and majors, were not all captured because of the risk of leaking plans, but they were not very fond of this war that the military regime participated in.
The military regime boasted that they could restore Greater Romania soon, but they were disappointed by Germany’s interference in domestic affairs and forced deportation of Jews who were once their neighbors, and by the poor command of senior commanders.
If the coup army asked them to surrender and switch sides with the king in front, there would be many people who would do so!
“Your Majesty, and you generals. May we make a suggestion?”
“Oh, please do. I would like to hear your opinion.”
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