Re: Blood and Iron

Smoke rose from Seoul as sirens blared across the distance. The Imperial Japanese Army Air Corps had been mustered and was in the sky. Its planes spiraled toward the earth below at terminal velocity.

And those were the ones not disintegrated before their smoldering wreckages crashed into the city’s streets. Artillery rocked the world, and those who lived within it.

Gunfire raged, fiercer, and fierce, and then softer. Until. Finally, only a few crackles here and there could be heard. Like the pitter patter of a storm in its final moments.

Then finally silence. The spring of 1932 brought with it a fierce offensive by the Russians in the North, who had spent the last year mobilizing 250,000 additional men to support what remained of the initial 100,000 who crossed into the Korean peninsula in the fall of 1929.

Time and again the Japanese refused to surrender, fighting until the last man, the last bullet fired, and the last blade in hand. It caused significant enough casualties, and an expense of resources so monumental that Russia was forced to halt its advance and wait for resupply time and again.

Despite their advanced technology and massive industrial output, transporting logistics across the entire Asian continent took time.

Because of this, the Imperial Russian Army had simply not fell upon the Japanese like a fierce tidal wave of steel and lead.

Instead, minimizing casualties through advanced tactics learned from the Germans and the advisors sent to ensure that the Russians had properly integrated with Bruno’s doctrine.

Major General Georgy Zhukov had been given the task of taking Seoul, and he now walked in its streets.

The Imperial Japanese Army which defended the occupied city lie dead in the streets, not a single one willing to surrender. To do so would be to dishonor their fallen emperor.

By his side was a German face of a lower rank. A German Colonel, he wore his winter coat, as the snow hat yet to entirely clear in the region. Gazing upon the destruction and death with a pitiful gaze.

“They really do not give up, do they? A pity… No matter how valiant and courageous they meet their end, they will inevitably be overwhelmed. We have superior weapons, superior tactics, and superior logistics. But most importantly, we have complete and total command of the air.”

Zhukov turned to the man, who was five years his senior, and yet a lower rank in his own nation’s armed forces. He was quick to look him up and down, noticing the many medals that had been one during the man’s service during the Great War.

“And tell me, Colonel Rommel, If you understand the situation so well, why are you not yet a general? Here you are serving as an attaché to my army, instead of commanding your own forces in the South Pacific.”

Rommel sighed as he warmed his gloved hands by rubbing them together and breathing on them.

“With no disrespect, the situation in the German Army is quite different from your own. We have generations of talent vying for positions in the General staff. I am but one of many who could qualify. You? You are one of few Russia has to offer who is remotely comparable to our average colonel.”

Zhukov narrowed his gaze at Rommel’s words. The arrogance of the Germans never ceased to astound him. And Rommel could tell the man was not happy, quickly pointing to a destroyed E-25 tank that had suffered a direct hit from a Japanese tank mine while crossing through an entrenched position.

“Case in point… In this battle alone you lost 39 armored vehicles, half of them immobilized by mines you failed to detect, the rest due to poor tactical spacing. You called it a necessary loss. In Germany, that would be called mid-sized incompetence.”

Zhukov’s jaw stiffened. “The Japanese are fanatics. They’ve booby-trapped entire neighborhoods, buried mines beneath children’s toys. You’d have done no better.”

Rommel tilted his head, amused. “You think so? I would have pulled back the moment my scouts reported urban saturation. Let the city starve. Bomb the water mains. Wait for the rats to turn on the living. But you Russians? You always insist on taking the hard way; like you’re afraid to win unless it costs you blood.”

Zhukov stepped closer. “We took the city, didn’t we?”

“Yes,” Rommel said simply, his hands still warming in his coat. “And at the rate you’re burning through materiel, you’ll take another six months to push past Daejeon. Maybe longer. Your Emperor will be pleased… until he sees the ledger.”

Silence.

Snow drifted down, beginning to layer itself over the blackened corpses in the rubble.

Rommel turned and began walking down the broken boulevard, his boots crunching glass and ash.

Zhukov followed a moment later, slower, his voice cold.

“You may look down on my army, Rommel. But we are learning. We’ve adapted more in five years than your generals thought possible. And with each new campaign, we’ll match you.”

Rommel didn’t turn around.

“You’re imitating,” he said. “And imitation always lags behind the original.”

At that, Zhukov laughed bitterly. “Is that why you’re here? To supervise the copycat?”

Rommel stopped.

Then, calmly, without venom,

“I’m here to make sure you don’t embarrass us.”

Zhukov blinked. “Us?”

“You think the West believes Russia could have taken Korea alone? The rifles you use, the planes you fly, the tanks you march so carelessly into landmines and entrenched anti-tank guns. It was all licensed from us.”

Rommel began to pace about the snow, looking at the corpses, Russian and Japanese alike, the bombed-out houses, the flaming wreckages of armored vehicles that scattered the ash laced snow, and then he stopped.

“Your doctrine is a pale imitation of what our marshal developed. And it shows with your losses that even after nearly fifteen years of working together, you don’t quite understand what we have taught you.”

He looked up to the sky, where Russian manufactured BF-109s licensed from Germany took a victory lap as if to prove his point for him, and sighed.

“No. Every time you win, they say: ‘The Germans must have helped.’ Every time you lose, they say: ‘Even the Germans couldn’t save them.’ That is the burden of your alliance with Berlin.”

Rommel stepped forward again. “Enjoy the glory while you have it. But don’t confuse survival with victory.”

Zhukov said nothing. His breath steamed in the cold, but he no longer felt the chill.

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