The Start Of War I

-- MARCH 3, UNIFIED YEAR 1923, RHEINLAND DISPUTED TERRITORIES, BORDER FRONT.--

Yuri took a stone-hard cookie from a small paper package and bit on it with his teeth to chip off a small piece from it.

Well, they were supposed to be a sugar deliverer, but it was more like some dried-up bread with a taste that was less than optimal, if not straight up disgusting like eating something rotten.

The Empire sure had to change the quality at some point. MRE's are a must to keep an army going.

Just from the fact how much money they actually waste on this subpar stuff gives Yuri a headache in regard to economics.

The quality was basically non-existent and yet the General Staff still invested a lot of money in it. It was a rather inefficient business in an otherwise rather smooth bureaucracy.

At least for an age without personal computers and constant material flow through near 99% motorization of everything.

So, back to the rations and quality of the food. The very least they could do is make sure it is edible and preservable, for crying out loud.

Sighing with a solemn expression, his mouth went on ahead to take another bite.

"Urgh, these things are freaking stones..." Each chewing motion made a crisp sound that others could hear from nearby when they were close enough.

Looking to the side he could see his fellow soldiers busying themselves after he gave them some orders. At least when they actually had something to do. Otherwise, he made sure they kept their vigilance to some degree.

It was hard to tell people not to get bored while constantly looking into the air. But at the same time, it was not something anyone should complain. There were no hard training regiments besides repositioning training and emergency tests that Yuri made them do just for the case.

Being on that topic, Yuri himself was also currently sitting on an ammunition box. It was the only place inside a barely fortified trench that was not the hard muddy ground. He was currently doing some scouting.

The reason is that lately the atmosphere as a whole seemed to have dropped and it became rather tense. And he could see more soldiers he never met before coming to the front replacing the old ones he had somehow trained to keep up what they were supposed to do.

Somehow he had the impression General Staff placed him here to keep training greenhorns at the upmost front.

Hell, he himself still waited for his damn mage training course. Those bastards still haven't said anything about that. And to make things worse his mood was lately swinging up and down. It seems puberty is an ass to him as well.

At least there was a letter of approval to measure his mana capacity in 3 months' time.

Hissing he spat the hard crumbs that could not be softened enough by him at the ground. That made the other newer soldiers look at him with suspicious eyes as if he was some exotic animal again.

That right there was a behavior that ticked him off lately. His own gaze went over to those people and with those cold eyes he had and the clear glare they, sure enough, averted their attention.

Those that knew Yuri only smiled wrily at the behavior from the new guys.

Sure, he was a child soldier and looked way too young to be in the military but he was still annoyed for them thinking that...

No...he had to keep calm. It is his body that is doing him no favor. Most of the time he is even the most relaxed person in this entire platoon of soldiers. And that while being at one of the utmost dangerous fronts if a war broke out.

Little did he know that those soldiers were more surprised about him chewing the nasty food without much of an expression made it into a weird misunderstanding.

Yes, he did complain, but he still ate without care. And that made his image that had already been spreading around the soldiers even more into that of a cold drillmaster.

It had actually to be noted that some people even vomited after getting hit by food poisoning through a product. For example, a potato that probably had been lying around far too long and developed poison inside.

Some of those cases of food poisoning even had to be sent back home to recover. Yuri wondered if he had to ever write a decommission letter for one of his soldiers to get back because he had a bad stomach ache?

Just the thought was ridiculous. At least he was lucky that it was only happening to others and their guys. Yuri even made sure to educate them when to throw away food that is inedible.

That by the way soon turned into basic survival know-how of what plants to eat and so on. That expertise was still in its infant stage.

Anyway, after finishing his bare minimum nutrition intake and ignoring the stares he started to concentrate again and took a glimpse over the trench with his binoculars.

Trying to keep his head as low as possible he could still see enough of the events in front of them.

The other side was probably about a little more than 4km away. Deadly 4km that is. Marked with explosives like mines all over the place. And the enemy where he looked at was doing pretty much the same.

With his eyes enhanced with mana, he could easily and for the most part clearly spot 6 different positions that used binoculars looking in their direction as well.

Going back down into his trench he waved a soldier over to himself. For some reason, Yuri felt the atmosphere became even worse. He felt there was something on the rise.

Especially after Yuri had noted that the rear is making large relocations of soldiers at the rear. For what reason he did not yet know. But it made him feel pressured.

When the person finally walked over Yuri took the phone from the massive radio on his back.

"CP, this is Mole 13... Requesting situational report. How is the current situation at the back? Also, when are we going to receive a new supply run? It is already due by 52 whole hours, over..."

*This is CP, the request has been acknowledged. Supplies are already on their way and should arrive shortly. The back is also calm, over.* The voice answered on the other side of the line.

Yuri sighed and frowned deeply. That was basically saying just keep waiting and don't bother asking further about when a relocation is going to happen.

"Understood, over and out." Yuri was clearly displeased now. He had been in this front for far too long. And the barebone information he was getting was dangerously useless.

Why was CP not even telling him, a First Lieutenant who was responsible for 100 men under him, what was going on.

Now Yuri let his brain overwork itself inside his head and soon a possibility came to his mind that was not an assuring one.

Many soldiers were relocated for a while now and the bare minimum of platoons stand here today at the front. It irked Yuri for a while now that he was not chosen to be put back a little like he mentioned.

But what if he was actually needed at the front for exactly that reason? That would mean the General Staff is doing a much bigger move than just substituting a few fresh recruits with veterans.

