Chapter 181: Polish Campaign (End)

"I have three ambitions. The first is that I have the final say in national affairs; the second is to lead the army to attack distant countries, capture their monarchs and punish them in front of me; the third is to marry all the most beautiful women in the world, regardless of whether they are close or distant."

This means: I have the final say in national affairs, this is the first; I will also lead the army to attack hostile countries, capture their monarchs and punish them in front of me, this is the second; collect all the beauties in the world to be my wives and concubines, this is the third.

This sentence came from the mouth of Hailing King Wanyan Liang, which can be said to be his life ambition. Regardless of Wanyan Liang's character, his ambition is quite grand. Power, strength, and beauty are the highest ideals of a king or even an ancient person.

Yannick found that he had achieved the second one. If he wanted to achieve the third one, it should be easy to do with his current identity, status, and reputation, but he loved the country more than the beauty and could restrain himself.

"Extra! Extra! The Polish president and marshal have been escorted to Berlin and will be tried soon!"

"Come and see! Warsaw has been occupied! Great victory!"

German newspapers reported the news that the Polish president and marshal were taken back to Berlin for trial, and the whole country was in unprecedented joy.

The people were most proud of the strength of their motherland, but no one expected that the empire would become so powerful after twenty years of suffering. In just half a month, the main force of the "first military power in Eastern Europe" was defeated, not only the enemy's capital was captured, but also its president and marshal were captured.

The British and French were stunned by Germany's magical operation. After they recovered, they almost jumped up and severely reprimanded Germany and Romania, angrily denouncing their behavior as violating international morality. They ordered Germany to immediately release the arrested persons and hand over the 800 tons of gold seized.

The Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs still used the "extradition treaty" as an excuse to prevaricate, and the German diplomatic department was too lazy to pay attention to them. Goebbels only published an article to despise the mean behavior of Britain and France.

Britain and France were tough in words, but they still did not dare to take the initiative to attack Germany, because they still pinned their hopes on Germany defeating Poland and continuing to move eastward to fight the Soviet Union.

But why was the Soviet Union so disappointing that it had not even broken through the border defense line until now, while Germany was advancing by leaps and bounds. If the Polish government successfully fled to Britain, the British would even let the exiled government order the Polish Eastern Front troops to retreat and let the Soviets in.

Unfortunately, the entire Polish government agency has been intercepted by Germany. Even if the British wanted to help the Soviet Union, they could not help, and could only worry from afar.

Speaking of the Soviet Union, Yannick was also quite speechless. The German army had now broken through Wiszkow in the east of Warsaw. He even specifically ordered to stop advancing and rest and replenish supplies on the spot, just to wait for the Soviet Union to break through the defense line and advance westward.

Let's not talk about the long distance, at least we have to push through the Katyn Forest. Otherwise, where did the Katyn Massacre come from for him to make a fuss about?

I don't know whether the soldiers on the Eastern Front (Poland) are too brave or the Soviets are too useless. It has been half a month and the Soviet army has not even been able to break through the border defense line. I thought that after exposing the lies of Voroshilov and Yezhov, Stalin would send a more powerful person to continue the attack, but unexpectedly Stalin launched a new round of purges. The offensive on the Western Front was stranded and no one paid attention. Yannick deeply realized what it means to be self-defeating. But this can't be blamed on him, after all, there was no such purge in the original time and space.

The current situation is that the Poles have no spare energy to launch a counterattack, and the Soviets have not received orders to continue the attack; the two sides are just staring at each other.

And the "letters of request for battle" from the front-line soldiers with high fighting spirit here are like snowflakes, floating in. For a time, the mail management office of the headquarters was filled with letters of request for battle from various troops. Even Rundstedt had approached Yannick several times, trying to find out why Yannick had stopped the frontline troops.

Reluctantly, Yannick gave the order to continue the attack.

The German army, which had held back its strength and received sufficient supplies, advanced more than 100 kilometers in one breath, and was only more than 100 kilometers away from the Soviet-Polish border.

The commanders of the Polish cluster on the eastern front of Poland were not having an easy time either. Although they had blocked the Soviets on the opposite side, the Germans behind them were pressing forward step by step. Maybe in two days, the muzzles of the enemy's guns would be against their backs. It was simply a situation of jackals in front and hungry tigers behind. In addition, they had completely lost their backing, and it was only a matter of time before they ran out of ammunition and food.

So they started to think carefully. The demise of Poland was a foregone conclusion, and they had nowhere to escape. After all, there were only a few countries adjacent to Poland, the Soviet Union, Romania, Czechoslovakia, and Germany; they had heard about the fate of those government agencies that fled to Romania from the radio. Although they were somewhat indignant about Romania's despicable behavior, they also silently said "It's what they deserve!" to the arrested president and marshal.

After all, their soldiers fought hard on the front line, but these guys sneaked away without even saying hello? So do they deserve to stay here and wait for death?

Rather than fighting a trapped beast and dying sooner or later, it is better to surrender early, and maybe you can get some practical surrender conditions.

The tentative proposal of Slawklakovsky, commander of the Rovno Army Group, was unanimously agreed by several other commanders.

Now the remaining question is where to surrender.

The Soviet Union?

Several commanders scoffed at this. After all, these Soviets couldn't even break through their defenses. It would be shameful to surrender to them.

That left only Germany.

After reaching a consensus, these commanders sent messengers to the German army more than 100 kilometers away to discuss surrender. Because they still had more than 400,000 soldiers under their command, they felt that they had enough bargaining chips. The conditions they put forward were a sum of money, an official position, and the retention of their own guards.

The German army drove the messengers back and conquered Boczyki. At this time, it was better to say that the other party surrendered voluntarily than to say it was conquered.

Several commanders discussed and sent messengers again. This time they reduced their appetite and only asked for a large sum of money and an unimportant official position.

But these messengers were driven back again, and the German army advanced another 30 kilometers.

On the same day, Julius Rommel, the former commander of the Lodz Army Group in Poland, announced the establishment of a provisional government in German-occupied Poland in Warsaw, with him as the head of the provisional government. Because President Mościcki and Marshal Smigły took all their relatives and confidants with them when they fled, no one raised any objections. Of course, no one dared to raise any objections, after all, the German prisoner-of-war camps would not be too crowded.

Julius Rommel's first order after taking office was Poland's unconditional surrender.

The army commanders finally realized that they had very few chips left, and this time they only asked for their personal safety.

The German army was already close at this time, and they accepted the conditions of these army commanders, ordered all their soldiers to lay down their weapons, and then assisted the German army in setting up prisoner-of-war camps and locked themselves in.

Then the German army that came in a steady stream took over the Polish defense line.

The 18-day Polish Campaign came to an end, and the German army occupied "most" of the Polish land, while the Soviet army only advanced five kilometers from the launch of the offensive to the end of the campaign.