General Courtois, who has set up his headquarters in Bacau, has been very anxious recently, and the reason for his anxiety is a telegram requesting help from Major General Antic who is fighting in the defense of Suceava. Major General Antic, who he has high hopes for,
Begging, a rescue telegram was sent on the ninth day of the Suceava defense.
In the telegram, Major General Antic reported the results of his victory to the superior general. Within nine days of the defensive operation, the Suceava defenders suffered 24,000 casualties to the attacking German army at the cost of 56,000 casualties. This article is full of information.
In the telegram reporting his battle results, Antici placed his own casualties in the most conspicuous position, obviously hoping that the general would notice the huge casualties of the Suceava defenders.
The experienced General Courtois could not see the intention of Major General Antic, but Antiqi wanted to retreat, which would disrupt the general's plan. And Major General Antiqi knew the general's intention and still sent this message.
It was obvious that he was really unable to withstand it, but he was still smart enough to propose a retreat plan through a telegram reporting the results of the battle, which made the Admiral feel very troubled. So for the sake of stability, Admiral Courtois asked others to
Regardless of opinions, Lieutenant General Andrew, who had just been transferred to his deputy, was obviously a suitable person.
"Antiqi is going to be overwhelmed in Suceava. I want to ask your opinion."
In his office, the grey-haired and somewhat tired General asked Lieutenant General Anderson sitting opposite.
Lieutenant General Anderson was a little embarrassed when he saw the exhausted general on his face asking his question. Because he had only arrived in Bacau with the train of the Sixth Division for a day and had a preliminary understanding of the basic situation, General Courtois asked now
How could he answer his own views on the war situation, so...
After much consideration, Lieutenant General Anderson expressed his opinion. "Your Majesty, General, I think we need to know whether Major General Antic can continue the defensive operation. If not, then we need to consider where to withdraw, and what's more?
The problem of enemy pursuit."
Speaking of this, the figure of Marshal Mackensen appeared in Lieutenant General Anderson's mind, and he also had some serious considerations about this prestigious Marshal Anderson.
Anderson's words did not give the general much hint. The old general smiled and said, "Antic sent me a telegram. He kept saying that the German attack put a lot of pressure on him. He obviously wanted reinforcements or permission.
He retreated. However, it can be seen from the current battle in Suceava that our newly formed troops suffered heavy casualties when facing the German attack, and it was difficult to reinforce them."
The general said it very euphemistically. In fact, it is difficult to reinforce here, but it is impossible to do so. Because according to intelligence, in addition to the German troops attacking the city, Suceava also hides other troops. If reinforcements are sent, then the troops
It is very likely that you will be defeated halfway. You must know that your opponent is a master of mobile warfare. So what about retreat? This is also a difficult problem. Where to retreat, whether it can be withdrawn, and how to arrange the supporting troops are all problems. If there is no supporting force,
Then it would be difficult for the Suceava defenders to escape the German pursuit. If they wanted to respond, the problem would be the same as before.
Such a passive situation was caused by him, Pleshan and others underestimating the combat effectiveness of the German army and overestimating the combat effectiveness of the mobilization divisions. This can be seen from his previous combat plan. In order to reduce losses at the beginning, Kuhl
General Tuva arranged a garrison of 100,000 troops in Suceava, trying to turn it into a fortress city to resist the German army.
But this city, which is equipped with troops and commanders he recognized, has not even been defended for ten days, but now it complains to him and hopes to be evacuated. How can this not frighten the general? According to his plan, this city can be defended.
After a month, when the attacking German army was tired, he led the assembled army to force the enemy to withdraw to relieve the siege, or to fight them here.
The prerequisite for completing his plan is that the Suceava garrison needs to tire the enemy. But at present, let alone the enemy is tired, it will be fine if the garrison does not collapse due to too many casualties, but forget about the tired enemy.
, so the admiral is now somewhat helpless in facing this situation.
Lieutenant General Anderson considered this and said, "In this case, evacuation is probably the only option."
"Evacuate?"
Hearing Anderson's words, General Courtois smiled bitterly and said, "There is no problem in evacuating the defenders of Suceava, but Homann and Iasi are still a little unprepared to face the German attack next."
