Origins: The Reich (16 page)

Gallono stood tall
on the rear engine block of a Panzer II tank holding a set of binoculars to his eyes.  Through the lenses he saw a small Belgian town spanning both sides of the Meuse River with an old stone bridge crossing the flowing waters near the town’s central square.  He cringed when he saw the Belgian forces had already destroyed a fifty-foot section of the bridge; they were too late.

Speed was everything in this campaign.  Ever since the Great War ended, France had poured an ungodly amount of resources into fortifying their two hundred mile border with Germany.  Now, twenty years later, this endless series of fortresses and bunkers, dubbed the Maginot Line, stood as an almost indestructible barrier.  Going through the Maginot Line would be suicide, but it baffled Gallono that they never considered that the Germans would simply go around it.

The previously neutral nations of Luxemburg, Belgium and the Netherlands shared a collective border with France stretching over two hundred miles and sat almost undefended.  If the German army could punch through those three nations to reach France before the defenders had time to reposition and dig in, Gallono felt certain the entire nation would fall within a month’s time.

Luxemburg naturally fell in the first day since the tiny country had no military to speak of and was only twenty miles wide from end to end.  German forces made quick work of the Netherlands by taking advantage of their crushing air superiority; the Luftwaffe practically took the nation singlehandedly.  Belgium, though, was proving to be an altogether different experience.

Hitler, Tomal, and the entire German Central Command bought off on Gallono’s Blitzkrieg tactics for individual assaults, but they failed to employ them in the greater strategic vision of the war.  German forces smashed through the Belgian frontline in the first day, but then burned precious time keeping the infantry and armor divisions moving as one rather than taking advantage of the speed and power of the tank divisions.

As a result, the Belgian army kept reestablishing their line of defense over and over for the Germans to bang into and pay a heavy price in manpower, supplies, and machinery.  All the while, they slowed the German advance and jeopardized their chances of beating the French reinforcements to the border.

By the third day of the campaign, Gallono could clearly see where the German offensive could falter.  The Meuse River effectively sliced right down the middle of Belgium.  If their forces could retreat behind the river and blow all the bridges, the Germans would not reach France in time.  This would turn a lightning quick conquest into a prolonged siege that would last many years; just like the Great War, which did not end well for Germany.  Knowing this, he defied orders and pressed on deep into Belgian territory without infantry support in a desperate attempt to reach the nearest bridge before its destruction.

Gallono’s 7th panzer division covered twenty-three miles in less than a day, but still wasn’t quick enough.  The bridge was already blown and Belgian forces, not content to only impede the German advance, were fortifying the town.  Across the river, he spotted no fewer than fifteen machine gun nests among the buildings, and several tall church towers that no doubt housed sniper teams.  On the ground, several anti-tank cannons and artillery positions were already in place with more in the process of construction. 

Those mighty guns would tear Gallono’s tanks to shreds before they reached decent firing range, and the enemy firepower was growing by the minute.  Within a few hours, this little town would be nearly impossible to take without sustaining crippling losses.

Gallono jumped down from his spotting perch to rejoin his officers huddled around a temporary folding table with maps of the surrounding area splayed across.  “Is it possible to cross the river to the north or south?  That way we can just leave this mess for the trailing infantry columns and their artillery pieces to handle.”

“I’m afraid not,” Gallono’s lead engineer reported with regret.  “We only have twenty pontoon bridge sections with us.  The river grows too wide away from the town.  They are defending this spot with everything they have for a reason.”

Gallono let loose a frustrated sigh.  If he had been in charge of this campaign, they would be at the French border sipping wine and sampling exotic cheeses by now.  Tomal had more than enough pull with Central Command to have gotten Gallono the command, yet he did not deliver.  He was not sure why, but he had an educated guess.

Tomal was showing his true colors once more in a selfish grab for power and influence.  Gallono’s highly successful Blitzkrieg tactic had made him a legend among the soldiers, and Tomal’s ego could not handle it.  The little worm subordinated him under General Hoth so that a watered down version of Blitzkrieg could be forced upon him to discredit the tactic and damage Gallono’s reputation.

He feared Tomal could no longer see the end game of uniting Europe under one banner to press their collective resources into development projects in order for them to reach the Alpha base on Mars with destructive force.  Gallono supposed it was inevitable; suppression of the man’s megalomania was impossible to maintain for very long.  That, however, was an issue for another day.  Right now Gallono had a bridge to take.

“Raise General Hoth on the radio,” Gallono ordered.  “A concentrated effort by the Luftwaffe and their dive bombers should clear the town enough for our engineers to build a temporary bridge.”

After a few moments the radio operator announced, “General Hoth is on the line, sir,” and handed Gallono the receiver.

“General Hoth, my tanks stand ready to take a bridge crossing the Meuse River but we need air support to accomplish the objective.  The defenders are digging in as I speak; we need to move quickly,” Gallono reported.

He heard faint, unintelligible sounds coming from speakers, but the volume was too soft to make out the words.  “Turn that up,” Gallono commanded, then depressed the thumb lever on the receiver to interrupt his commanding officer.  “I’m sorry, General, I was unable to hear your last.  Please say again.”

“I said your request for an airstrike is denied, our planes are busy covering our main advance.  Besides, forcing an assault without infantry support is reckless, dangerous, and would expose our entire northern flank.  Now sit tight and wait for the infantry and their artillery divisions to arrive.  That’s an order,” came a gruff reply that everyone within fifty feet of the table heard loud and clear.