'Don't tell me we are at war with another nation and that is why soldiers are being relocated?'

That was the conclusion he finally arrived at.

The Information about the political tension between the nations was already something that Yuri had prior knowledge of from his own research and his spies.

After all, his own birthplace ended up being overthrown so he had to take drastic actions to increase spy networks monitoring the governments.

'It couldn't be the Russy...They are still not completely done stabilizing. Then the Entente? But relocating a large portion of the main force away from the bigger threat that the Francois Republic is posing is stupid...'

Right, did he mention everything was otherwise rather well-coordinated in the Gerun Empire?

Well, for some reason Yuri stumbled upon more than one occasion where bureaucracy somehow ended up having no brain or was simply slacking off.

This was one of those occasions, where unclear information, is basically making his life a pain in the arse.

*We hasfaejfak....shhhhhhhhhhhhhh~*

Suddenly there was static after he was about to receive the out from CP.

That made his expression even more frowny and he even locked with a slightly confused gaze at the receiver in his hand.

Then he glanced over to the guy responsible for the radio and he only shrugged. Shortly after he kneeled down and looked at the equipment.

"Was that a mistake on their side?", asked Yuri and put the receiver back on the radio.

"No, sir" The guy looking at his radio and shook his head. "Something is jamming our lines...Strange..."

"Wait, what!?" Yuri now got agitated. A signal jam meant nothing good. "Crap."

Looking over the trench hastily with his binoculars showed him a horrifying picture.

Thousands of soldiers were running over the dirty mud and coming closer.

"Shit! Everyone, get to your guns! On the double!!" Just when he said that a shot flew past his head. "Return fire immediately! We have confirmed an aggressive act of trespassing of our borders and first shots were fired!! You have permission to retaliate!"

Everyone was shocked and those soldiers that were under Yuri's command longer were the first ones to act in a fast manner. Stationary dug-in machine guns were manned and started spraying back their ammunition against the incoming wave of soldiers.

Everything that moved in front of them was soon met with that deadly rain of bullets.

Yuri grabbed the shoulder of the radio guy who was still in shock. That was normal for greenhorns. Not many expected to land at the utmost front right at the start of a war.

"Move further to the back! Get a signal back to CP! They need to get informed, ASAP!! And we need to know what the fuck is going on!! Now! Get moving!!"

Yuri guessed already that this was blatant aggression and basically a declaration of war. Looks like his thoughts seemed to hold some truth in them. He already cursed this outcome.

Somehow even while the empire kept their own soldiers mostly in the dark, the Francois Republic found out about it and started attacking to take this opportunity.

The empire probably thought to keep panic and tension low at the southwestern front because they probably think of dealing with that as fast as possible.

It was such a stupid move, for crying out loud. You do not neglect another enemy just because they couldn't be it.

Yuri just hoped it was not the Rus Union attacking. Because then this would be a total war scenario right at the get-go. And what exactly happened that this ended up like this?

Well, thinking about that right now was no use. He had to focus on defend right now. Taking his rifle he started shooting the soldiers running at them.

Some people inside his trench got shot when they tried to look further up than they should have. Others got hit by some unlucky grenade throw - damn greenhorns.

But otherwise, the first attack was repelled well enough until a retreat from the enemy was issued and it became a standoff at the trenches again.

"Okay! Move those guns now. Like I told you, do it in the order I have taught you! Move, move!" Yuri did not wait to let everything calm down easily.

He already ordered the heavy machine guns to be relocated to other places.

And that was done because something happened that he did predict beforehand. Soon after the human wave, a salve of artillery fire rained on the places where they had been previously.

Most of the soldiers that were now entrenched further back were grateful about this tactic. But it also meant losing land to the enemy and soon having to fight them inside the trenches.

And that fear proved to be placed rightfully. The second wave managed to drop some soldiers into their own trenches that were not occupied and fight started inside the trenches.

After defending wave after wave with significant counts of casualties, it started to tire them out. Retreats became more and more often used.

They were the first defense on this battlefield and that was a clear death sentence if they did not use this elastic defense.

Lives mattered more than just bullets. Yuri knew that well enough. So he kept giving one order after the other to keep defense as tight as possible while also keeping a retreat in mind.

"Sir, we have contact with CP! It looks like we have been overrun at more than one place!" The radio guy held a handgun and shouted to Yuri.

"Then get a request going for a tactical retreat. We need to get out of these barely fortified trenches! And where is our rear support!?"

Just when he said that an explosion sounded above their heads and they saw an empire mage falling down from the sky into their trench.

Yuri grit his teeth in annoyance. In the sky, the mages were not even moving at all. That was like asking for being shot down. At least use evasive maneuvers, you idiots.

"Our aerial mages are being picked clean from the sky. What did they even learn at training!?"

"Sir, there is a large assault incoming! We can't repel it anymore! We are running low on ammunition!" A soldier shouted while shooting the machine gun.

Yuri ran over to the dead mage's body and looked at the equipment. Letting some mana flow into it, he could feet it is still being operational.

"Help me out here." He started stripping the gear from the dead soldier's body with the help of the radio guy and then slowly got equipped with it himself.

"I will buy some time! And you better survive while retreating!", said Yuri and activated the computation orb. He had some trouble figuring out how propelling worked in this thing because he still had no training but at some point, he managed to hover lightly.

"But sir, this..." A soldier was unsure and asking for confirmation.

"I said retreat back to heavier entrenched positions!! Now, go!! This is an order, soldier!!" After shouting loudly with his voice increased through mana he put on the aviator googles and shot upwards into the sky.