The admiral's words made Lieutenant General Anderson puzzled and asked, "What's going on?"
As the deputy chief of staff, Anderson still had memories of the allocated supplies. I remember that they seemed to be distributed in full. Could it be that the Transportation Department had supplies that were not delivered?
Facing Anderson's inquiry, Admiral Courtois explained the reason. In fact, all the originally allocated materials had arrived, and it was the Admiral who had re-allocated them himself.
Because of Suceava's important position in the general's plan, many military supplies and weapons that should be allocated to Homan and Yasi were secretly allocated to the defenders of Suceava. Therefore, when the defenders of Suceava
After being unable to stop the enemy's offensive, the General now realized that he had done a stupid thing.
After listening to the reasons given by General Courtois, Anderson also had a headache. At this moment, he suddenly felt that the general in front of him was old and couldn't keep up with his thinking, but this idea only flashed in his mind.
However, this issue involves too much, and it is not something that a young lieutenant general like him can talk about. It is what he should do to care about the development of the war situation.
Lieutenant General Anderson spoke after thinking about the gains and losses. "Admiral, we can only let Major General Antici take the garrison of Suceava to evacuate now."
"Why?"
Faced with Admiral Courtois' inquiry, Anderson patiently explained. "According to the Suceava battle report you showed me, I found that the defenders suffered too many casualties. Now we cannot dispatch troops to rescue them. In order to prevent collapse
It will only force them to evacuate."
After hearing Anderson's words, Admiral Courtois expressed the question he had been anxious about for a long time. "In this case, the defenders will have no way to escape the enemy's pursuit."
As a defeated defender with no supporting troops and in plain terrain, it is easy for the enemy to catch up and annihilate it. This is basic common sense. Obviously Lieutenant General Anderson must have this common sense, and he must have had his own considerations in making such a decision.
.
"The reason why I am doing this is to let the Suceava garrison withdraw to Iasi."
"Yasi?"
"That's right, it's Iasi." Anderson explained his reasons to the battle map. "Now it is obvious that the Suceava defenders can only evacuate in two directions: west and south. To the west is the Carpathian Mountains and there are
Whether the supply point has been repaired or not, it is not advisable to retreat here to basically let the defenders say goodbye to this battle. Then it is to evacuate to the south. There are two evacuation points, Homan and Iasi. Two of them are about the same distance, and Homan
Those who are closest to us can get our support. But Iasi needs to rely on themselves."
Anderson's words reminded General Courtois, who took over the Lieutenant General's words and said, "So the Suceava defenders cannot evacuate to our side, because Mackensen's target is us, and if they evacuate to us, they will definitely be chased.
Up. It would be much better to evacuate to Iasi, because if we are not on the same line with them, the enemy will have to divide their forces. In addition, Iasi was the center of our defense against Russia before, and there are not many fortifications. It is difficult to capture it.
It’s easy, so evacuating to Iasi is the best result.”
"Yes, Your Excellency."
When General Courtois expressed his thoughts, Lieutenant General Anderson agreed. "Actually, my idea is more to consider how much the enemy attaches importance to our assembled troops in Bacau. If they don't attach importance to it, then they can only count on it."
Major General Antic’s commanding ability.”
"But we're going to take a gamble."
A telegram approving the evacuation was quickly sent to Suceava, and the defenders of Suceava, who had been exhausted from defending the German attack, breathed a sigh of relief. The huge casualties had already made the defenders breathless, and now they could finally evacuate.
Therefore, after ten days of fighting to defend Suceava, the defenders, led by Major General Antic, evacuated towards Iasi. The German troops who captured Suceava immediately reported to Marshal Mackensen whether they were allowed to pursue the enemy's defeated army.
"There is no need to pursue. After this period of fighting, the enemy's mobilization divisions are not a big threat to us. As long as they dare to leave the turtle shell, we can sweep them away like fallen leaves."
Marshal Mackensen looked at the position of Bacau on the map and said, "On the contrary, the troops assembled here are the elite of the Romanians. Only by defeating them can the enemy's will to fight be broken."
