Iron Cross Fire

Watching his soldiers rushing towards the Russian position like a tide, Kuster was full of expectations.

This is his most elite unit. Following Kuster, he has rolled over the corpses of Russian soldiers one after another and has become an experienced veteran.

In order to cover the infantry, he also smashed all the 900 rockets remaining in the inventory into the Russian positions.

In addition, the defenders in the city will rush out to help him at any time, and there is no reason why this battle cannot be won.

However, bad news came.

After a day of delay, the Russians finally realized that they were being attacked from both sides; they quickly adjusted their battle plan, and their attack began.

About 50,000 Russian troops marched towards the fortress from Jaroslaw (on the west bank of the San River, 25 kilometers north of Przemysl) in an attempt to save the surrounded Russian Army.

This is a very threatening attack. If they succeed, they will unite to break through the defense line, thus jeopardizing the operation to relieve the fortress.

Fortunately, there were 270,000 Austrian troops outside the encirclement, which was enough to deal with the Russian attack.

Kuster, who returned to the headquarters, immediately asked them to detach 20,000 people, coupled with his own 40,000 reserve troops, intending to completely annihilate this Russian army and capture Jaroslaw to better stabilize the war situation.

The Russians are like a swarm of ants, weak and annoying, but once they gather together they are terrifying.

They pulled out 140,000 people from nowhere and were rushing towards the central Austrian army.

The intelligence said that these Russian troops were not even as good as peasant soldiers. They did not have a few guns and only held halberds in their hands. Such troops are here to die.

But they are still a huge threat: they can pick up the guns of dead friendly soldiers, arm themselves and continue fighting.

In other words, they were here to supplement manpower; but at this moment Kuster's attack was so fierce that the Russians had to send these unarmed troops to the front.

Based on the intelligence provided by the Germans, Kuster soon had an idea in mind.

He ordered the two reserve divisions to quickly move forward without carrying any heavy weapons to intercept the Russian advance and prevent them from joining friendly forces.

This is not unreasonable. If that group of Russian troops is allowed to join friendly forces, their combat effectiveness will be greatly enhanced and they will be able to delay for more time.

But their combat effectiveness is very poor when fighting alone. The group of supplementary soldiers has almost no fighting will. They only need to kill a few people and they will be defeated.

After dispatching the troops, Kuster stared at the map from time to time, and looked up at the fortress from time to time. The hand holding the pen was also shaking a little. I really don't know what he was afraid of.

On January 3, the Austrian army, which had been attacking for a day, still failed to clear a road to the fortress.

After just advancing 1 kilometer, they suffered 5,000 casualties, which made Kuster even more nervous.

The battle on the northern front was not very smooth. After all, 60,000 people did not have much numerical advantage compared to 50,000 people. Moreover, they were still the elite of the enemy army, so that by the end of the battle, they had not yet won or lost.

On the southern front, two Austrian divisions successfully stopped the actions of the 140,000 Russian troops. At the same time, the Austrian Third Army also rushed over and surrounded these Russian troops.

In just 4 hours, the Russian army was defeated and collapsed, and the Austrian army also took advantage of the situation to cut off the communication between them.

So far, Russia's counterattacks in both directions have been successfully suppressed by Kuster.

Although they failed to deliver a fatal blow to the Austrian army, they still delayed the Austrian army's attack; in a sense, this could be regarded as fulfilling the expectations of the Russian top brass.

But the fatal thing is that because the Russian army devoted all its reserves to the attack on the Austrian army, they were unable to resist the German army at this moment.

Mackensen's army group was overwhelming and pushed 4 kilometers towards the fortress.

Soldiers from both allies could now see each other.

All they need to do is add fire and overcome the obstacles of the remaining Russian troops, and they will be able to join forces victoriously.

On January 4, after a night of fierce fighting, the German-Austrian forces successfully drove the Russian troops out of the Przemysl area.

The garrison commander came out to receive the two top German and Austrian commanders with a smile on his face, but Kuster was a little disdainful.

Most of the Austrian soldiers in the fortress were covered with scars or even disabled; but he was spotless, which was not what a soldier looked like at all.

However, he was not in the mood to pay attention. After a few simple greetings, he returned to the headquarters.

Due to the successful rescue of Przemysl, Kuster's reputation further rose, and now his status in the hearts of the people was second only to the emperor.

Logically speaking, such reactions must be suppressed.

But the top management did not do this, not only because of the obstruction of Kuster's supporters, but also because of the huge positive effect this battle brought to them.

After the Austro-Hungarian people learned of the victory of the battle, their original gloom was swept away and turned into endless enthusiasm.

They took the initiative to participate in labor or the army, which brought some light to the extremely decadent empire.

But people secretly were very dissatisfied with this for no other reason than that, as Austro-Hungarian separatists, they wanted the empire to fall even more than the Russians.

Therefore, a strange scene appeared in the rear:

One group of people actively joined the army, while another group of people actively engaged in vandalism, vandalism, and looting.

If the military police had not controlled the situation in time, the newspapers might have criticized them tomorrow.

This also affected Kuster in the distance. The empire required him to return to the court within ten days and accept a new appointment.

Although the most critical part of this battle was over, there were too few things that could be done in ten days, which made him a little anxious.

But he also knew that he must not be careless, otherwise all the efforts of the past few months would be in vain.

At this moment, the changes on the front line were very chaotic, and there was not even enough time to draw a new map for the commander to refer to.

If people who did not know the process were not familiar with it, they would probably be surprised: the Austrian army showed a decadent trend a dozen days ago, but now the Austrian army is advancing by leaps and bounds; on the contrary, the Russians are in low morale and are constantly retreating.

Reality does not give people time to think. Now the Austrian offensive has become more fierce, and they are constantly regaining lost territory.

On January 5, the Austrian army recaptured the Gorodok position, and the Russian defense basically collapsed. They had to draw reinforcements from other fronts.

All the Russian troops in the Far East were withdrawn, and some of them in the Caucasus region also returned to the Western Front.

But this also brought huge impacts.

Because there was no Russian restraint, Japan's aggression against East Asia became more unscrupulous.

In the Caucasus Mountains, the Ottomans also noticed the reduction in the number of Russian troops. Coupled with Kuster's series of victories in Przemyśl, it was easy to associate it with the Russians' withdrawal, so they boldly counterattacked and successfully seized some of the lost territory.

But no matter who it was, their achievements were not as great as Kuster's.

On January 6, the Austrian army recaptured Lemberg and officially recovered the Polish territory they lost in the Battle of Galicia.

The situation of the Russians was extremely bad. They ran into obstacles everywhere; the troops on different fronts were withdrawn back and forth due to command errors, and every soldier was panic-stricken and had no ability to hinder the joint attack of the Allies.

The life and death of Russia now almost depends on Kuster. If he launched an attack in conjunction with Germany, Russia would only be the first country to withdraw from the war.

In every corner of the world, people who understand politics can't help but be shocked by Kuster.

"Is Russia dead or alive?" Everyone is looking forward to it.

But what they don't know is that Kuster himself is also deeply affected by politics.

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