It was all Gallono could do not to crush the radio receiver in his hand.  These old guard generals like Hoth still fought wars as if it was 1920: focus artillery to soften the enemy, hit the line with a battering ram of tanks, mop up with infantry, reorganize and repeat until all of your men or the defenders were dead; whichever came first.  Hoth’s old guard instincts played right into Tomal’s treachery.  Gallono needed to do something to save the war effort and his reputation so that he would still have enough pull to keep Tomal on track and in line.

Gallono looked upon the dejected faces of his officer corps standing around the table with nothing to do except look across the river at the stiffening enemy defenses.  They knew that sooner or later, they would have to throw themselves against those defenses and the prospect sickened them to the core.  These soldiers wanted to move now, not wait.  This gave Gallono the confidence to say into his handset.   “I’m sorry, General, your message is breaking up here in the field.  I heard ‘your request is approved’.  Please confirm.”

He looked at the radio operator, gave a throat slashing motion with his left hand, and tossed the handset to him with his right.  Gallono heard a string of obscenities from the radio before the operator ended the transmission, which left all eyes on him.

“We have orders to take that bridge,” Gallono declared.  “Did anyone hear any different?”

The only reply was nothing but smiles from his officers.  This prompted him to issue orders for a plan he had pulled together only minutes before while looking through his binoculars at the riverfront.

An hour later thick, black columns of smoke obscured the entire riverfront as the thatched roofs of thirty houses along the water’s edge were fully engulfed in flames.  Upon seeing this, the enemy opened firing into the town’s center.  They continued nonstop, but had little effect on the approaching tanks as they were firing blindly through the smoke.  Gallono managed to get sixty of his tanks up to the riverfront and only lost two in the process. 

As a unified force, the tanks emerged from the smokescreen to pull right up along the riverbank and blast the defensive emplacements from point blank range.  While the carnage along the riverfront took place, Gallono personally led a team of engineers to the water and began constructing a pontoon bridge.

The one hundred foot expanse of river required twelve flat-bottomed pontoons with broad and sturdy interlocking metal plates to span the shores.  Once they were in place, it was necessary to latch the flotillas together to form a temporary bridge sturdy enough to handle tanks and fully loaded transport trucks.  The trick was laying and assembling the pieces while under constant fire from the enemy.

They worked feverishly to assemble the bridge alongside the stone footings of the actual bridge.  This gave added stability to the temporary floating bridge, and to some degree obstructed the enemy’s line of fire.  The Belgian machine gunners attempted to reposition for a better firing angle on the engineers, but found Gallono’s tanks blasting away from the shoreline a great hindrance to that end.

They dropped two pontoon sections of the bridge into the water with a team of ten engineers using a set of guide ropes to move the sections into position where they were latched together.  A transport truck then backed onto the partially assembled bridge section, dumped its pontoon load, and drove off while the engineers guided the new section into place.

This process went like clockwork with five bridge sections complete, but then the inevitable happened.  A machine gun nest in the second story window of a house across the river opened fire.  Gallono watched a long string of tracer rounds walk up the river waters to find five engineers struggling with a guideline.  They went down along with another man working to latch the bridge section into position.  Within seconds, three tanks adjusted their aim and leveled the house along with its deadly contents, but the damage was done.

The now untethered section of bridge crashed against the main body, and spun out into the middle of the river where the current carried it away along with the bodies of six dead Germans.

“Next section,” Gallono shouted to his frightened soldiers.  These were the first casualties any of them had witnessed up close, and it had them understandably shaken.  “Come on; get that next truck onto the bridge!  We have work to do.  Team B, you’re up.”

Not content with simply giving the order for his men to risk their lives, Gallono stepped up onto the bridge and led the truck up to the edge.  There he remained as the bridge section splashed into the water and his obedient engineering team B handled the guide ropes.  As soon as that section was in place, Gallono worked the chain links to secure it into position.

When he finished the task, Gallono stood up only to have his helmet knocked off his head by a sniper round.  He could barely see strait after the impact, but he had to move fast or risk another potentially deadly shot. 

Gallono dove up onto the bridge deck, rolled twice until he got his knees under him and sprang to his feet.  Another sniper round sparked off the stone bridge footing in front of him right before he managed to duck behind the stones.  A moment later, the loud blast of a tank cannon rang out and Gallono poked his head around the corner in time to see a church tower blown to pieces.

He felt confident that particular sniper was no more, but as Gallono made his way across the bridge back to shore, he ran hunched over in a zigzag path.  He jumped clear of yet another truck backing onto the bridge when he neared the shore and made his way to his radio operator and shouted into the receiver, “Level every building you see standing over there while the engineers work, absolutely everything!”

The bridge assembly reached completion without any further casualties amid a constant chorus of cannon blasts.  Gallono was in the second tank to cross and directed his forces on that side of the river as they made short work of the town’s remaining defenders.

Other than five tanks, which sustained enough damage to their treads that they could barely move, Gallono’s seventh Panzer division was relatively untouched.  He decided to leave the damaged units to guard the bridgehead and make repairs while the bulk of his division pressed on.

“When the infantry divisions finally arrive, use their radio to report the bridge is taken and we have moved on toward Arras.  Let them know we are making radio repairs and that I intend to use the dive bombers of the Luftwaffe from here on out as our mobile artillery support since the infantry cannot keep up,” Gallono ordered.

The freshly-minted captain Gallono placed in command of the bridge defenders looked ready to vomit at the prospect of relaying such inflammatory information to Central Command.  After a few seconds, the twenty-year old gathered his nerve enough to respond, “Yes, sir.”

The response would have been fine except the young officer followed his reply with a crisp straight-armed salute that the Nazi Party and its supporters borrowed from the Romans and were so fond of giving each other these days.  It turned his stomach to see a military man present a civilian’s salute, and Gallono made damned sure the subordinate knew his feelings on the matter.